His White COUNTERPARTS. I don't know if YOU ran in his circles or not, being a preteen at the time and all, or if you have that kind of money even today, but if a wager is involved, I'm guessing no on both.
I never got into it. There was a friend of a friend in uni who dictated her social and class calendar around Friends episodes. It wasn't funny for me (meh on Seinfeld but I could at least chuckle). A climbing partner and I recently discussed Friends. She was a fan when they were live, but thought it aged poorly. I still have yet to laugh.
Friends was the beginning of the end of the classic sitcom. The only way the show works is if the entire thing is Ross having a nightmare, otherwise they're just horrible, whiny people that are unaware of how awful they are. At least Seinfeld's characters were under no illusions that they were terrible. We got The Office and It's Always Sunny after that, but Sunny was on FX. Stuff like 30 Rock and Big Bang Theory had long runs, but were nothing like the hits that preceded them. I liked Matthew Perry when I saw him in interviews and some of his other work, but that show was dreadful.
I was never a fan of Friends, and found it to mostly stupid. I did like Chandler best, the very little that I saw of it. Seinfeld was better, but had a mean streak to it. It also had better writing, and has a massive number of memorable/quotable lines. Never liked The Office, but I think that had more to do with the unoriginality of it, matched with the British version as staring Ricky Gervais (I don't like his humor). Have never seen any of Sunny. 30 Rock is underrated, IMO. TBBT is also hit and miss. I liked it, but as many long running shows go, it became forced after season 7 or 8 or so (and I really didn't like the final season). Also, Sheldon became repetitive. Kaley Cuoco also his highly underrated in that show.
That's the brilliance of what happened to Cheers. Shelley Long quitting after season 5 gave the show a boost with a new female foil for Sam and freshened up the entire situation. M*A*S*H had a similar situation with two original main characters leaving after season 4 and another after season 6. I honestly think that's part of what made both finales so widely viewed, there was enough change with main characters leaving that it didn't get too stale.
Colonel Blake and Trapper John left after the 3rd season, Burns left after the 6th and you forgot Radar leaving after the 8th. You are right, though, an insane amount of churn.
All week I've been associating the dead guy with Beverly Hills 90210. Now I see that that guy died a few years ago...
I was doing the same thing, and yeah, it was kind of surprising to re-learn that Luke Perry died some time back.
RIP, chair chucker! The only chair throw to ever rival the great Bobby Knight #RIP pic.twitter.com/szHB3IHpJL— BOFA DEEZ (@bofasports1) November 1, 2023
I moved to Lubbock long after Bob Knight's run as the basketball coach at TTU. I feel like this was one of the very few places he could have thrived after the fiasco at IU. One of the very first stories I heard about his time here was an incident at the Market Street grocery store that's about 2 miles off campus. Knight was there for lunch and was getting food at the salad bar. A local said something to him that he didn't like, and the situation escalated to the point that they were throwing food at each other while screaming and cussing until the cops came to break it up. Not only did that incident not tarnish his reputation here, but it's looked back upon fondly in the same city where crazy Mike Leach first thrived.
He was a tyrant. When he choked the kid and basically ruined his life I was Iike "yeah that's Knight" IU was complicit in all his shenanigans until it got too toxic.
Knight did have a great quote though when he was referring to journalists. Something like "People learn to read and write in grade 2. Most of us go on to achieve greater things." Imagine how bitter he'd be about journalists if he was born 30 years later.
I grew up a short distance from Bloomington during the most successful stretch of his tenure (72/73 - 92/93). My family was definitely a “IU” family: tons of IU grads in family, many of whom raced in Little 500 or were student athletes. Even the Purdue grads in my family were IU fans. Being both a basketball and soccer player, it was great to have coaches of the stature of Knight and Yeagley in the area. Seeing and interacting with the players, coaching clinics and the impact that had on youth development. The downside to Knight was that many coaches idolized him to the point of mimicking his toughness on the kids they coached. That’s a lot and honestly it probably screwed me up a bit and contributed to me burning out of everything by 16-17. One story at his summer camp when I was maybe 12: a buddy and I attended as we did every year and roomed together across the hall from these two kids from Brazil, IN. They were classic big fish in small pond kinda kids who thought they were better than they were. They were good, but not that good but they were definitely cocky. Anyway about day 3 of camp, they were whispering something to themselves and sort of cutting up in a muted way when Knight was talking in front of everyone. This is something you did not do. You tried not to even cough when he had the floor. Anyway, he stops mid sentence and said something like, “I know who is speaking and I’m not gonna say who it is. Everyone over there (points in general area of the chatter) knows who it is too. If I hear one more word, you will be back home before the sweat dries on your jerseys you little assholes. And you will have to explain that to your parents and your coaches.” He then continued for 3-4 more minutes before they got maybe 6 words into starting back up again. He stopped and told Ron Felling to “get those little grabasses out of here” it was a long ass walk from one end of the HYPER to the exit…there are 8 courts. Those two got to hear Knight go off on them to the rest of us the entire 100+ yard or so walk. We broke for lunch 20 minutes later and had a bit of time minutes to ourselves back in the dorms before afternoon session kicked off. When we got back to the dorms within an hour of the incident, the door to the their room was open. And it was in the same condition as when we started camp: completely empty, fresh linens on the beds, two fresh towels on the racks, and and two folders with the itinerary and camp expectations for the following week. He disappeared those kids.
What a sh!t. You are probably 100% correct about his down stream effect on generations of volunteer coaches who mimicked his shittiness.
The first couple of chapters of Steve Magness' new book, Do Hard Things, are about how coaches like Bob Knight and Bear Bryant were often successful despite themselves and that their most famous attributes (Knight's temper and Bryant's insane Junction Boys training camp) were likely the least important element of their success. It then goes into things like knowing when to quit, etc. I agree with it now, but I can also look back and say my only meaningful athletic success was with a lacrosse coach who I legitimately respected but who also threatened to bury me in the forest beside our practice field if I didn't stop screwing up.