Is the weirdest Knight story yet? That would take some doing, even if we
limit it only to recent days. But it's a contender.
Knight's "loyal" secretary Mary Ann Davis is being reassigned, and
she's not happy about it, calling a "coup."
She said she was asked to leave by Clarence Doninger and Jeanette Hargraves,
and says the two of them said that Mike Davis and assistant John Treloar didn't
think they could work with her because she's a "Bob Knight person, going so
far as to say that the two called her a spy.
Would that make Doninger, Hargraves, Davis and Treloar coup-plotters? Could
be!
Treloar says that it wasn't the coaches, though he says Davis wants his own
secretary.
In other Hoosier news, looks like after tormenting TV talking heads and other
reporters for years, Bob
Knight is going to do some TV work. He'll be doing a commercial for
AND1, the shoe company, calling for a return to amateur competitors in the
Olympics, something we support, and also doing some Olympic work for NBC.
The ad will also apparently have some amateurs saying stuff like "whose
dream is it anyhow?" Interesting twist for HoopsTV and AND1, using Bob
Knight and unpaid (since they can't be paid) amateurs to further the shoe
companies advertising reach. Did anyone tell Knight this is the company
which employs Latrell Sprewell? If they could get Dean Smith to do an ad
with these two, they could have the three greatest chokers of all time!
Ok, relax, that's just an old ACC joke about Dean choking. But on a more
serious level, this is an odd pairing, not least of all because AND1's message
is more or less an outlaw message designed to promote the highly
less-than-outlaw goal of maximum profits. It's like hiring George S.
Patton to give a motivational speech to the Hells Angels. And you can make
a lot of arguments about how AND1 goes about marketing, but it's hard to
see how they are big fans of amateur athletics.
But on the other hand there are no gratuitous rips of Catholic women or
comments about ugly cheerleaders this time, so maybe it's an improvement.
And as Knight - er, Coach Knight - himself might tell you, his
comeback is inevitable, so you might as well... well, you might as well just
relax and enjoy it.