BREAKING NEWS: Mike Woodson Changes His Mind, Quits as Indiana Coach (AF)

Dateline BLOOMINGTON, Ind. (April 1, 2021, 8 a.m. ET) – The feel-good Coming2Bloomington story of Mike Woodson returning to his alma mater at Indiana as its new basketball coach came to an abrupt ending on Thursday morning when the legendary former Hoosiers star told Sports Illustrated Indiana that he was quitting. (AF)

Woodson, a great player at Indiana from 1976-1980, played 11 years in the NBA and coached another 25. He was living in New York City – the most famous city in the world – and decided to move to little ol' Bloomington on Monday when he was offered the job by current athletic director and former IU towel boy Scott Dolson. (AF)

"I kept thinking every morning and every night that I was moving from New York City to Bloomington, and that just started to blow my mind,'' Woodson said. In New York, "anything I wanted was a phone call away. Right after I got here I ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and got egg noodles with ketchup. I'm an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook." (AF) *(Footnote, quotes courtesy of Henry Hill, "Goodfellas'')

Woodson is 63 years old. He grew up in inner-city Indianapolis and then spent four years in Bloomington as a great player for Bob Knight. But from there he lived in New York, Sacramento, Los Angeles, Houston, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Cleveland again, Philadelphia, Detroit, Atlanta, New York again, Los Angeles again, and New York a third time. (AF)

Big cities, big fun. And there's there's this little Southern Indiana place, population 84,000 if all the students weren't denied admission to campus because of COVID. (AF)

Woodson said he hasn't been well-received since he got to Bloomington, because a lot of fans who are Hall of Fame coaches from their mom's basement wanted a young, flashy successful college coach instead instead of an old man who's never once coached a college game. They couldn't understand why Indiana athletic director Scott "Cletus" Dolson hired him in the first place. (AF)

Woodson said, "One dude in overalls said, 'I don’t know why Cletus drug your tired old bones in here, he must of owed you something fierce. Fact is, mister, you start screwing up this team, I’ll personally hide-strap your ass to a pine rail and send you up the Monon Line!' '' (AF) *(Footnote, quotes courtesy of George Walker, "Hoosiers'')

Woodson said he couldn't figure out the media situation here in Indiana, either, when he went out to "get the papers, get the papers.'' (AF) (Footnote, "Goodfellas"

"There's like 40 people on the conference call at my first press conference, so I asked my assistant to go out and pick up all the newspapers around the state so I could read them all. She got papers from Bloomington, Indianapolis, South Bend, Lafayette, Muncie, Evansville, Richmond, Martinsville, Bedford, French Lick, Paoli, Spencer and Clay City – and it was THE SAME STORY in every paper.'' (AF) (Editor's Note: Sadly, that is not made up.)

Woodson said that he drove over to Bob Knight's house and sat down for a visit. He doesn't understand why all sorts of people in Bloomington were asking if Coach Knight threw him a chair. "That's like the oldest, most stale joke in Indiana basketball history,'' Woodson said. "It wasn't funny 35 years ago, and it's sure not funny now.'' (AF) (Sadly, that's true, too.) (AF) 

Woodson said he met with Indiana's current players players, but he couldn't understand why Trey Galloway had his pants tucked into his socks, why Khristian Lander had a man-bun and not a bald head and goatee like Woody rocks, why Joey Brunk's back was worse than his and why Trayce Jackson-Davis shook hands with him using his left hand. (AF) (Sorry, TJD, just had to do it.)

He met with all his new players out in the lobby at Assembly Hall, out by all the statues. He wondered why he didn't have a statue himself. "I scored 2,000 damn points and won Big Ten Player of the Year when I only played six games!!!!'' (AF) (Actually, that's true too, amazingly.)

Woodson also wondered why there was no statue of his coach, Bob Knight, who won three titles in the building. "If I was going to stay, that would be the first thing I'd fix,'' Woodson said. (AF) (We all concur on that one.)

Woodson said that after everyone listened to his silky smooth voice during all his press conferences that he got all sorts of requests from people asking him to record voicemail message for them, or recording jingles for their Tik-Tok videos – ''but I didn't know what that was,'' Woodson said. (AF).

The folks over at The Bluebird, Bloomington's coolest music place when live music is allowed, asked him to come over and play the sax for a while and just read lyrics. ''His voice is so cool,'' the Bluebird guys said, ''that we could probably sell out the place even if he was just reading the phone book.'' (AF) For you young people, a phone book is a large printed object that has names and phone numbers in it of everyone who lives in your town. There was a time when "Siri, call Lindsey's cell'' actually didn't work.

With all that, the silky smooth Woodson decided to use those dulcet tones to record audio versions of bedtime stories instead of coaching basketball, hence the announcement today on April 1. That soft, soothing voice "will make millions,'' some slick NYC record producer said. (AF) (Yea, youngsters, a music record is ...oh, never mind. You know what they are, now that vinyl is back.)

And if you're wondering what all these (AF) symbols are after every headline and paragraph, it stands for ... APRIL FOOLS!!!!

Mike Woodson and those dulcet tones aren't going anywhere, baby. He'll find good Italian food in Bloomington, he'll get that Bob Knight statue built, he'll win a lot of games and he will teach Trayce Jackson-Davis how to shake — and bake – with that right hand.

Mike Woodson is going to be great in Bloomington. I really needed a laugh early this morning, and I hope you got one, too.