Indiana's Captain Courageous

The pep band was warming up and the early arrivals were just starting to fill the seats in Indiana University's Assembly Hall when the silver-gray Ford LTD eased through a truck delivery door and stopped near the varsity basketball locker room. In the front seat sat Landon Turner, wearing a neck brace and his cream-and-crimson letter jacket. He had come to see the Hoosiers open their defense of the NCAA basketball championship he had played such a major role in winning in Philadelphia last March.

It wasn't until Turner's father, a husky man who used to play some basketball himself, opened the car door that the extent of what had happened to Landon became clear. Once the most agile of big men, he now had to wrap his arms around his father's back to hoist himself out of the car and into a waiting wheelchair. It was a struggle. The 21-year-old Turner has regained much of the 240 pounds that he carried on his 6'10" frame last season when, almost overnight, he developed into one of the most powerful and intimidating forwards in the college game.

But now he is paralyzed from the chest down, the result of an automobile accident last July 25, when he lost control of his car on one of the two-lane blacktops that wiggle through the countryside to the east of Bloomington. It hit a culvert and flipped over.

So last Saturday, instead of suiting up for what promised to be a marvelous senior year. Turner was sitting in a wheelchair in an anteroom under the bleachers and staring at the program for Indiana's game against Miami of Ohio. Dominating the cover was a photograph of Turner as he took off for a smashing dunk against Minnesota last season.

"Yeah," said Turner softly, mesmerized by the photo, "I remember that. I got the rebound on the other end and took it all the way."

His reveries were interrupted by a knock on the door. When Turner looked up he saw Bobby Knight, the coach who for three years had goaded him into fulfilling his potential. Turner was a wonder for Knight in the NCAA tournament. He guarded the opposition's best and dominated them all. He also filled the hoop with power layups and soft jumpers. Knight saw no way that Turner wouldn't be a first-team All-America this season.

"What's this?" said Knight, rubbing a hand slowly along the stubble on Turner's cheeks. "I got a razor for you over in the locker room."

"Aw, Coach," Turner said.

But he was smiling as Knight left the room. "I grew a beard and a mustache in the hospital," said Turner, "but he made me shave 'em off." The smile grew wider. "I'm still a part of this team so I've got to stick with the rules."

For a man who is regarded in some circles as having the sensitivity of Attila the Hun, Knight has been magnificent in the Turner case. Although he won't admit it, perhaps for fear of revealing a side of himself that he doesn't like to show, it was mainly because of Turner that Knight decided to stay in coaching and remain at Indiana instead of taking a lucrative color commentator's job offered by CBS. At the time of the accident, Knight was on vacation in Idaho and just about convinced that he should take the money and run. After all, he was 41 and had two NCAA titles, an NIT championship, six Big Ten crowns and the universal respect of his peers. And he was finding it increasingly difficult to psych himself up for the coaching rituals that he had been through so many times.