Name: Bobby Knight Explains His Chair Throwing Incident | Letterman
Uploaded: 2023-11-02T01:20:45.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bobby Knight Explains His Chair Throwing Incident | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-02. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Bobby Knight Explains His Chair Throwing Incident | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-11-02. Transcript available.

Bobby Knight Explains His Chair Throwing Incident | Letterman

- You know, Paul, last night, today is Tuesday,
last night, I don't know if you saw the show,
seems unlikely, though.
It's, I don't know, we were kind of dead here.
There was no enthusiasm, there was no heat, there was no...
In short, we just didn't do the kind of show
I think we're capable of doing it.
And Paul, I don't wanna, you know,
but you weren't really paying attention.
I was...
I was lame, the audience was lame, the guests were fine,
but it just never congealed as a fine television offering
for you home viewers.
And I think what we need is, I think we need somebody
to kind of come in here and shake us up
and get a good pep talk for us
and really help us play the kind of ball
we know we're capable of playing.
So we're gonna call Bobby Knight in Indiana.
Bobby Knight has been the coach
at the Indiana University in Bloomington for 16 years.
Now, listen to this record, Paul.
I know you follow college round ball.
- Very closely, yeah.
- He has won seven Big Ten championships,
73, 74, 75, 76, 80, 81, and 83.
He has won two NCAA championships, 76,
and when was the other one, Paul?
- 78.
- No, no, it was 81.
- Oh, come on.
Circle gets the square, a good bluff, by the way.
His record so far this year,
they're having another very nice season there in Indiana.
23 wins, two losses, and he was also the coach
of the 1984 Olympic basketball team.
I think there he is in action.
This was a game against Iowa last Saturday
right here on NBC.
Now, if anybody can fire us up, it's this guy.
This is an inspirational, dynamic, quality coach.
- Look at that.
- So we'll call him there in Bloomington, Indiana.
Do we have the phone number here?
Paul, a little music to cover the annoying,
awkward moments when I dial.
Perfect.
Now, if we just had something to cover
that annoying, awkward music.
Okay.
I think I got it, I'm not sure.
Let's see.
I'm very bad dialing under pressure.
That's what kept me out of the service.
This should be Bobby Knight's office
down there in Bloomington, Indiana.
They got a big game coming up Thursday.
- Basketball office.
- Oh yes, is this Marianne Davis?
- Yes.
- Yes ma'am, my name is Dave Letterman.
I'm calling from New York City.
How are you today?
- I'm fine, thank you.
- And what do you do for Coach Knight down there?
- I'm Coach Knight's secretary.
- And how long have you had that job?
- I've been here 10 years.
- So you must enjoy working with him?
- I certainly do.
- Okay, now I know he's probably very busy
because don't you have kind of an important game
coming up Thursday?
- Yes, we do, with Purdue.
- Yeah, and does he have a few minutes to talk with me?
- Well, I'll check.
Can you hold the line, please?
- I certainly can, Marianne.
Thank you for being so genial on the phone.
Sounds like a very nice woman.
- Very nice.
- Sounds very nice to me. - Marianne.
- This should be Coach Knight.
Very, the man is very, very well respected.
And he, if anybody can pump new life into this operation.
He also coached at the Army for a while, didn't he?
- Hello.
- Hello, is this Bobby Knight?
- Yeah, David, how you doing?
- Good, Bobby, how are you?
Listen, I hate to bother you because I know you've probably got
a lot more important things to do,
but we're having kind of a morale problem here at the show,
kind of a letdown, kind of a lull.
- Hey, David, after last night's show,
you ought to have a letdown.
- See, exactly.
See, Bobby, that's exactly why we called.
- David, I watched it and, you know, you can,
sometimes you've got to go into a delay game,
but you people were in a stall for 40 minutes.
- Well, Bobby, that's the problem.
Is there anything, can you give a little talk here
to the staff, to the crew, to the audience,
and help us get back on the right track?
- Well, you know, I really enjoy your show
and I enjoy you very much, so I'll try, you know,
but I'll tell you something.
Last night, we made Koppel look like Red Auerbach.
I mean, you know, Nightline isn't anything as good
as we made it look last night.
- Yeah, I know, I know.
- And talk about the CBS late movie, David.
- Yeah.
- They could have shown an old Boris Karloff
silent film and they'd have whipped us last night.
- Yeah, I know.
- I mean, I don't know what some of these people are doing,
like Al Frisch, for example.
You know, Al Frisch just walks around
with his head up his fanny.
- He's got a lot of stuff.
- Hey, hey, hey, get out and play a little deeper.
- Now, I want to tell you something.
- Yeah.
- This is really a big ball game for us tonight,
you people on the staff.
- Yeah.
- We're right in the middle of the sweeps period.
- That's right.
- And the ratings are gonna come out
and tonight's show is gonna, and we gotta get started.
The first five minutes tonight
is really gonna be important.
We gotta play well at the defensive end
and we gotta play well at the offensive end.
- That's right.
- And Lori Diamond, for Pete's sake,
you gotta do something other than stand around
and look nice.
That isn't getting the thing, okay?
You gotta contribute something to what's going on here.
We gotta have some teamwork in this thing.
- What, Bobby, what about Paul Schaefer?
- Hey, if Schaefer falls asleep, fiery.
Get him out of there.
Hey, if Schaefer's gonna play for us, David,
then he's gotta play hard.
I mean, I've never seen a guy that plays more half-hearted
than Schaefer does.
You don't even have to know what we're talking about.
- Thank you so much, Bobby.
- Hey, hey, it isn't just Schaefer, but Hal Gurney.
- Hal Gurney, our director.
