Bobby Knight was in the middle of a heated confrontationwith a news reporter in the locker room of Case Arena, home of the Frankfort High School Hot Dogs.
Even thedirector of "The Exorcist," William Friedkin, couldn't coax him out. Knight was livid. No one knew exactly what it was about, just that a "damned TV reporter" had ruffled his feathers.
This basketball game wasn't even real.
But it was agame.
Evidently, Knight took Hollywood-created basketball games as seriously as he did his real life Indiana University matchups in Bloomington.
As the crowd of 5,500 extras sat in the bleachers holding its breath, waiting for the filming of the climactic final game of "Blue Chips"at the Frankfort gym to begin —Knight's IUteam versusPete Bell's Western University —Knight finally emergedin his red sweater.
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"We didn't know whether that game was going to happen," said Jim Moyer,the scorekeeper for Frankfort basketball for more than four decades, who playeda scorekeeper in the movie. "Knight almost refused to come out. He almost ruined everything."
When he did take his place in front of the IU bench, Knight still caused "Blue Chips" director Friedkin trouble.
"Knight wouldn’t let Western win," said Moyer. "He kept taking the lead, taking the lead."
While the gamewasn't scripted — players were supposed to just play — the ending was. Western was to win with its blue-chip recruits.
With IU up bythree points late in the game, Knight and his make-believeplayers(who included former IU players Eric Anderson, Calbert Cheaney, Keith Smart, Greg Grahamand Duke'sBobby Hurley)huddled near the bench. Knight's words were recorded on a taping device he wore.
"Let me tell you something, boys," he said. "We've got 24 seconds to play and fate's got us up by three. We sure as hell aren't going to lose to a bunch of (derogatory term) from Hollywood now."
But IUdid lose. It had to.
This game was out of Knight's control and in the hands of Hollywood producers,whowerequickly finding out just how crazed the people ofIndiana were about basketball.
People flocked to Frankfort
The Hollywood producers showed upto the gym with their Gucci sunglasses and sun-kissed skin and their flabbergasted reactions to thestate's obsession with an orange ball.
Theproducersneeded thousands of extras to act as fans and fill Case Arena for thegame scenes of "Blue Chips" that would be filmed over four nightsin July of 1993.
"What will it cost us?" they asked.
"These California folks thought they would have to pay people to come in and sit in the gym as extras.They had no idea what Indiana basketball was like," said Moyer. "We told them you do not have to pay people. People will payyou to buy ticketsto come in. Theywereaghast."
From every corner, from every nook and cranny of the state, peoplepoured into Case Arena forthose nights of filming, each paying a few bucks for the honor.
This was a basketball movie steeped in Indiana connections: Knight. Larry Bird. IU. Matt Painter. French Lick. Dan Dakich. Matt Nover. It was standing room only.
They had watched as another basketball movie — 'Hoosiers" had been released in 1986 — becametied to their hoops-enamored state.
They wanted apiece of this one.
Frankfort embraced its starring role and became the home of Western University, the fictional team coached byBell, played by Nick Nolte, and featuring playersShaquille O'Neal and Anfernee "Penny" Hardaway.
On those hot summer daysoutside of thegym, the local Boys and Girls Club soldblue and gold T-shirts emblazoned with Western University. The shirts, $10 each, vanished.
"I never knew when I designed this that it would be this successful," said Bill Wheeler, who received copyrights to the shirt and approval from Paramount Pictures to sell them, at the time. "I was afraid it might flop."
The T-shirts didn't flop. The movie didn't flop.
"Blue Chips" debuted No. 3 at the box office the day of its release 25 years ago Monday.The film, which explores the inner workings of college recruiting and illegal player payoffs, isconsistently ranked in theTop 10 basketball movies of all time.
Critics have said that has to do with its authenticity.By Roger Ebert standards, "Blue Chips" might not be acting at its best and it wasn't Oscar-worthy. But all those characters and their rich basketball background, they make it real.
"They wanted people that could really play basketball. They didn’t want actors," said Hardaway, a former NBA star and now a coach for the University of Memphis, who played Western's Butch McRae. "I think all of us have some acting in us, honestly. But thiswaseasy because it was basketball."
But it was also the darker side of basketball — off the court
The gist of 'Blue Chips'
In the movie storyline, Western's coachBell had always followed the rulesand that had always worked. His team had two national championships and a passel ofconference titles under its belt.
Bell's winning and fiery coaching style — the opening scene of the movie shows him storming in and out of the locker room kicking and screaming — was inspired byKnight.
For "Blue Chips,"Nolte spent two weeks of the1992 season following Knight as he coached in Bloomington.
Nolte told reporter Jimmy Carter after the filming that Knight was his inspiration for the character.
