Todd Jadlow played on Indiana University’s 1987 championship team for Bobby Knight and is one of his all-time favorite players, according to Knight himself. The 6’9” former power forward recently wrote a new book titled “Jadlow: On The Rebound,” in which he opens up about how he dug himself out of a dark place post-college, dangerously close to being overcome by his drug and alcohol addiction and his suicidal tendencies.
Jadlow also candidly reveals the cultural of abuse Bobby Knight operated under, actions that if he executed today, “he (Knight) would be in jail.” His outing of his former coach isn’t a spiteful retribution, as Jadlow claims he loves Knight “like a father,” but an honest reflection of his experiences.
The specific incidents of mental and physical abuse according to Todd Jadlow are as follows (as aggregated by WTHR):
- That Knight punched him in the back of the head with a closed fist during a walkthrough for an NCAA Tournament game against Seton Hall.
- That inside a sideline huddle during a 1989 game against Louisville – the game when Sports Illustrated famously captured a photo of the coach pushing Jadlow back onto the court — Knight cracked a clipboard over Jadlow’s head.
- That after an NIT game in New York City, an enraged Knight once dug his hands so deeply into Jadlow’s sides, he left bruises. Jadlow includes a picture of the bruises Knight left; “It’s weird because I never carried a camera,” he was telling me Friday over a Stromboli at Nick’s. “But I had this thought, ‘You know, if I ever write a book about my experiences, I want to have a picture of what he did to me.’”
- That Knight made a habit, with Jadlow and others, of grabbing players by the testicles and squeezing.
- That Knight continually called Daryl Thomas a “(bleeping) p——-” and once instructed the managers to wallpaper Thomas’ locker with pictures of female genitalia. Knight also liked to throw tampons at Thomas, who took more abuse than anybody on Jadlow’s teams.
- That on the flight home after the 1986 NCAA Tournament loss to Cleveland State, Knight tore up the plane and ultimately grabbed Thomas by the neck and shook him violently.
- That Knight made sport of Jadlow’s facial tic in front of the entire team; in the book, former IU teammate Mark Robinson wrote that Knight yelled at Jadlow, “If you don’t stop the (bleeping) twitching, I’m going to throw your ass out of here.”
- That during a practice, Knight forced Dean Garrett and Keith Smart to run hours of sprints while barking like dogs since they were, in his words, “playing like (bleeping) dogs.”
I can’t believe I’m surprised that the guy who was fired for choking a player, arrested for assault, and hummed a chair across the court in a fit of rage during a game would squeeze dudes by the nuts. Bobby Knight should count his lucky stars that social media wasn’t around during his coaching career because I’m sure he’d make Donald Sterling look like Tim Tebow.
[h/t WTHR]