Sunday, October 21, 2007

Knight saw scandal brewing 8 years ago

By Tom Keegan

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In January of 1999, Bob Knight, then the basketball coach at Indiana, drew the ire of college basketball officials because of what he said to ESPN analyst Digger Phelps in a television interview.

"I mean, if we only knew the truth about games that were controlled by officials having gambling interests, I think it would be amazing," Knight said to Phelps.

In response to that, Knight said he was, "blistered in a Philadelphia newspaper article by Hank Nichols and another guy."

Nichols, who will retire after the upcoming season, has been NCAA supervisor of men's basketball officials since 1986. The other guy? Gerry Donaghy, retired official who worked in four different Final Fours. Donaghy's son, Tim Donaghy, is the former referee at the heart of the NBA-gambling-scandal investigation that alleges he fixed games. Tim Donaghy has pleaded guilty to two felony counts and faces a maximum of 25 years in prison.

Looking back Wednesday in Kansas City, Mo., on getting criticized by Nichols and the elder Donaghy, Knight shared that he mailed last Monday a copy of the 1999 article to Nichols.

"I said (in the interview with Phelps): 'Why trust a 19-year-old kid to do what you want done when you can go to an official, and he can make three calls at the end of the game?' Digger and I got crucified by Nichols and this guy's (Donaghy's) dad. And I wrote Nichols a letter to remind him of that. That was B.S. For somebody who's in a position like that to say, 'This could never happen, that's impossible.' That's the most possible thing that can happen in gambling and sports, and I don't care what sport it is. How many times have you seen a really questionable pitch called a strike? I could control an entire game from behind the plate. How about the back judge. How many holding calls? I really feel bad for David Stern and the NBA that it happened to them."

Knight said that after Nichols and Donaghy's critical comments of him years ago, Nichols wrote him a letter of apology.

"When I wrote to him (last week), I said: 'I never asked you, was that letter because you lied to me or was it an apology?'"

Reacting to the Donaghy scandal in an interview with the New York Times in July, Nichols sounded as if he still maintains officials are the least likely of all parties to fix games.

"It's such a tragedy for officiating," the story read. "Players have fixed games. Coaches did this and that. Referees were always above that. Out of the blue, a thunderbolt. It's once in a lifetime, in my lifetime, and it's not good."

Comments

afilmer (anonymous) says...

it seems like every MU fan i've ever known has been on knight's train forever. they don't think they've ever lost a game the refs didn't blow for them.

October 21, 2007 at 9:42 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

jhyphene (anonymous) says...

yeah, but honestly...can you blame the refs for fixing an MU loss?

October 21, 2007 at 11:23 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

DrJHawk (anonymous) says...

But Knight's point is valid. Officials make questionalble calls all the time. Even the "neutral" game commentators will comment on how a call down the stretch shouldn't have been made. That it affected the outcome of the game. And officials don't get paid crap for the work they do. They are vulnerable to the influence of big gambling concerns. We are whistling past the graveyard to think that all or even a most officials are "above" the temptation.

October 21, 2007 at 12:47 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

actorman (anonymous) says...

For Nichols to STILL say it's a "once in a lifetime" thing shows that he's either a complete moron or trying to convince the rest of us to be complete morons. I'm voting for the latter. (That's not to say that it is happening or will happen, but for someone to act like it can't possibly happen is ridiculous.)

October 21, 2007 at 2:20 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

rtwngr (anonymous) says...

I keep thinking back about Self's first year at KU and the team was on the road against Nevada at Nevada. The refs kept making all these calls on KU and it became evident that KU was not going to be allowed to compete fairly in the game. Jeff Hawkins was whistled for a foul, out in the open court, while defending a fast break. He made a wave at the opposing player and got the whistle. The replay showed he never came within a foot of touching the other player but got the foul anyway. I kept thinking to myself, "Well, that's one way to cover the spread. By the officials."

October 21, 2007 at 6:54 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

justanotherfan (anonymous) says...

Officials have always been vulnerable because they have the least amount of earning potential. Players have a chance to make money in the pros, whether in the NBA or overseas. If they get caught in a gambling ring, that chance is gone forever and they would blow hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for a fraction of the proceeds from a successful gambling ring (maybe 50k a year).

For officials though, the chance of moving into the NBA and making more than a couple hundred grand a year is low. The chance of being highly paid overseas is lower. The chance of making big money as a referee is relatively low. 50k to fix a few games or cover a couple of spreads is a lot more tempting to them than it ever would be for a player (upside potential earning power, possibility of being benched for making too many mistakes) or a coach (makes too much money, lacks job security if he loses, too much scrutiny if he makes bad decisions to shave points).

But the media and the powers that be do not want to acknowledge that gambling interests could corrupt the integrity of the game.

Those who ignore the past are doomed to repeat it.

October 22, 2007 at 9:27 a.m. ( | suggest removal )

Lebowski (anonymous) says...

Very well said JAF.

It irritates me so much when people say that officials cannot dictate a game. They have a HUGE impact on college basketball. One call, maybe two. That's all it takes to have a major impact.

Someone's star player can comfortably commit one legit foul a half and it won't impact him on the defensive or offensive end. A ref blows the whistle on another phantom call.. gives him two early fouls and what happens? He's on the bench. Big deal? Depends on what kind of player it is and what kind of impact he has. What happens in the 88 championship game if Danny gets whistled for a couple ticky-tack calls early in the game? We're talking about how we got spanked in 88 and saying "if only that team had more depth".

Officials can put a star player or two on the bench. They can dictate what defense a team is forced to play, whether it's going zone or changing their defensive matchups or philosophy. They can disrupt the tempo of the game when one team is far better suited to get a track meet going. They can total neutralize ball-hawking, shot-contesting, denying defenses.

They can do a LOT, moreso in basketball than anything else, to impact the outcome of the game... or at least make a team like KU defeat a 6th man on the court.

October 22, 2007 at 1:44 p.m. ( | suggest removal )

Sparko (anonymous) says...

Officiating has always been basketball's major defect. I was traumatized by the 1972 Olympics. The call out of bounds call on Jo Jo White in 1966; the "jump ball" on Aaron Miles versus Knight's T-Tech team (irony of ironies in 2006) and on and on and on. I love basketball, but the officiating has always made it a less than perfect sport. Even if gambling were not part of the dynamic, emotional investment in players and coaches makes officiating the most important variable in an imperfect sport.

October 22, 2007 at 5:23 p.m. ( | suggest removal )