Great feature on Bob Knight by Jeremy Schaap

Jeremy Schaap just did a feature on Bob Knight on SportsCenter about five minutes ago. It revisited his initial interview with Knight after the Indiana firing and talked to Hondo and some former players. Anybody who's up later should check it out on the next show.

Also had a Dick Schaap clip in there. God, he was great.

 

Was on Outside the Lines Sunday morning, probably ran longer there than on SportsCenter.

Wake up early and watch some real journalism.

 

The last time I was up early enough to watch OTL on a Sunday morning, Dick Schaap probably <i>was</i> hosting it still.

 

Good God, you thought that was GOOD? It sucked. Hard. It told us nothing we didn't already know. Bobby's a jerk. Bobby demands respect yet gives none. Yada yada yada.

It smelled like something ESPN cooked up weeks ago because someone high up had Texas Tech in the national title game. And it had to air tonight because, well, he DID play at Ohio State 100 years ago and the national title game tomorrow night has Ohio State in it and, well, we've got to fill 90 minutes somehow and we don't have Mort, Sharper and Mel Haircut providing a player-by-player breakdown of the 1932 Portsmouth Spartans.

I wish someone at ESPN would tell lil' Jeremy that NOT EVERY STORY IS ABOUT HIM. In fact, NO story is about him. But yet they send him off to cover Bobby Fischer, so that Jeremy can remind us all his dad used to be friends with Fischer before he went completely crazy and so that Jeremy can show off at end by telling Fischer he's batshit crazy. And this story, of course, started with Knight's showdown with lil' Jeremy, so that Jeremy can remind us all his dad used to be friends with Knight and so that he can remind everyone Knight insulted lil' Jeremy, refused to shake his hand and made his dad mad. As if Schapp is the first guy Knight's ever bullied despite knowing him for decades.

God, that was just insufferable. I know people here say Schapp is a great talent and a nice guy in person and all that, but everything I've ever seen screams nepotism. It's always about him. Have we forgotten his ambush of Jim Harrick at Georgia? THAT'S NOT JOURNALISM, DICK!!!

At least Jeremy's dad dropped names every other breath he had chops to back it up.

 

Amen.

 

Amen to the amen

 

Another Amen for BYH.

Re-watching it now, it's so bad. Nothing special, nothing new, more an opportunity for Schaap to relive the only time he's ever made national news. And an excuse for ESPN to re-run the chair throw and all the other stuff. They didn't even put forth much of an effort to put it into context, like the Final Four weekend (though DJ Stewy Scott mentioned the Ohio State connection at the end before noting that KNight didn't respond to interview requests for that useless feature).

I did like Coach K's flimsy "um. . . our feud was just stupid stuff." Sure was. He was pissed that you beat him in the Final Four, barely gave you a cursory handshake, and then only healed the rift when he was down and out and needed to latch onto your popularity and great press to help him try to get a new job after Indiana canned him.

I remember once when Schaap did a report about eight years ago, Kenny Mayne came back and said something like "he has a famous dad, or something." Awesome.

 

byh saved me the time typing

 

I don't know. I like Jeremy much. Great reporter. Cojones he's got. But these Bob Knight stories are just getting tired. What more about the man do we need to know? All it did was help recruiting for him during a Final 4 that ought to be celebrating Florida and Ohio State (and UCLA and Georgetown).

I watched it, and it did nothing for me. But Jeremy's still a solid kid.

 

jeremy's never done a story that wasn't about him. he's a grandstanding hack

 

Or a handstanding grack.

 

But not a freelance hack...


(still, he's annoying as hell)