February 23, 1985: Bobby Knight Throws a Chair

February 23, 1985: Bobby Knight, the longtime head basketball coach at Indiana University, has what would remain, despite 3 National Championships, the most recent undefeated season in men's college basketball, more games won than any college basketball coach before him, and a stellar record of graduating his players on time, his signature moment.

The game was played on Indiana's home court, Assembly Hall in Bloomington, against their cross-State arch-rivals, Purdue University. Five minutes into the game, a scramble for a loose ball resulted in a foul call on Indiana's Marty Simmons. Immediately after the resumption of play, a foul was called on Indiana's Daryl Thomas. Knight insisted the first of the two calls should have been for a jump ball, and went too far in his argument. The referee, Fred Jaspers, gave Knight a technical foul.

Purdue's Steve Reid stepped to the free throw line to shoot the resulting free throws, but before he could, Knight grabbed a red plastic chair from Indiana's bench, and threw it across the floor toward the basket in front of Reid. Knight was charged with a second and a third technical foul, and was ejected from the game.

Indiana ended up losing this game, 73-62. It was in the middle of a 1-6 run that prevented them from reaching the NCAA Tournament. Knight apologized for his actions the next day, and was given a one-game suspension and two years' probation from the Big Ten Conference.

In later years, Knight would occasionally joke about the chair-throwing incident by saying that he saw an old lady standing on the opposite sideline and threw her the chair so she could sit down.

What happened to the chair? It was retrieved by IU tennis coach Scott Greer, who kept it at his office, and then, after retiring, has kept it at his house in Bloomington.

Ironically, Jaspers himself was a basketball coach, at high schools in Iowa. He began officiating in the Big Ten in 1969, retired after that 1984-85 season, and died in 1997.

UPDATE: Greer died in 2022, and left the chair to his son-in-law, Chip Hoskins, who was a student at IU at the time of the incident, and was also at the game in question. He loaned the chair to Mike Woodson, head basketball coach at IU in 2025, on the 40th Anniversary of the incident, for him to sit in on the anniversary of the game. Knight, who coached at IU from 1971 to 2000, when he finally went too far and got fired by the school, died in 2023.

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February 23, 1985 was a Saturday. Baseball was out of season. This was the opening day of what turned out to be the last season of the USFL, the United States Football League. One game was played: The Tampa Bay Bandits beat the Orlando Renegades, 35-7 at Tampa Stadium.

There were 5 games played in the NBA:

* The New Jersey Nets beat the Detroit Pistons, 111-103 at the Silverdome in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, Michigan. Bill Laimbeer had 31 points and 21 rebounds.

* The Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Milwaukee Brewers, 128-106 at The Coliseum in the Cleveland suburb of Richfield, Ohio.

* The Chicago Bulls beat the Golden State Warriors, 140-125 at the Chicago Stadium. Rookie Michael Jordan scored 38 points.

* The Dallas Mavericks beat the Kansas City Kings, 121-98 at the Kemper Arena (now the Hy-Vee Arena) in Kansas City.

* And the Washington Bullets beat the Houston Rockets, 123-115 at The Summit in Houston. It's now the Central Campus of televangelist Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church.

And there were 8 games in the NHL:

* The New York Islanders beat the Boston Bruins, 7-1 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Calgary Flames, 5-1 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.

* The Montreal Canadiens beat the Winnipeg Jets, 6-4 at the Montreal Forum.

* The Los Angeles Kings beat the Hartford Whalers, 2-1 at the Hartford Civic Center (now the PeoplesBank Arena). Marcel Dionne scored the winning goal with 2:14 left in overtime.

* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Detroit Red Wings, 4-2 at the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Minnesota North Stars, 3-1 at the Metropolitan Sports Center in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington, Minnesota.

* The Washington Capitals and the Edmonton Oilers played to a tie, 3-3 at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton.

* The Quebec Nordiques beat the Vancouver Canucks, 7-5 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver.

* And the New York Rangers, the Chicago Black Hawks, the Philadelphia Flyers, the St. Louis Blues, the Buffalo Sabres and the Winnipeg Jets were not scheduled.

And in English soccer, Manchester United beat North London team Arsenal, 1-0 at Old Trafford in Salford.