By Bill Koch
As Gonzaga attempts this weekend to become the first college basketball team since Indiana in 1976 to become an undefeated national champion, I remember another Gonzaga game in the NCAA Tournament.
On March 20, 2003, in Salt Lake City, UC lost to the Zags, 74-69, in a first-round matchup that will forever be remembered by UC fans as the infamous game from which coach Bob Huggins and radio color analyst Chuck Machock both were ejected for arguing with officials.
It had been a difficult season for Huggins, who suffered a massive heart attack three weeks before pre-season practice began. Then, in the middle of January, his mother passed away. The Bearcats were a pedestrian 17-11 as they entered the tournament with a No. 8 seed.
UC trailed the Zags by seven points with 16:17 left in the second half when Huggins was automatically ejected after he received two technical fouls for protesting a travelling call against Jason Maxiell. With Huggins banished to the UC locker room, the Bearcats came back from an 11-point deficit to get within three with 22 seconds remaining only to have guard Tony Bobbitt’s 3-point shot blocked by Gonzaga’s Tony Skinner with 10 seconds to play. The loss ended a streak of eight straight years in which the Bearcats had won at least one NCAA Tournament game.
After he was ejected by official Mike Kitts, Huggins at first refused to exit the court. Assistant coach Andy Kennedy attempted to persuade him to leave, but eventually it fell to athletic director Bob Goin to escort Huggins back to the locker room.
Not long after Huggins was banished, Mahcock was also asked to leave for comments he made to Kitts off the air, and was escorted from the building. Tournament director Steve Pyne said after the game that Kitts “indicated there was some vulgar language directed at him.”
Machock insisted that he hadn’t used profanity, and a writer seated near him on press row backed him up. So did play-by-play announcer Dan Hoard.
“After Huggs got his technicals,” Hoard told me after the game, “Chuck removed his headphones so that he couldn’t be heard on the air and began yelling at Mike Kitts. He did not use any profanity, but did say things along the lines of ‘that was a terrible call.’
“Mike Kitts said, ‘Keep it up and you’re going to be watching the game from outside, too.’ Then Kitts went down to the baseline and Chuck kept it up a little bit. When there was a timeout called, Kitts walked over to the official scorer’s table and told security to kick Chuck out of the game.”
I was seated in the row behind Dan and Chuck and off to the side by a few seats, so I didn’t hear the exchange. When I saw security guards accompanying Chuck away from his seat, I initially had no idea what was going on. As Chuck was being escorted, I heard him say, “What did I do? What did I say?”
I passed Channel 5’s George Vogel after the game on the long ramp that connected the court to the media workroom at the Huntsman Center. George had a big smile on his face.
“Man,” he said, “this is some funny shit.”
After Huggins finished his post-game press conference, I walked with him back down the ramp toward the UC locker room hoping to get something from him that wasn’t available in the press conference.
“It’s been a hard year,” he said, almost in a whisper, “I don’t know how close you were to your mother, but I’m very close to my mother.”
When I had finished filing my stories for the next day’s Enquirer, I drove back to the media hotel, parked my rental car, and walked up the street to the hotel where the Bearcats were staying. I was told that Huggins and Chuck had gone out to dinner. I decided to hang out at the hotel and wait for them to return. I wanted to be the first reporter to get Chuck’s side of what happened.
I waited for an hour or more before I saw them walking back into the hotel. I had known Chuck since he served as Huggins’ volunteer assistant coach when Huggins was hired by UC in 1989, and we had always gotten along well. But this time Chuck was clearly angry when he saw me. When I asked him for a comment, he walked right past me.
Chuck stayed miffed at me for a while, but eventually we became friends again. In time, he was able to joke about his ejection on the air with Dan, who started counting the number of games Chuck had called without getting ejected.
“We turned it into a gag in his first game the next year,” Dan said. “A friend from a local dealership got me an over-the-shoulder seatbelt that I put on Chuck's chair to keep him restrained. Then I ended the broadcast by beginning his running tally of consecutive games without getting ejected. From there, it took off.
“Whenever I would see (long-time network color analyst) Bill Raftery, his first words were, ‘What’s the streak up to?’ ESPN even displayed it graphically on the screen once during the Big East Tournament. It wouldn’t have worked if Chuck wasn’t the absolute best at laughing at himself.”
The streak ended at 446 when Chuck, who was inducted into UC’s James P. Kelly Athletics Hall of Fame in 2016, stopped doing the radio broadcasts in 2017 after 25 years.
Chuck passed away in January 2020. I was among the large crowd that showed up at Fifth Third Arena to celebrate his rich, generous life. Huggins flew in from Morgantown, West Virginia, to be the main speaker, and stole the show as he talked about his special relationship with Chuck. Former UC players, broadcasters, boosters, anybody who had been touched by Chuck, gave moving speeches of their own. Some struggled to get through their comments without tearing up.
I have no doubt that all of them still smile whenever they think of that day 18 years ago when Chuck was ejected. No one knew better than Chuck how tough that year had been on Huggins. He wasn’t about to sit idly by and watch his friend get unjustly tossed (in his mind) from an NCAA Tournament game.
It was no laughing matter at the time. But then The Streak was born, one more story to add to the legend of Chuck Machock.
