Former Indiana University basketball player Todd Jadlow has written a book that details his journey into a life of drugs, alcohol and even a stay in jail.
The book also alleges some violent behavior by former IU coach Bobby Knight.
Jadlow claims, among other things, that Knight punched him in the head, broke a clipboard over his head and even grabbed his testicles and squeezed.
Here are some more details:
Most of Todd Jadlow’s new book, “Jadlow: On The Rebound,” is about the former IU basketball player’s horrifying and ultimately redemptive journey, about his headlong descent into a life of drugs, alcohol and finally incarceration. It shares, in stark and shocking detail, how far the former Hoosier fell, losing everything including his freedom, how his downward spiral had him thinking about suicide and praying every night that he wouldn’t wake up the next morning.
That’s not the headline, though, in the recently-released book he co-wrote with former Indianapolis journalist Tom Brew.
This is the headline: Jadlow alleges that former IU basketball coach Bob Knight physically and emotionally abused him and other players.
He alleges:
That Knight punched him in the back of the head with a closed fist during a walkthrough for an NCAA Tournament game against Seton Hall.
That inside a sideline huddle during a 1989 game against Louisville – the game when Sports Illustrated famously captured a photo of the coach pushing Jadlow back onto the court — Knight cracked a clipboard over Jadlow’s head.
That after an NIT game in New York City, an enraged Knight once dug his hands so deeply into Jadlow’s sides, he left bruises. Jadlow includes a picture of the bruises Knight left; “It’s weird because I never carried a camera,” he was telling me Friday over a Stromboli at Nick’s. “But I had this thought, ‘You know, if I ever write a book about my experiences, I want to have a picture of what he did to me.’ ”
That Knight made a habit, with Jadlow and others, of grabbing players by the testicles and squeezing.
That Knight continually called Daryl Thomas a “(bleeping) p—–” and once instructed the managers to wallpaper Thomas’ locker with pictures of female genitalia. Knight also liked to throw tampons at Thomas, who took more abuse than anybody on Jadlow’s teams.
That on the flight home after the 1986 NCAA Tournament loss to Cleveland State, Knight tore up the plane and ultimately grabbed Thomas by the neck and shook him violently.
That Knight made sport of Jadlow’s facial tic in front of the entire team; in the book, former IU teammate Mark Robinson wrote that Knight yelled at Jadlow, “If you don’t stop the (bleeping) twitching, I’m going to throw your ass out of here.”
That during a practice, Knight forced Dean Garrett and Keith Smart to run hours of sprints while barking like dogs since they were, in his words, “playing like (bleeping) dogs.”
And that, Jadlow said recently, was just a partial accounting of Knight’s excesses.“If he did those things today,” Jadlow said, “he (Knight) would be in jail.”
