Knight tapes released

Depositions by former IU men's basketball coach Bob Knight obtained in a court victory by Indianapolis news station WTHR (and published later by their newspartner the Indianapolis Star) have shed light on the personalities of both the former coach and his son, Pat.\nIn the depositions, taken Aug. 27, 2002, in Lubbock, Texas, Knight and his son touch on the firing and bumping by Knight of IU assistant coach Ron Felling, the alleged choking of former IU player Neil Reed, Knight's departure from IU and his cameo role in the Adam Sandler movie "Anger Management."\nFelling's lawyer William C. Potter II questioned both Knight and his son individually, with attorney Russell Yates present at both questionings. Both Knights were under oath on the videotape. \nKnight said he fired Felling after overhearing Felling and former IU assistant basketball coach Dan Dakich make "hurtful" comments in a telephone conversation, indystar.com reported.\nOn Dec. 1, 1999, Knight said he was watching a game tape when he accidentally bumped his telephone and overheard Dakich and Felling talking about him.\n"And the first thing I heard was Dakich saying, 'Are you doing anything different in practice?'" Knight said during the deposition. "And Felling said, 'No, we're doing the same old shit, four corners and all that shit that doesn't do any good at all. But (Knight) won't listen to anybody. And those guys that are with him don't know a thing about coaching.\n"And then, 'You should have seen the fat fucker come into the locker room with no shirt on and try to show somebody post defense. You know, it just got ridiculous. I don't know what the hell's the matter with him.'"\nAfter listening for a while, Knight jumped into the conversation.\n"I said, 'Dakich, don't bother calling me again about help,'" Knight said. "And I said, 'And Felling, it would be a good idea for you to start looking for another job.'"\nKnight said he approached Felling later that day, telling him, "I'd like to know how you can take money from a guy and then bad mouth the hell out of him just like you've been bad mouthing me, not just here, but for sometime now? How the hell can you do that?"\nKnight said he wasn't so much angry at the situation, as he was hurt.\n"You know, I was really hurt that here's a guy that no one but me ever offered a job to, for a variety of reasons, and yet here we are at a point where I think I have really taken care of this guy … I felt sorry for Felling that he doesn't understand that somebody's been pretty good to him here for a long period of time," Knight said.\nKnight admitted he bumped into Felling but said it was not with much force.\nPat Knight, former IU assistant coach and now an assistant coach at Texas Tech, said he thinks the entire lawsuit is ridiculous.\n"It is a fucking joke," Pat said. "You guys are coming at my family and my father for -- I mean, Ron Felling got fired because he just didn't do his job. And this whole thing is just something to go after my father for no reason."\nPat said his father was justified in bumping Felling.\n"(I would have) literally beat the shit out of him," Pat said in the deposition. "It would have been confrontational, and we wouldn't be having all this crap."\nPotter also asked Knight about his other incidents of anger, including the alleged choking of former IU player Neil Reed.\n"I obviously touched Neil Reed on the chest," Knight said. "It was said that I choked him with both hands, that an assistant coach had to pull me off Neil Reed. The tape immediately shows that neither of those two things happened."\nPotter asked Knight if he had any sort of anger problem, which Knight denied.\nPotter then asked Knight why he appeared in the recent Adam Sandler film, "Anger Management," if he had no anger problem.\n"I thought it was a great parody of everything that has been done relative to my temperament over the year, and I thought the -- I think the movie will be pretty funny," he said.\nIU spokeswoman Jane Jankowski said the release of depositions are not a concern to IU.\n"The University was not a party to the litigation in which the depositions were taken," she said. "The transcripts of those depositions were made available by the court some months ago. The court has simply provided video copies of the deposition, so there is no new information." \nShe said the University is involved in litigation with Felling.\nFelling settled his suit with Knight out of court. He now lives in Hot Springs, Ark., and is working at summer basketball camps. \nKnight's attorney, Russell Yates, could not be reached for comment at press time.