(La Porte County, IN) - A La Porte County man once received Christmas cards every year from Bobby Knight, back when he was the head basketball coach at Indiana University.

 

Mario Rosa also met the now-late larger-than-life figure when he helped deliver him an order of frog legs.

 

Knight passed away this past Wednesday. He was 83 years old.

 

Rosa said the Hoosiers, in the 1970s, were in Gary for a game at the Genesis Center when a police officer friend asked him to go along with him to retrieve an order for Knight from a restaurant known for its frog legs.

 

Rosa, who was living in Gary at the time, jumped at the opportunity since he was a big fan of the Hoosiers and the legendary coach.

 

He was also a middle school basketball coach in Gary.

 

Rosa said he met Knight, who liked frog legs, during the delivery of his food.

 

“He was very nice and very cordial. For me, it was a great, great experience. I loved Bobby Knight. I aspired at the time to be like him,” he said. 

 

A few years later, they made another connection after the often-volatile Knight was detained briefly for an encounter with a police officer in Puerto Rico.

 

He was head basketball coach for the team from the United States during the Pan American games on the Caribbean island when a dispute over facilities led to an encounter with the police officer, who alleged he was assaulted by Knight.

 

Knight returned to the U.S. and was absent from the courtroom when later convicted of misdemeanor assault, never returning to the island.

 

Rosa said he wrote a letter of support to Knight while he was awaiting the court’s decision on the case at his home in Bloomington. In response, Rosa said Knight wrote back thanking him for his support and apologized for his behavior.

 

“It was kind of exciting when you receive a letter like that,” he said.

 

Unexpectedly, Christmas cards from Knight from wherever the team was playing at the time started turning up in Rosa’s mailbox annually for about eight years.

 

He said the cards were mailed from places like Alaska and New Mexico and signed “Robert” not “Bobby,” he said.

 

Unfortunately, Rosa lost all of his cards and the letter from Knight, but his younger brother filled at least some of the void by purchasing a roughly 20 x 20 autographed picture of Knight for him a few years ago.

 

The picture depicts Knight throwing a chair across the basketball court during a game against arch-rival Purdue in 1985. It now hangs from a wall in his office at the La Porte School Corporation where he’s the Family and Community Engagement Coordinator.

 

Rosa said he was sad to hear the news of Knight’s passing and recalled becoming a fan of the team at Texas Tech University when Knight after leaving Indiana accepted the head coaching position there.

 

“He was an icon here in Indiana. I became a Texas Tech Red Raider fan for a while,” he said.