ALICE TOWN, BIMINI, The Bahamas -
While 68 Men’s
Division I teams compete for the NCAA title this month in a
coast-to-coast tournament known as March Madness, legendary college
coach and Basketball Hall of Famer Bob Knight will be chasing grey
ghosts off the Bimini flats with former Ohio State teammate John
Havlicek and top-notch angler Stu Apte courtesy of the Bimini Big Game
Club Resort & Marine and Horizon Hotel Group.
It was
the Bob Knight led Indiana Hoosiers squad in 1976 that finished the
season undefeated with an NCAA Men Division I basketball
championship—the last team to accomplish the feat some 39 years ago.
Top seeded Kentucky will challenge that record as they head into the
2015 tournament undefeated.
Coach Knight, who won three
NCAA men’s Division Basketball Titles at Indiana University, is one of
college basketball’s most successful coaches amassing 902 Division I
wins over a 43-year career.
This Friday, Saturday and
Sunday, Bob Knight will be fishing out of the historic Bimini Big Game
Club Resort & Marina (www.biggameclubbimini.com ), which overlooks
flats abundant with bonefish (know as grey ghosts for their
elusiveness), and will be catching up on tournament play in the evening
with his long-time friend John Havlicek, who helped lead a powerful Ohio
State team to three NCAA Men’s Division I finals in the early 1960s.
Havlicek,
nicknamed “Hondo”, went onto a storied Hall of Fame career with the
Boston Celtics with 8 NBA World Championships to his credit.
A
few years before Havlicek and Knight met at Ohio State, Stu Apte was
flying F9F Panther Jets as a Navy fighter pilot during the Korean War.
Already an avid fly fisherman, Apte went on to build a reputation as a
top guide. His career as a top-notch angler blossomed, as his Stu Apte
Tarpon Fly and Stu Apte Improved Blood Knot have become standards. A
frequent guest and co-host on several broadcast and nationally
syndicated fishing shows including ABC’s Wide World of Sports and
American
Sportsman, Apte is a member of the Fishing Hall of Fame, IGFA Hall of
Fame, holder of more than 44 world records and a recipient of the
prestigious Ted Williams Award.
It was during American
Sportsman show that Apte shared the camera with the rangy, 6’5”
Havlicek, who was an accomplished and avid fisherman. He has fished in
Alaska, The Northwest Territories and appeared on the American Sportsman
with Apte fishing for sailfish in Panama.
As for Knight,
his ability to remain highly focused and dialed into the game on the
floor, has made him an exceptional fly fisherman on the water.
As
he related to writer John Frazier in Fly Life Magazine: “You know if a
kid is going to do what you’ve told him to do, and actually, I’ve had
flies that have reacted better to my instructions over the years than a
lot of the players I’ve had, so maybe I’m better at fly-fishing than
coaching.”
In 1971 a Virginia Beach sportsman named Jerry
Lavenstein and local Bimini bonefish guide Ansil Saunders headed out on
the Bimini mud flats to cast heir luck and hope for a trophy catch.
Lavenstein
and Saunders gained immorality that day with a record catch, a
16-pound, 3-ounce monster bonefish, caught just 300 yards from the Big
Game Club. It’s a record that still stands along with other standing
bonefish records in and around Bimini.
For Apte, whose
largest bonefish catch weighed in at 15 pounds, will be fishing again
with Hondo Havlicek and a chance to chase grey ghosts with Bob Knight on
Bimini’s flats is pure adrenaline.
“It should be
memorable,” he said. “We will be with some of the top guides in the
business and I’m looking forward to being back out on the Bimini flats
for some great bonefish and permit fishing.”
Management
Company for the Bimini Big Game Club Resort & Marina is Horizon
Hotel Group www.horizonhotelgroup.com. Owners of the resort are the
Southern California-based Hankey Group of Companies, a privately held
financial services, real estate and insurance organization.