"We went to Knight to discuss what the integrity of the coach is. Where is the starting point for Pete Bell before he takes the fall? What are the values?" Nolte said. "I mean is it just about winning? What is collegiate athletics about? What should it beabout?What isn't it about?"
The movie, after all, focused on a coach who follows all the rules until his team starts to lose.
To turn around Western's program, Bellviolates NCAA rules as he brings in blue-chip recruits — Hardaway, O'Neal (Neon Bodeaux, who turned down the car that was offered to him) and Nover (Ricky Roe) — giving cash, a homeand a tractorto the players and their families.
But, after doing that and beating the Knight-coached team in thefinal game of the movie (and first game of the fictitious season), Bell is overcome with guilt.
During the postgame news conference, he reveals his secret, quits his coaching job, and is last seen teaching kids on a playground court as the credits roll.
A realistic plot
Purdue coach Matt Painter said that even at 22, he thought the gist of the movie was "appropriate."
"As players, you know the programs that do it the rightway and you knowthe programs that don’t," said Painter,who had just finished up his Purdue playing career when he landed a part in "Blue Chips" on theCoast team. "The movie kind of acknowledges that."
The game Painter played in for the movie was the game that ended Western's season and nudged Bell into his illegal-recruiting spiral.
"The things they were doing in this movie to try to get these guys to the school, it wasn’t the first time it had been done in basketball," he said. "So (the plot) was realistic."
Even more than the movie's script, though, a young Painter appreciated the food on the set.
"You would show up and they really feed you and you play pickup and they feed you againand you leave," Painter said.
They also suggested a new hairdo for Painter, who hadn'thad his shaggy hair cut in a while. Directors sent him for a trim in atrailer,which just happened to be the same one Ed O'Neill, a reporter in the film, and Mary McDonnell, who played the ex-wife of Coach Bell, were in.
"I didn't introduce myself," he said. "I was there just getting my hair cut."
Coincidentally, another basketball player in the movie landed his role, in part, because his hair was just right.
Nover: 'It fell into my lap'
When the "Blue Chips" casting director visited the NBA tryouts in Phoenix the April before filmingwas to begin, heasked Matt Nover to read some lines. Nover'screw-cut hair and youthful look fit nicely into the script.
"I'm basically playing myself," Nover saidduring filming in 1993.
He had just finished his senior season helping IU to a31-4 record and elite-eight appearance in the NCAA tournament when the 6-8 forward was cast in "Blue Chips."
His only previous acting experience was King Louie in a sixth-grade production of "The Jungle Book."
Nover wascast asRicky,a farm kid from French Lick, Ind., who hadbroken all of Larry Bird's high school records there.
In the movie,Ricky isn't sureabout leaving the farm and playing for Western, which is set in Los Angeles. Nolte makesa recruiting visit to the town, where Birdmakes his own acting appearance in the movie as a friend of Bell's.
"It's all really amazing and sort of overwhelming,"Nover told IndyStar at the time of the filming. "This is one of the greatest opportunities I could have. So many people try to get into acting, and this just sort of fell into my lap. I love it."
A gracious cast
That was the beauty of "Blue Chips," said Ed Niehaus,Frankfort's athletic director, who was the girls varsity basketball coach atthe time of the filming.
The cameo appearances of real people playing — almost — themselves: Jim Boeheim, Lou Campanelli, Jerry Tarkanian, Bob Cousy.
And the athletesplaying athletes.It seemed Hardaway, O'Neal and Nover were there not as actors but as ball players, he said.
"They were always gracious," Niehaussaid. "There was never anyone acting pompous or arrogant."
One day at the school, Niehaus was coming out of the boyslocker room. Just as he opened up the door, O'Nealwas coming in. Niehaus stood 5-8, O'Neal7-1.
O'Neal looked down, "Hey, how you doing?" he asked Niehaus.
"Doing good man, doing good," Niehaus answered.
"Mythought process was they are here to do a job," he said. "I didn't want to be bothering them."
There was increased security during filming for just that reason. Everyone wanted a meeting with the then-Orlando Magic's O'Neal, who was NBA Rookie of the Year.
They wanted to see Hardaway,the No.3 pick in the NBA draft by Golden Statea month before, who would also end up in Orlando.
"Of course, I had the baby face and looked all of 16," said Hardaway.
The lookwas perfect for playing the role of a young college recruit. After Hardaway went out toLos Angeles to audition and got the part, he worked with an acting coach.
But he made his name for the next 14 years in the NBA.
Yet 25 years later, "Blue Chips" is still brought up by friends andrandom strangers he meets on the street.
"Allthe time," Hardaway said. "People still talk about that movie all the time."
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on Twitter:@Dana Benbow. Reach her via e-mail: [email protected].
