Todd Jadlow, who played basketball for Bobby Knight at Indiana from 1985-89, has recently written a book. It does not paint former coach in a positive light.
Though the book is mainly focused on Jadlow’s struggles with substance abuse, one part that will grab major headlines is that Jadlow accuses Knight of physically and emotionally abusing him and other players on the Hoosiers squad.
Though we knew Knight was an intense and sometimes abusive coach, these new allegations are downright scary. They include:
- Knight allegedly punched Jadlow in the back of the head with a closed fist.
- Knight cracked a clipboard over Jadlow’s head during a game.
- Knight dug his hands so deeply into Jadlow’s sides that he left bruises.
- Knight made a habit of grabbing players, Jadlow included, by the testicles and squeezing.
- After a 1986 NCAA Tournament loss, Knight allegedly grabbed Daryl Thomas by the neck and shook him.
- Knight forced Dean Garrett and Keith Smart to run hours of sprints while barking like dogs.
Jadlow went on to say that these were just some of the bad things Knight did. He also made the obvious claim that Knight would go to jail if he did things like that today. At the very least he’d lose his job.
As Bob Kravitz points out in his WTHR piece, there are plenty of Knight apologists that will come out and defend the former Hoosier coach. Jadlow said he’s ready for whatever comes his way.
“It’s definitely going to be interesting,” he said. “But the reason for this book was to be completely honest and transparent. I wanted to tell the whole story of my life, tell people all the worst things I’ve done in my life and how I’ve hurt people, especially the ones I love. I wanted to be honest about all of it, my time at Indiana, everything.”
“I’m a Knight guy, I’m proud to have played for him and love him like a father; let’s not mistake that,” Jadlow said. “But this was the life we led when we were playing for him.”
“A lot of who he is, I took a lot from. Right or wrong, I took a lot from him. Some aren’t good, like holding resentments, like if you’ve done me wrong once, I’m done with you. That’s not right. Loyalty? You can be loyal to a fault. It’s misguided, like me not coming back to the (1987) championship reunion (in 2011) out of loyalty to Coach Knight. In hindsight, I deeply regret that decision.”
Knight was reportedly contacted in an attempt to respond to these claims but does not plan to. He is out of the public light for the most part, only making headlines when being asked about Donald Trump. However, these allegations are very serious, and it’s likely he’s going to have to make a statement one way or another.
[WTHR]
