The scene: Tom Crean wanders Indiana in a rental car. He’s wasting no time looking for hotshots shooting at ramshackle hoops affixed to weathered barns with gaudy Indiana University logos. His cell phone rings. It’s his old friend, Kelvin Sampson.

TOM CREAN: Hey, buddy, I guess you heard the news.
KELVIN SAMPSON: Yeah, I did. I can’t believe you’re taking that job. I was hoping no one would take it and they’d have to break down and ask Coach Knight to come back — after they fired that prick Greenspan.
TC: I’m somewhere near Warsaw — Indiana, not Poland. The service is bad — Kelvin? You’re breaking up.
KS: (unintelligible)
TC: Kelvin?
KS: *(%^($@^))%$^
TC: Kelvin?
KS: Tom? Can you hear me now?
TC: Yeah, that’s better.
KS: I thought we were friends.
TC: It’s the candy-striped warm-ups, man. How could I turn that down?
KS: You can’t recruit anymore. That’s why we had to join the modern world and bend the rules. We only did what everyone else is doing.
TC:  I know, but …
KS: Greenspan’s spineless. He hired me, then he threw me under the team bus.
TC: I like a challenge. And, sorry to say, I think I might go over better in Hoosier country. Old habits die hard.
KS: Yeah … Hey, when I Googled your name, I got a bunch of hits on some Irish explorer. He was part of the British expedition that was in a race to the South Pole.
TC: And?
KS: They lost. To the Norwegians. That’s why Roald Amundsen’s more famous.
TC: Your point?
KS: *(%^($@^))%$^
TC: Kelvin?
KS: ^*(Z&^(*#(*^_*&##&^%^$
TC: Kelvin? Hey, drop me a note. May I suggest snail mail?