1/3 There was some extra entertainment for reporters covering the Final Four in San Antonio late last month. In addition to three intriguing games, a sportswriter from the Big Ten brought along a bootleg tape of coach Bobby Knight addressing his Indiana Hoosiers before a contest against Purdue.
A few years back, a mischievous soul placed a tape recorder near the Assembly Hall court before an Indiana practice, then allowed it to run. Knight's screaming, profanity-filled tirade - replete with comments on how he will not stand for any more losing to Purdue - provides more evidence that the veteran coach has an anger-management problem. Recently, the tape has found its way onto the Internet, as well as into the tape recorders of sportswriters who always are in the mood for amusement.
Yes, Knight does rate as the leading tyrant in men's college basketball, but at least the man has a track record - first, as a valuable reserve on Ohio State teams that played in NCAA championship games in 1960, 1961 and 1962 (winning in 1960); now, as a coach with three national titles in 26 years at Indiana.
Pat Summitt has gained more notoriety than ever for her hard-nosed ways since being the subject of a long profile in Sports Illustrated. She was a star player as Pat Head. She has coached Tennessee to six national championships, including the 39-0 ride that the Volunteers completed nine days ago in Kansas City, Mo.
Knight and Summitt have the resumes to survive as tyrants. If you play for Knight, your family tree and basic intelligence will be questioned time and again, profanely and loudly. If you play for Summitt, you might get sent to bed without supper after a shoddy performance.
Until recently, players who have survived Knight could comfort themselves in knowing they had a chance to compete for big things in March. Summitt's athletes figure that enduring a few nights of lean cuisine and all those nasty stares from the sideline will bring another national title at season's end.
Another coach - Minnesota's Cheryl Littlejohn - has come along to demonstrate a nasty streak as wide as Knight's or Summitt's. The only problem with Littlejohn taking pride in her tyranny is this:
Littlejohn, 33, has no resume as a player or a coach. She was 6-3 and sat on the bench for Summitt at Tennessee. Her career bests were averages of 3.1 points and 1.8 rebounds as a junior.
The numbers make it obvious: She couldn't play dead in a cowboy movie.
Littlejohn's major at Tennessee was criminal justice. Several of her players with the 1997-98 Gophers are now convinced that Cheryl's special interest was covert surveillance.
Littlejohn graduated in 1987, contemplated a career in law enforcement, then returned to basketball as an assistant coach at North Carolina State in 1991. She moved to Alabama in 1994 and then was hired by women's athletic director Chris Voelz to replace the fired Linda Hill-MacDonald.
Last October, on the eve of practice, Littlejohn said: "This is the ultimate - my own program." As it turned out, this was not unlike Dr. Victor Frankenstein's pronouncement before he put the electricity to his creation.
The Gophers went 4-22 in Littlejohn's first season, basically a duplicate of Hill-MacDonald's last two seasons. Littlejohn did succeed in reducing senior Angie Iverson, one of the best players in the Big Ten as a junior, into a beaten-down, spotty contributor to a team making no serious effort to compete.
Littlejohn had a favorite quote - "If you hang around dogs, you're going to get fleas" - in lobbying younger players and their parents to stay away from some older players. Audrey Sabbs, the mother of sophomore Kiauna Burns, said she was told this in reference to her daughter's friendship with veteran players.
Littlejohn seemed to take enormous delight in suspending seven players before the Big Ten tournament in late February. Apparently, the seven players had violated Littlejohn's edict against alcohol consumption during the season. Players have expressed amazement at how much Littlejohn seemed to know about what they did and said.
"Some of the girls actually think there was a recording device in the locker room," said Brad Seago, the father of sophomore Andrea Seago. "I'm serious. Conversations that took place [without a coach around] were repeated verbatim."
Five players have quit the team since the end of the season: juniors Lynda Hass and Sarah Klun, sophomores Burns and Seago and Rachel Young, a walk-on freshman. Young will leave in search of a Division I scholarship. Burns, Hass and Klun have quit rather than sign good-behavior contracts.
These preposterous agreements include getting parents to call a coach for permission if a player wanted to leave a dormitory after 11 p.m. This wasn't a contract. It was a loyalty oath. Littlejohn's favorite historical figure has to be Sen. Joe McCarthy, R-Wis.
Voelz already has suggested that five players leaving would be a non-story if it involved men's athletics. Really, Chris?
Tell that to Texas coach Tom Penders. He had four players threaten to leave and it became a national story and wound up costing Penders his job. And he had a track record of 208 victories and eight NCAA appearances in 10 seasons.
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