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There aren’t many basketball coaches who managed to generate more controversy over the course of their career than Bob Knight, the legendary skipper who passed away at the age of 83 on November 1st, 2023. However, his temper came back to bite him thanks to an Olympic wrestler who wasn’t intimidated by him in the slightest.
The man known as “The General” was hired to coach the Indiana Hoosiers in 1971 and spent close to three decades at the helm of a team that posted a 662–239 record under his watch. He spent a grand total of 42 years working as a college basketball coach (his time in Bloomington was sandwiched between stints at Army and Texas Tech), and by the time he retired, he’d racked up 902 victories and a .709 winning percentage.
Of course, you can’t talk about Bobby Knight without talking about the infamous temper that made him one of the most divisive figures to ever roam the sideline.
He was responsible for The Chair Throw Seen Around The World and ultimately lost his job at Indiana after a physical altercation with a player that violated the zero-tolerance policy the school instituted after he choked Hoosiers guard Neil Reed during a practice in 1997.
Knight was the kind of guy who rarely backed down when he felt he’d been disrespected, although there was at least one time when someone else got the upper hand.
Bob Knight got put in his place by an Olympic gold medalist who coached the wrestling team at Indian University
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This story comes courtesy of Tim Bean and Nicholas Orange, who chronicled a largely forgotten story involving what went down during a Hoosiers basketball practice in the mid-1970s.
In 1973, Indiana University hired a very worthy candidate to coach its wrestling team in the form of Doug Blubaugh, a former NCAA champion who won a gold medal while representing the United States at the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
Knight holding a practice with his team in Assembly Hall when Blubaugh opted to get some cardio in by running laps around the court. While his presence wasn’t really a distraction, his fellow coach apparently took exception to his decision to encroach on his territory, and he made his displeasure known in vintage Bobby Knight fashion.
However, Blubaugh also took exception to being on the receiving end of an expletive-filled tirade and quickly made his way over to Knight after getting called out. While the 6’5″ basketball coach had a good nine inches on his 5’7″ foe, he also failed to take into account he’d chewed out a man who was able to claim he was once one of the best wrestlers on the planet.
Blubaugh supposedly gave Knight a taste of his own medicine by grabbing his collar and shoving him against a wall before making it very clear that was the last time he’d be talked to in that particular manner. It didn’t take long for Knight to confirm it wouldn’t happen again, and it apparently never did.