Bob Knight, Landon Turner, 20/20

are you a basketball fan I don't really have time to watch sports on television thank you my question well it's one of the few games that I understand and in our eyes it has a big priority and people around here have been talking for weeks about the NC double-a Final Four playoffs they begin tomorrow another year they serve as a launching pad for college players the last stepping-stone to professional careers well tonight Lynn Sherr tells us of a young player who on this very night in 1981 and the best game of his life and seen every playoff but this is the story of what happened after the cheering style I thought Turner was firing away the outstanding player in the NCAA that year ladies and gentlemen introducing the starting lineups for tonight's championship game it took place nine years ago tonight the battle for the national collegiate basketball championship the University of North Carolina was playing Indiana University Indiana where basketball is practically a religion where the coach is a legend and the players are major stars could you have won the championship that year without landowner there's no way with six ten could really run he had great physical qualities so we're able to play Turner on a kid six six or a kid six seven he just thoroughly dominated them and then he had this great touch great agility could shoot the ball from outside I felt then and I can remember thinking to myself as I'm walking up to the office if nothing happens to this kid if he maintains the same attitude toward everything that he now has he'll be the first player taken in the Pro draft but the future imagined by Indiana University coach Bobby Knight the dreams of glory for his star player were not to be four months after landon turner led his team to the national championship in 1981 his life changed drastically it all happened in a matter of seconds it was a rainy Saturday morning in July and Landon Turner and three friends were headed for an amusement park traveling along this highway in southern Indiana suddenly as he got to that curve Turner who was driving lost control of the car it flipped over crashed then burst into flames one of the other passengers pulled Turner from the wreckage but he was paralyzed from the neck down the accident stunned the entire state there would be no senior year no NBA no walks in glory or even in the park but in one of those twists of fate that defines the word inspiration the accident gave rise to a very brave young man and in the process it forged a most unusual bond between Turner the player and Knight the coach a relationship that had gotten off to a far rockier start this is the Bobby Knight most people know the terrible tempered coach whose rough dealings led him to throw a chair during one game to grab a player off the court in another that reputation nearly kept Turner from attending IU in the first place I really didn't want to be around they kind of add fear being hollered at all the time but Turner a high school all-american welled up at IU anyway and thought his preconceptions about night had been wrong he felt comfortable with him until until we lost our first game but while night was disappointed with Turner's performance on the basketball court those first two years he was even more upset with what he did in the classroom I try to study a young lady called I said the books in a second see put it put it suicide which you know I should indeed but by the time Turner was a junior with the team losing too many games by Indiana standards coach Knight says he was prepared to kick him off the squad I remember there was a time when Coach Knight told me that I couldn't I couldn't help the basketball team I couldn't help in university he told me to leave he told me to transpire I told him I said I wouldn't even dress you tomorrow night but your mom and dad are coming to the game and I'll talk to all three of you when he games over we get maybe with about ten minutes to go in the game and again we have a big lead in the game and I put Landon in and Landon is no sooner in the game than he makes two or three glaring errors almost errors without effort and I take him out and as he's walking the bench to sit down I say to myself I'm not gonna let him out this easy I'm gonna put him back in and I'm gonna let him just make a fool out of himself for the next nine and a half minutes and then everybody will know why he's not gonna play here anymore so as soon as I can I get him back in the game and he plays maybe nine minutes in the best basketball I've ever seen a kid play I just told myself hey you know I'm ice would do I know I want to help the team I want to get my grades I won through good and it all just came together jail together I see Mike wants to get my act together seemed like the whole team just came together and we went on didn't lose another game Turner started in the next 12 games but even if you're a basketball fan you may not remember him that's because the real star that year was one of his teammates and his best friend Isiah Thomas number 11 I use Most Valuable Player now a ten-time all-star with the Detroit Pistons you know you win by the little things and land the turnip did the little things to make us a championship basketball team had it not been for his play we couldn't have won a championship I don't care about or 40 or 50 