If one moment could color a legacy, Bob Knight’s chair tossing incident would be a solid contender for his.
Thirty years ago on Monday, the fiery Hoosiers head coach became so irate with his team’s sluggish start and a series of fouls called in Indiana’s rivalry game against Purdue that he exploded — cursing and screaming at the referees.
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Referee Fred Jaspers slapped Knight with a technical foul roughly six minutes into the contest. The head coach went absolutely ballistic and the rest, as they say, is history.
Purdue’s Steve Reid, who was at the line shooting the free throws as a result of the technical foul, said after the game that he was “shocked.”
“I’ve never seen anything like this happen before,” he said.
The moment immediately became part of Knight’s lore. Even 30 years later, any mention of Knight still conjures up memories of the folding chair skittering across the hardwood.