Here, take my chair
40 years to the day, Purdue comes to visit IU in Assembly Hall. Ironically, there’s other similarities of the matchup both past and present. Purdue currently sits at the top of the Big Ten, whereas Indiana is fighting to stay above the cellar door. Purdue is squarely in the NCAA tournament and Indiana finds itself on the outside looking in. Indiana came into the season with high expectations and a top 15 pre-season ranking only to its season quickly spiraling out of control.
Let’s rewind a bit. 5 minutes into the game, IU is down 11-6 and has already been whistled for 6 fouls. Coach Knight is pissed and he begins to vocalize his anger with the refs. He’s quickly teed up for a technical. What happens next would become one of the defining moments of Coach Knight’s career and his enduring legacy.
Purdue’s Steve Reid heads to the charity stripe to shoot the free throws. Knight later says he was looking for his jacket and when he couldn’t find it, he found the next best thing — his chair. His mother Hazel is watching all of this unfold and thinking in her mind “oh, Bobby, on no!”, as she recounts in John Feinstein’s “A Season on the Brink”. Knight proceeds to pick up the chair and hurls it out on the court, passing Reid and ultimately landing in the cheerleading section. Knight’s immediately rang up with two more technical fouls and ejected from the game. Ralph Floyd, the AD at the time, is asked to come out on the floor to keep things orderly and Assistant Coach Jim Crews fills in for night the rest of the game. Indiana would go on to lose the contest, 72-63.
On David Letterman’s late night show in 1987, Coach Knight took a moment to make light of what happened. He says “I get up, and I’m up and down a lot, and one time I’m standing up and I looked across the floor and (hear) “Coach Knight?”. And here’s a little old lady across the floor that reminded me of my grandmother. I thought (it was sweet), particularly to take time during the course of a tough game, so I said, ‘Did you want something?’ And she said, ‘If you’re not going to sit down any more today than you have so far, could I have your chair?'”
Most folks don’t even remember much about the game, who won, or the score. One thing is certain though…most remember what Knight did. Fun fact — the sideline chairs (and apparently trach cans) at Assembly Hall were tethered with metal cables in the following season to prevent such a thing from happening again.
I recently acquired the program featured here. The ticket stub and the game program seldom come available for sale, so I feel fortunate to even have one of the two. To compliment the program, I have a signed photo of the chair throw, which is a pretty common item to find. However, what’s unique about my photo is how it’s personalized…”for the refs”. For the completist in me, the ongoing search for the ticket stub to mate with the program marches onwards.
For now, beat the stank out of PU! Go Hoosiers!
February 23, 1985 Indiana University Hoosiers vs. Purdue Basketball Game Program