Five years later, Rance Pugmire can't find the red Indiana University sweater that Hoosier coach Bob Knight sent him in a roundabout way.
Most people would have framed the sweater and hung it on the living-room wall as proof of their 15 minutes of fame. But Pugmire, Utah State University's athletic director since last summer, will have to rummage the house some more before he can finally give it to an acquaintance who is an IU fan.
"It's not one of those things you want to be remembered by," Pugmire says of the incident five years ago.
He still doesn't know whether Knight sent him the sweater as a peace offering/apology for his nationally televised verbal abuse of Pugmire during the 1995 NCAA Basketball Tournament's first round at Boise State.
The USU A.D. does hope to someday meet Knight again and perhaps get to know him, maybe even on a Logan street since the legendary wildman of college coaching often spends time fishing or golfing with his friend and former assistant Kohn Smith, a former Aggie and Logan High coach and now a full-time Logan outdoorsman.
Pugmire was the NCAA representative moderating the press conferences for the tournament site. Signals got mixed in the confusion following the game. Two IU players answered media questions in the press conference, but Knight was not with them. Pugmire was told Knight wasn't coming, so he announced that and called Missouri coach Norm Stewart to the stand.
Knight then showed and was angered that the announcement about him not coming had been made.
"Who in the hell told you I wasn't going to be here? I'd like to know," Knight railed at Pugmire, who was at the time the University of Idaho's regional development director. "Do you have any idea who it was?" Knight went on. "They weren't from Indiana. You didn't get it from Indiana. I'll handle this the way I want to handle this."
Knight told Pugmire he could stay or leave; he didn't care which.
Pugmire later said it was the fault of the staff, not Knight, and he says, "It didn't bother me all that much."
E-mail: lham@desnews.com