The Craziest Bob Knight Story I Have Ever Heard

This story shows two men who went through two different paths, never to see each other again

This week, the tragic passing of Bob Knight shocked the sports world, particularly in Indiana where his effects on society felt much deeper than just in basketball.

A tyrant, a champion, and a villain in the eyes of many.

November 1, 2023, was a day Hoosiers fans will never forget. I will admit, that I was numb. Very numb.

Like many Hoosiers fans like myself, this story brought back so many memories of a time when my grandmother died from Alzheimer’s, just like Knight, two days after re-visiting Assembly Hall in 2020.

It also brought back memories of his past. I was not alive to see him at IU but I did see him at Texas Tech on Knight School and through word of mouth.

This crazy IU story defines all of these characteristics.

It describes my great-uncle who passed away before I was born on March 25, 2001. He worked on cars for 40 years and never watched a basketball game. Only NASCAR races since he drove stock cars in the past.

This story is on the accounts of my great aunt, Jean Bell, who worked with her then-husband on the night her husband met Bob Knight at a very unexpected place at a very unexpected time.

The year was 1975, and it was 2 a.m. or so in the early morning hours of a September night before the basketball season ever began.

Gary and Jean Bell, my aunt, and my uncle were shuffling through paperwork in their car mechanic shop, which is now home to a Marathon Gas Station on East Broadway Street in Loogootee, across from McDonald’s.

At this time, it was a slow night, but Gary got a call that meant nothing but getting to work. Jean even thought nothing of it, just another call he needed to respond to.

A convertible had crashed into a pond in the nearby city of Alfordsville, Ind. The car crashed off an embank and dived into the river leaving the front seat soaked from the damage. Inside was just one occupant as his car, soaked in the water with the front mostly destroyed by the impact, was very drunk but not completely out of it. He still could make sentences and shockingly could keep on walking.

That man was Bob Knight and Gary, being who Gary was, didn’t care about that. He only wanted to write Knight a ticket to give to the insurance agency to report that there was a wreck.

Gary offered to drive Knight back to Loogootee to pick up his car. He promised the car would be repaired in Loogootee at a separate auto repair shop. Knight simply nodded his head the whole time and barely talked to him

Jean said that he was as quiet as a church mouse, and only made jokes about board games not jump shots.

Then at 5 a.m., a woman walked into the mechanics shop to check on a car that she had wrecked that night.

Jean told her, “You need to pick it up later because Gary’s is on a wrecker run.”

The woman asked, “With whom I may ask?”

“Some guy named Bobby Knight?” she said exhaustingly.

“Wait, are you saying that Gary is towing Bobby Knight’s vehicle?”

Jean was clueless.

She did not know who even Larry Bird was, she never watched basketball, and she never watched a single IU game in person or on TV.

Simply put, she did not know who Knight was. She didn’t even know why he was in Alfordsville after a night drunk late in the morning.

Gary Bell would do his job that night. Tow Knight’s car and get him back to a location safely. There were no Xs and ohs or how to run the picket fence. Gary would do this work for almost 40 years as Knight would make his history. He was drowning in three national championships, turning boys into men, and being in multiple tournament appearances at Army, IU, and Texas Tech.

When Gary, a former basketball manager at North Daviess High School from 1960–63, died in March 2001, the story was hidden from us because my family doesn’t talk much. Gary bit his tongue a lot and barely spoke about the incident until 1987 when he watched Knight win his third championship on TV.