As Gonzaga attempts this weekend to become the first college basketball team since Indiana in 1976 to become an undefeated national champion, I remember another Gonzaga game in the NCAA Tournament.
On March 20, 2003, in Salt Lake City, UC lost to the Zags, 74-69, in a first-round matchup that will forever be remembered by UC fans as the infamous game from which coach Bob Huggins and radio color analyst Chuck Machock both were ejected for arguing with officials.
It had been a difficult season for Huggins, who suffered a massive heart attack three weeks before pre-season practice began. Then, in the middle of January, his mother passed away. The Bearcats were a pedestrian 17-11 as they entered the tournament with a No. 8 seed.
UC trailed the Zags by seven points with 16:17 left in the second half when Huggins was automatically ejected after he received two technical fouls for protesting a travelling call against Jason Maxiell. With Huggins banished to the UC locker room, the Bearcats came back from an 11-point deficit to get within three with 22 seconds remaining only to have guard Tony Bobbitt’s 3-point shot blocked by Gonzaga’s Tony Skinner with 10 seconds to play. The loss ended a streak of eight straight years in which the Bearcats had won at least one NCAA Tournament game.
After he was ejected by official Mike Kitts, Huggins at first refused to exit the court. Assistant coach Andy Kennedy attempted to persuade him to leave, but eventually it fell to athletic director Bob Goin to escort Huggins back to the locker room.
Not long after Huggins was banished, Mahcock was also asked to leave for comments he made to Kitts off the air, and was escorted from the building. Tournament director Steve Pyne said after the game that Kitts “indicated there was some vulgar language directed at him.”
Machock insisted that he hadn’t used profanity, and a writer seated near him on press row backed him up. So did play-by-play announcer Dan Hoard.
“After Huggs got his technicals,” Hoard told me after the game, “Chuck removed his headphones so that he couldn’t be heard on the air and began yelling at Mike Kitts. He did not use any profanity, but did say things along the lines of ‘that was a terrible call.’
“Mike Kitts said, ‘Keep it up and you’re going to be watching the game from outside, too.’ Then Kitts went down to the baseline and Chuck kept it up a little bit. When there was a timeout called, Kitts walked over to the official scorer’s table and told security to kick Chuck out of the game.”
I was seated in the row behind Dan and Chuck and off to the side by a few seats, so I didn’t hear the exchange. When I saw security guards accompanying Chuck away from his seat, I initially had no idea what was going on. As Chuck was being escorted, I heard him say, “What did I do? What did I say?”
I passed Channel 5’s George Vogel after the game on the long ramp that connected the court to the media workroom at the Huntsman Center. George had a big smile on his face.
“Man,” he said, “this is some funny shit.”
After Huggins finished his post-game press conference, I walked with him back down the ramp toward the UC locker room hoping to get something from him that wasn’t available in the press conference.
“It’s been a hard year,” he said, almost in a whisper, “I don’t know how close you were to your mother, but I’m very close to my mother.”
When I had finished filing my stories for the next day’s Enquirer, I drove back to the media hotel, parked my rental car, and walked up the street to the hotel where the Bearcats were staying. I was told that Huggins and Chuck had gone out to dinner. I decided to hang out at the hotel and wait for them to return. I wanted to be the first reporter to get Chuck’s side of what happened.
I waited for an hour or more before I saw them walking back into the hotel. I had known Chuck since he served as Huggins’ volunteer assistant coach when Huggins was hired by UC in 1989, and we had always gotten along well. But this time Chuck was clearly angry when he saw me. When I asked him for a comment, he walked right past me.
Chuck stayed miffed at me for a while, but eventually we became friends again. In time, he was able to joke about his ejection on the air with Dan, who started counting the number of games Chuck had called without getting ejected.
“We turned it into a gag in his first game the next year,” Dan said. “A friend from a local dealership got me an over-the-shoulder seatbelt that I put on Chuck's chair to keep him restrained. Then I ended the broadcast by beginning his running tally of consecutive games without getting ejected. From there, it took off.
“Whenever I would see (long-time network color analyst) Bill Raftery, his first words were, ‘What’s the streak up to?’ ESPN even displayed it graphically on the screen once during the Big East Tournament. It wouldn’t have worked if Chuck wasn’t the absolute best at laughing at himself.”
The streak ended at 446 when Chuck, who was inducted into UC’s James P. Kelly Athletics Hall of Fame in 2016, stopped doing the radio broadcasts in 2017 after 25 years.
Chuck passed away in January 2020. I was among the large crowd that showed up at Fifth Third Arena to celebrate his rich, generous life. Huggins flew in from Morgantown, West Virginia, to be the main speaker, and stole the show as he talked about his special relationship with Chuck. Former UC players, broadcasters, boosters, anybody who had been touched by Chuck, gave moving speeches of their own. Some struggled to get through their comments without tearing up.
I have no doubt that all of them still smile whenever they think of that day 18 years ago when Chuck was ejected. No one knew better than Chuck how tough that year had been on Huggins. He wasn’t about to sit idly by and watch his friend get unjustly tossed (in his mind) from an NCAA Tournament game.
It was no laughing matter at the time. But then The Streak was born, one more story to add to the legend of Chuck Machock.
These are really fun to read Bill. They bring back great memories. It was the one good thing about the Year of Covid.
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