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Small world? The Bob Knight-Bo Van Pelt connection
Published: 6/5/2011 6:00 PM
Last Modified: 6/5/2011 6:00 PM

Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Knight will visit the Renaissance Hotel on Monday to deliver the keynote address at the Henry P. Iba Citizen Athlete Awards.

Tulsa is the adopted hometown of PGA Tour professional Bo Van Pelt, who -- small world -- has a history with Knight.

Here’s the connection: Van Pelt is from Richmond, Indiana. Knight is a former Indiana basketball coach.

Van Pelt, who played college golf at Oklahoma State, said he made a recruiting trip to Indiana and spent virtually the majority of his time talking to Knight.

Does Knight remember that? Sure. He even remembered that Van Pelt’s dad, Bob, is a former Indiana football player.

“I was just trying to help our golf coach in the recruitment of Bo and I have always followed him, what he has done on the (PGA) Tour and everything,” Knight said. “When I look at scores, I always look for his scores.”

On a different occasion, presumably when Bo was younger, Knight had reason to call Bob Van Pelt’s home. Bo said he answered the phone and (though he rarely did this) asked “who is this?”

“This is Bob Knight,” said the voice on the other end of the phone.

Bo’s reaction? Yeah, right.

Bo put down the phone and told his father there was someone on the phone who was calling himself Bob Knight. Bo was taken aback when he found out from his father that the call was legit. Knight didn’t remember that story, though he said it very well could have happened.

Regardless, Bo said he has always been a Knight proponent.


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Tulsa World sports writer Jimmie Tramel is a former class president at Locust Grove High School. He graduated magna cum laude from Northeastern State University with a journalism degree and, while attending college, was sports editor of the Pryor Daily Times. He joined the Tulsa World on Oct. 17, 1989, the same day an earthquake struck the World Series. He is the OSU basketball beat writer and a columnist and feature writer during football season. In 2007, he wrote a book about Oklahoma State football with former Cowboy coach Pat Jones.

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