The date is February 23rd, 1985. Imagine yourself as a journalism student covering the game of the year: Indiana University playing against their longtime rival, Purdue. That's exactly what Anthony Anderson was doing on this day 30 years ago in Assembly Hall.

"It's hard to remember the exact specifics," Anderson said, "but IU was down and Knight had been visibly flustered all day by the officiating." It was no secret that Knight was not a man who hid his emotions, nor one to refrain from getting upset. Anderson added, "Knight despised losing to Purdue -- not that he liked losing to anybody."

Then it happened.

The one action that would go down in basketball history. The one action that I would be writing about 30 years in the future. Bobby Knight picked up that piece of plastic and hurled it onto the court.

"The crowd went ballistic," Anderson said. "There was this sense of both 'I can't believe he did that' and a sense of 'I knew he'd do something like that' going on all day long."

After all, hindsight is 20/20.

As a journalism student, Anderson knew he had a job to do. "I thought, 'Wow, I've got a lot of work to do well into the night now.' The game became secondary. Trying to get a reaction from IU's athletic director and president became primary."

Although some might say the chair throw changed IUBB for good, Anderson does not believe this is true. "I don't think the chair throw had any long-term negative effect on the program," Anderson said. He continued to share how it did change the mentality of Bloomington, however. "The biggest impact was a bunch of furniture sales around Indiana proclaiming something like 'Bob Knight Special: Buy a couch and we'll throw in a chair.' "

In terms of this action changing the way he views Knight, Anderson says he could never see Knight based upon one action. "There are just too many events, bad and good," Anderson said.

He believes Knight is a legend, and not just because he single-handedly shook up the atmosphere of college basketball. "I think more about the fact that he is the most polarizing figure I've ever covered," Anderson said (and he has covered many figures in his career as a sports journalist). "I also think about the fact that he was a basketball genius, could be as funny as any human being I've come across and did more for IU behind the scenes than will probably ever be fully known."

Take it from the man who was there: It was insane, yes, but Knight was a great leader, an incredible coach and a basketball genius. Today, on the 31st anniversary of the chair throwing, we celebrate him and all his crazy antics.

Happy Bobby Knight Day to all, and to all a good night.