For the uninitiated, Bobby Knight is called one of many biggest school basketball coaches of all-time. On the time of his retirement, Knight had gained 902 NCAA Division I males’s school basketball video games. Although that was sufficient to carry the file on the time, he now stands in fifth place as most successful coach in that division. Knight is most well-known for teaching Indiana College from 1971 to 2000, usually seen in a signature pink sweater, shouting at officers, and sometimes throwing chairs in anger. Nick Nolte shadowed Knight whereas making ready to play Pete Bell in “Blue Chips” and borrowed a few of his saltier traits, so it solely appears acceptable that his Western College crew ultimately got here to sq. off with the Hoosiers. Nevertheless, Knight’s repute for successful would not be sidelined just because the movie’s script mentioned Indiana College needed to lose.
Basketball video games for “Blue Chips” have been filmed in Case Area in Frankfort, Indiana, with hundreds of extras in attendance as the gang. The situation was truly instructed by Knight himself. Friedkin defined to Grantland:
“I informed Bobby Knight, ‘I wish to play actual video games. The place do I’m going the place I can do this, draw a crowd, and never pay the gang?’ With out a blink, he mentioned, ‘You go to Frankfort, Indiana. Go to Frankfort Excessive College.’ Frankfort was nearly just like the non secular dwelling of Indiana basketball. They’d about 5 – 6 thousand seats. We performed three full video games in entrance of a reside viewers from which I used to be drawing all of the basketball footage. We drew the viewers simply due to the caliber of the gamers and coaches, like Rick Pitino, Jim Boeheim, Jerry Tarkanian. We had turn-away crowds and one thing like 10,000 guests and out-of-towners in Frankfort who got here in to get a glimpse.”