points Thomas and Turner share a special memory from one game that season a memory captured in this photograph Turner had just picked off a rebound against Minnesota and was headed toward his own basket nine years later the close friends remember every detail I just started dribbling up the coin like this and then Isaiah was next to me Landon give me the ball I looked at him like this cat gentleman and I'm thinking he's gonna lose it so Landon let me give me the barn I give him right back you know I get to buy half-court he asked again landed give me the ball and I'm screaming landed landed right here give me the ball give me the ball he went in and he ducted the whole house went crazy and I feel real good when I don't want the game the championship game against North Carolina took place four weeks later the pressure was immense not only was the title at stake but that was the same day President Ronald Reagan was shot after deliberation the game was played anyway and Landon Turner again led his team to victory he was named all-tournament team center it was an extraordinary moment and he was only a junior and then there was the accident and there was accident yeah when we first drove up to the lot and saw the car we wondered how did anybody get out of that car alive Landon Turner's parents got the news at their home in Indianapolis when they arrived at the hospital they were told their son's neck had been broken I just started temporarily went to pieces there in the waiting room at Methodist Hospital emergency and it was just something very hard to cope with but he was alive barely Turner was unconscious for five days after his family one of his first visitors was a very shaken coach night you know I can still close my eyes and picture him there with the different things they had attached to him when they're trying to monitor his breathing and his heart rate and the doctor asked me to talk to him to see if I could get any response from me and I kind of whispered and the doctor says no no talk to him like it was that practice and I look at the doctor like are you sure you know what the hell you're doing and so and then the doctor said shaking I said Landon Landon Landon can you hear me can you hear me and that was probably the scariest thing I've ever done night started a fundraising drive for Turner kickin in a reported sixty thousand dollars of his own money the response from the state and Beyond was extraordinary more than half a million dollars I just thought well this kid deserves anything we can do to help after months of painful therapy Turner literally took his life into his own hands he regained movement of his arms he learned to drive a specially equipped vehicle he returned to IU to get his degree and amazingly he returned to something else - it is cold wheelchair basketball and it only looks the same as the game Landon Turner grew up playing a lot harder no way on your feet you can fake them you can fake a man out and get down the court shooting is kind of different also because you have to shoot him perfectly you just have to aren't you just just right or you miss it I guess because I'm you know I'm 6 foot 10 and now four foot to whatever however tall I am in this wheelchair I get it's kind of a difference a lot different his old coach supports his new game too with money for wheelchairs in uniforms but night hasn't led up on his trademark method of motivation I told Turner that he couldn't garden anybody who won't he was playing and get in a wheelchair hadn't helped him a bit either you're a teacher is there a lesson in any of this do you think if there is it would be in an analogy or in a metaphor like this you get dealt different hands in life and they don't all include aces and I think so many people can play aces and play them well and Turner learned how to play his aces and then he had to learn how to play threes and fours and he's been awfully damn successful at playing threes and fours you sound very proud of him well wouldn't you be I'm sure you would not say you'd rather be in a wheelchair than be walking obviously but I prefer being in a wheelchair being six foot ID which is all by way of saying you're not sitting there thinking oh poor me I could have been a great basketball star and look where I am now no I don't feel sorry for myself or anything like that I'm just like I say I'm just glad to be alive such a blessing spirit thank you in addition to the occasional wheelchair basketball game what's he doing now how did you make a living well he's got the fun to draw on you he's also doing quite a lot of speaking to youth groups trying to say look what I've done with my handicap here's what you can do with anything that's facing you and also he's working with a local television station in Indianapolis maybe doing a basketball show we're adding a new member to the now team tonight although he is no stranger to NBC certainly no stranger to American television audiences Bob Costas is here with the story of a man

Channel: Marty Jones

Views: 56,335

Rating: 4.8431373 out of 5

Keywords: Bob Knight, Landon Turner, Indiana, Indiana University (College/University), Basketball, Wheelchair Basketball (Sport), Traffic Collision (Type Of Injury-causing Event), Paralyzed, 20/20 (TV Program)

Id: lhmVqIhTnek

Length: 12min 22sec (742 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 19 2014