- Hal Gurney is in charge of the cues for the cameras.
- Yeah.
- And Gurney misses half of what goes on.
I didn't know whether it was Gina Lola Brigida
or Helma Schmaltz there sometimes last night.
- Listen, Bobby, I think that did the trick.
I think we're ready to play the kind of ball
we know we can play here tonight.
- Well, we've got to, because as I said,
this is the sweeps period and let's get things going.
Let's get, hey, we just can't leave it all on David's shoulders.
- There you go.
- David, you're the captain.
I'm counting on you to lead this thing through
on the floor, too.
- Exactly.
Thank you very much.
Bobby, listen, I know you're quite busy this week.
Have a good game up in West Lafayette
and good luck in the tournament.
- David, it's nice talking to you
and let me know about Schaefer tomorrow.
- Okay, we will, Bobby.
We're out of here.
- Our first guest tonight, I'm really eager to chat with this man.
I've been a big fan of his for a long time
and we enjoyed watching him play this year or watch his team play.
And they won the NCAA championship.
He has led his basketball team, the Indiana Hoosiers,
to three college basketball championships.
His colorful personality and style have made him certainly
controversial beyond the basketball court.
Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome IU head coach, Bobby Knight.
- Bobby.
- Hello, David.
- Good to see you.
- How are you?
- Good, thank you very much.
You had a big year.
You had a great year, didn't you?
- You got it over with in good shape, just at the right time.
- Yeah, now I'm watching the final game against Syracuse.
It goes right down to what?
The last five seconds, Keith Smart takes the shot.
It goes in, you win by one.
I couldn't watch it, I had to keep leaving the room.
Now you sit through how many games a season, 35 or so?
- That was the 34th.
- 34th, now doesn't that just drive you nuts after a while?
- Well, I looked up at that shot going through the net
with five seconds to go and I felt a hell of a lot better
than I did with seven seconds together.
- Yeah, yeah.
But I mean, after a while, don't you think,
oh, I just can't do this any longer?
'Cause they seem, a lot of them go right down
to the final few seconds.
- Well, I think, but, you know, it's a great,
coaching's a great thing because you're working for four months
and then you're gonna fish for eight.
And so, every time you get caught up in one of those things
in the four months that you're working,
you think, boy, this is gonna lead to a lot of fishing
if I can just get through this.
And that's why I think it would be so tough coaching
in the pros, you know, 100 games, year-round schedule.
They're playing the finals of the NBA playoffs
the same night as the opening game of the World Series.
I mean, it's a tough...
- What teams have contacted you about approaching in the NBA?
- None for a long time.
I mean, it goes all the way back to like the Chicago Zephyrs.
- They made an offer for you, huh?
- A slight one.
I wasn't sure whether I was paying them to coach
or they were paying me when the offer was done.
- Now, what do you think about the three-point play
in College Bowl?
I know you hated it when it first came into effect,
but you won some ballgames with it, didn't you?
- Well, we actually won the championship game with it,
or Steve Offord did.
- Seven out of ten?
- Yes, and Syracuse had hit three,
so we had a four-point difference with it,
but I really don't like it.
It's like if you hit a home run 450 feet,
you ought to get two runs for it.
- Yeah.
- Or you throw a 40-yard touchdown pass, you get nine points.
I don't really like anything that you come up
and stop and shoot it, and it's just,
I don't think it fits in what my concept of the game is,
but I think so many people like it,
and I really think the fans have liked it.
- Yeah, it's here to stay then, you guess.
- It'd really help a guy like you.
- You know, I played some basketball in high school,
and believe it or not, I stunk.
- Well, no, I think a lot of slow white guys
got together and voted to rule in,
is what I think happened.
- Now, when you go out,
is this the beginning of your recruiting season,
or does that come like it?
- We're done.
- You're done recruiting?
- We're really done.
We've signed three kids,
and we have an early signing period in November,
and any kid that chooses to do so
and has decided where he's going to go
can sign in November,
and that kind of eliminates everything
that you've got to do now, so we're done.
We're looking at juniors and underclassmen
and talking to coaches, and that's about it.
- Do you yourself go to the home of the kid
you want to play ball at IU?
Do you go into the living room?
Do you sit down at the dining room table?
Do you talk to mom and dad and grandma and grandpa?
- Unless we can get him to come without doing it.
And if we can eliminate that trip,
I always eliminate it, but a lot of times you can't.
- You have to sell the whole family on it, don't you?
- Well, I really don't try and sell.
I think that if you've got to sell a kid on coming
or talk him into it,
it's going to be hard to get him to do exactly
what I want him to do.
- Well, three national championship banners hanging there
in the field house, assembly hall,
probably be a lot of inducement, wouldn't it?
- Well, I think so.
And you know what basketball is like in Indiana.
You're a native Hoosier and people enjoy it,
like it, and follow it.
And there's a lot of attention paid to it.
And I think that certainly helps, not just us,
but the other schools there or in that part of the country.
- You know, during the whole tournament,
the guys at CBS made a big deal about you baiting referees.
And they said, "Well, you've got to give Bobby
automatically eight points going into any game
because he controls the referees."
Now, is there any truth to that?
- See, most of those guys that come up with those ideas
are coaches that weren't very good when they were coaching.
So they've turned to broadcasting.
I've always said that if we could take all those analysts
and give them teams and then play those teams,
you'd have a hell of a record every year.
- Instead of intimidating officials,
I'll tell you what I really think you do.
By getting on them, I think you antagonize them.
I think--
- Now, they come back to get you, couldn't they?
- Well, I think you're doing the job
as well as you think you can do it.
Now, I may not think you're doing
a particularly good job out there, but you do.