Bob Knight on ESPN

As I have stated so many times in the last two weeks, I love this time of the year. It’s March Madness, baby.

But this year’s tournament has been especially fun, not only because the Tar Heels are doing so well, but because Bob Knight has offered pithy comments on every game from behind a desk at ESPN.

When the network first announced that he would do this, I had my doubts. After all, he has never been a huge fan of us in the media (“a profession that is two steps above prostitution,” he called us once). I have expected him to rip up a chair and beat Dickie V with it on air.

But he has added so much to the broadcasts this month. He looks at games so much differently than Digger Phelps and Dickie V do, and I have looked forward to each of his analyses. Of course, what do you expect from a coach with 900+ wins.

If you get a chance this weekend, or throughout the week, turn over and watch at least one segment with The General. I couldn’t find a youtube clip, so instead I attached this Top 10 list of his all-time best sound bites. Enjoy.

A night at the Tiki, or not

This may come as a complete shock to you, but I am not a very good dancer. I don’t hate dancing, but I don’t exactly love it either. With a few beverages under my belt, I have been known to make a fool of myself, though.

Saturday night I had a bad feeling that I was going to have to dance sober. Now that is hard. My girlfriend, Joellen, and I were invited to a birthday party at the Tiki Club, a meat-market, er, I mean, dance club in Jonesboro. I really didn’t want to go, but her friend is also a good friend of mine, so I had to.

An aside: I do like The Flame and have been known to bug my friends all night about going there. But the Tiki Club — not so much.

The only stipulation I had was that the Heels were playing at 9 p.m., so we could not leave Joe’s, my regular watering hole, until it ended. She was fine with that because the birthday party was not planned to start until after the game anyway (the celebrant is also a huge Heels fan.)

So the game ended with the Heels headed to San Antonio, and I am feeling pretty good. Sober, but good. I was the DD, which even further added to my desire not to go to the club. After a little more socializing at the bar, we head over to the Tiki around midnight.

Another aside: Let me tell you a little of what I know about the Tiki Club. It has shut down several times recently, I think, and it has a reputation as one of the rougher places in town. There’s about all I care to know about it…

Anyway, we get to the club, and the girl at the front door DENIES us entrance because we didn’t have a membership. After a few minutes of haggling, in which several people walked right in who looked much more unsavory than us, we finally walked back to the car sheepishly.

Amazing. Maybe we didn’t have enough hair gel in or were actually wearing shoes. Honestly, though, even though Joellen was mad, all in all, it was the best night I’ve ever had at the Tiki Club, because it lasted about five minutes.

At first, though, even I was a little mad. This is Sanford, after all, isn’t it. And the Tiki is not a strip club, though it has seemed that way on prior visits. Come on…

But the more I thought about it, the more I see the club owner’s point. The club is obviously trying to clean up its act, and I applaud them for it. I don’t see exactly why we were denied, but hey. You can’t let everyone in.

So, thank you, Tiki Club, for not letting us in Saturday, and good luck in cleaning up your club to the point that good people can go and dance without the riff-raff… Not I, mind you, but other good people in town…