Bobby Knight & a Chair

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvRO2GE4x4M

This is a famous video of Bobby Knight throwing a chair on to the basketball court after the he believed the referee had made a bad call. This was in 1985 when Bobby Knight still coached basketball at the University of Indiana. Bobby Knight throughout his life has constantly been in the spotlight, mostly for doing yelling or doing crazy things such as throwing this chair on the court. I felt that this video was a good one because you can’t actually hear what Coach Knight is saying to the referees rather you can only see his non-verbal communication at its best.

When the video first begins you see Coach Knight with his hands on his hips, just as any other coach usually is, portraying concentration and a bit of stress. If you had paused this video after those first three seconds you might just think that this is another coach just standing there with no problems, just a bit concerned. A couple seconds later Coach Knight turns around, picks up a chair, and throws it across the court!

Mad? Angry? Frustrated? I would say just about everybody in that gym that night picked up on that non-verbal cue. The part I like is right after he throws the chair he immediately turns around with his back towards the referees as if to say “don’t talk to me.” The referees non-verbal communication was also great to watch. They sprint right over to Coach Knight and give him the “Technical Foul” gesture which is where one makes a T with their hands. Even though you cannot hear what Coach Knight and the referee are saying to each other you can tell by Coach Knight’s hand gestures that he was trying to make a point that did not require feedback. We talked about this in class when we were studying the topic of gestures. Where a palm up in a interpersonal conversation means looking for feedback or a response and palm down means trying to make a point.

Obviously this was an easy video to pick up on what type of emotion Coach Knight was portraying through his non-verbal communication, but being that there was no sound and we could not hear the dialect between Coach and the referees I felt that this was a great example.

Any other non-verbal cues shown here in this video that I may have missed? If not let me know what you think!