Thought of this the other day

[John Bales]

I am a Notre Dame football fan and Indiana basketball fan. Watching Indiana basketball has been really hard lately. It's more fun when the team you are rooting for is winning. This last coach that just got fired used to do his end of game speech and congratulate the other team and what they did and what we didn't do. I told my son that a good coach calls a time out and fixes those things on the run. You don't bring up what you didn't do at the end of the game. That coach needs to recognize the problem and takes care of it if he is a good coach and if he has players that want to fix it. Same goes for fishing. We all have days that we fail and those where we catch them good. It's the days that we fail that we question our depths and speeds and what we might have not done a good job on. Sometimes we are sure that the front caused things to be tough but on other days, we know that it may have been our own decision making throughout the day. One thing about it, we can always get better at that part. John

[Steve Craig]

Indiana ball hasnt been the same since Bob Knight left!

Excellent analogy to fishing too!

[John Bales]

You are so right about that. The new hire and his new hired crew has created some hope to bring it back where it once was. The first game I watched made me realize it was watching him and how he coached that I missed the most. I have to be a ND football fan. Its only 45 minutes away. Last year was my first time on the campus. It was simply awesome. The grotto was the best. John

[Bink]

There’s a big difference in coaching team sports and a individual sport like fishing. Trying to make 5 or 11 execute YOUR plan under pressure is much different that trying to make yourself or one person execute. Bobby Knight was a master of molding men into machines with server discipline & 4/5 year players. Today’s game you can’t do that (I wish you could). Best players are going to leave early and god forbid you call a kid a pussy your going to lose you million $$$ a year job.
Think about all the guys we’ve try to coach Spoonpluging to. 1 out of 1000 acutely become Spoonpluggers. Are we just bad coaches?

[John Bales]

Your right. Terry and I have had some great conversations about our spoonpluggers work ethics. If we were to come right out and say these things, or write them, there would be no following. Instead, we do what we can to help those in need and leave it up to them to make something of themselves. I learned a long time ago that you can't make someone do something they really don't have their heart into. Mr. Knight and Mr. Perry were both great coaches and motivators. When watching a game, sometimes we think we can do a better job than the coach. Probably not. John

[Bink]

Men like Coach Knight & Mr.Perry and a thing of the past.
I saw a story where Coach Knight and Ted Willams went salmon fishing in Russia. Ted Willams refused to fish with Coach saying he wasn’t the same caliber angler as him. Lol

[John Bales]

Knight used to fish with a guy around here( a fly fisherman named Larry Edwards) and they would fish a small lake in the woods right behind my house. When we had the gas station, my mother in law was running the cash register and Deb was in the back room doing the deposit for the day when Knight stopped for gas. My mother in law just loved Bobby Knight and got his autograph and was so excited, she never said a word to my wife so she never got to meet him. He was in an older chevy suburburben with a hat on so no one would know who he was. Pretty neat. John

[MartyMcAvoy]

I.U. Basketball... hmm, my late Brother in law, Ken Hutchinson, that taught me so much, Drag Racing mostly, from when I was 9 or 10 till his passing in 2019. He was a huge sports fan, being a Competitive drag racer 1st & foremost, Indiana Basketball was one of his favorites! We would watch as many games as we could .. attending a couple at Assembly Hall. As it turns out, my cousin is Ron Felling, assistant coach to Knight for 16 years.. Ronnie coached high school BB in Lawrenceville Illinois, also for 16 years.. finishing his last 2 seasons undefeated w/Illinois Mr. Basketball Marty Simmons. When I hired into Airborne Express, I transferred to Bloomington in '98, & the 1st route there was delivering to the campus.. at Assembly Hall, everything is supposed to go to the Mail room, but if the package had anything about Men's Basketball on it, to Heck w/the mail room.. I took it to Ron's office where I would hang w/ him for a few, saw Knight a couple times, he was friendly then.. also delivered to his residence which wasn't very far from my place in Ellettsville... kinda cool. Delivered to John Mellencamp several times, couple to music studio towards Nashville, but several to his residence on 446 facing Monroe Reservoir & our famous causeway! (Structure Situation book) ps: people are ok, but I miss the dogs I would meet on my routes most of all!