Bobby Knight’s Passing Prompts RV Industry Memories – RVBusiness – Breaking RV Industry News

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From left, Mitch Schatzen, Bobby Knight and Gary LaBella at an RVBusiness Top 50 Dealer Awards reception in 2008. (Photos: Shawn Spence/RVBusiness)

Bobby Knight, left, chats with with Mike Schneider at the 2008 RVBusiness Top 50 Dealers reception in Las Vegas. Airstream’s Justin Humphreys is seen in the background.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Word Wednesday (Nov. 1) of the passing of revered former Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight reminded a number of us RV industry veterans of the linkage that the legendary Hall of Fame coach – the winner of three national championship titles at I.U. – had back in the day with the RV sector.

Knight passed away at his home in Bloomington surrounded by his relatives, the family posted to his website.

Two events in particular come to mind, the most recent being his appearance at the 2008 RVBusiness Top 50 Dealer Awards reception and dinner in Las Vegas, a Sept. 24 event at which he joined several of us for dinner near the stage prior to his presentation at the podium. Among the diners at our table for that memorable meal besides myself, then publisher of RVBusiness magazine, were Affinity Group Inc. (AGI) President Mike Schneider, Ganis Credit Corp. exec Mitch Schatzen and RVIA VP Gary LaBella.

“Sherm sat me (and Mike Schneider and Mitch Shatzen) right next to him at the RVB dinner,” LaBella recalls in what amounts to a rather classic Knight exchange regarding the famous shot that I.U.’s Keith Smart took in winning the 1987 national championship over his beloved Syracuse University Orange. “We had great basketball conversation all night. Coach Knight was engaged and open. At one point, I confessed to him how heart broken I was in ‘87 when Keith Smart hit ‘the shot’ and Indiana beat my alma mater, Syracuse, for the national championship. He told me to look around the banquet room. ‘You might find someone here who sympathizes,’ he said, ‘but I’m not one of them.’”

Well known Mishawaka, Ind.-based public relations executive B.J. Thompson, who’s been affiliated for years with RVB’s Top 50 program – 2023’s rendition of which is set for next week during the RVDA Convention/Expo in Las Vegas — has some memories of his own regarding the controversial Indiana coach – not all of them positive.  “We had him back in the mid-‘80s for an ASA (ASA Electronics) customer appreciation event in Elkhart,” said Thompson. “Kelly Rose (ASA co-owner with Tom Irions) had a connection with him and brought him in along with (the Chicago Bears’s Mike Ditka.

“At that time, he was very hospitable and accommodating for people who wanted his autograph and wanted pictures with him. He was a real nice guy,” said Thompson, his “handler” at the event. “But after that, my experience with him was not the best because he was arrogant and crotchety.”

Source: https://rvbusiness.com/bobby-knights-passing-prompts-rv-industry-memories/