Bob Knight (official thread)

[osugrad21]

Dispatch

Knight calls it a career
Legendary coach quits at Texas Tech; son will take over
Tuesday, February 5, 2008 3:15 AM



Associated Press
Tony Gutierrez Associated Press
A succession plan has been in place since 2005 for Pat Knight to take over the coaching duties at Texas Tech from his father.




LUBBOCK, Texas -- Bob Knight left when he wanted to this time. Almost a decade after he was fired by Indiana, the school he led to three national championships, Knight walked away last night from college basketball.
The Texas Tech coach, known as much for his brilliance as his fiery temper, abruptly resigned and handed over the team to his son.
"He's ready," successor and son Pat Knight said during his weekly radio show. "He's tired."
It was a stunning midseason move by the winningest men's coach in major college basketball, who gave no hint a change was coming. Pat Knight, a Red Raiders assistant, was appointed his father's successor in 2005.



Cont...

[osugrad21]

Dispatch

Bob Hunter commentary: Knight still packs a punch, even heading into retirement

Tuesday, February 5, 2008 3:14 AM
By Bob Hunter


THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
1996 FILE PHOTO
Throughout his coaching career, Bob Knight didn't see eye to eye with quite a few people.



Bob Knight's resignation as Texas Tech basketball coach triggered a flood of memories: brittle memories from the days when he was the ornery and almost-unbeatable Indiana coach. It's ironic that Knight would retire during the week of an Indiana-Ohio State game because he made the rivalry what it was. OSU fans were crazy to beat him and seldom did. Throughout the 1970s and '80s, the Buckeyes were always good, and because of Knight, usually not good enough. Knight's success, combined with his petulant behavior and his status as an OSU graduate, could be maddening to those on the Ohio State side.
He was as egotistical as he was brilliant, as funny as he was nasty, which is saying a lot. My mind conjures memories of a visit to his house with then- Dispatch sports editor Dick Otte, who covered Knight when he played basketball at Ohio State and counted him among his close friends. Knight was having some kind of party and showing a tape of the most recent Bob Knight Show on his VCR. He wanted everyone to see how he had dressed up a donkey in a Purdue blanket, introduced it as the Purdue athletic director and proceeded to ask it a series of embarrassing questions. The Big Ten didn't like that. Knight didn't care.



Cont...

[osugrad21]

Dispatch

Knight snapshot

Tuesday, February 5, 2008 3:13 AM




? Winningest men's coach in NCAA Division I history with 902 victories in 42 seasons ? Went 662-239 (.735) in 29 seasons as coach at Indiana, with three national championships (1976, 1981, 1987) and 11 Big Ten titles
? Coached last undefeated men's team in NCAA Division I (1976, 32-0 at Indiana)
? Was in seventh season at Texas Tech. Went 138-82 overall, 12-8 this season
? Coached six seasons at Army (1965 to 1971), went 102-50

[coastalbuck]

I just hope that this was on his terms, the man deserves to go out like he wants to. Hopefully, that is the case.

[BuckeyeFlorida]

Originally Posted by 'BusNative

A buddy of mine very close to the TT program sent me an email saying the retirement is best for everyone involved

Care to elaborate? Perhaps in the RM?

['BusNative]

Originally Posted by BuckeyeFlorida

Care to elaborate? Perhaps in the RM?

Unfortunately, he didn't elaborate, and I didn't press the issue. His family is very close to the TT athletic department, and I'm sensitive to that fact.

[sandgk]

Originally Posted by 'BusNative

Unfortunately, he didn't elaborate, and I didn't press the issue. His family is very close to the TT athletic department, and I'm sensitive to that fact.

Thus simultaneously puting to rest any unfounded rumors that 'BusNative was actually BuckCrazy!

[zincfinger]

Bobby Knight Golf Outtakes

[Ttown]

I had the opportunity to be out today and ESPN radio did nothing but slam Bobby for hours.
" His legacy will be bad"
" Bobby was a hypocrite"
They never said one good thing about Bobby.

[coastalbuck]

Originally Posted by BucyrusBuckeye

I had the opportunity to be out today and ESPN radio did nothing but slam Bobby for hours.
" His legacy will be bad"
" Bobby was a hypocrite"
They never said one good thing about Bobby.

It is Espin, so, take it with a grain or twenty of salt....

[WoodyWorshiper]

College Basketball just won't be the same without Coach Knight.

The wins speak for themself. The guy, to me, was Coach Hayes on the hardwood. Maybe everything wasn't as everyone would like them to be. Garbage from the media and outside sources [censored]ed off Coach Hayes and they did the same with Coach Knight.

Leave the guy alone, let him Coach and mold his players, let him be a father figure to them and watch them graduate and become something in life other than Professional Athletes, and then years later listen to the players talk about what a great influence he was on them becoming "men." That pretty much sums up the legacy of Coach Hayes and Coach Knight.

And, by the way, Coach Knight is by FAR the greatest interview in the history of sports.

Peace.

[osugrad21]

DDN

Tom Archdeacon: Much more to Knight than a harsh image


By Tom Archdeacon
Staff Writer

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Here's a Bob Knight story:
It was a January game in 1992 ? my first trip to Assembly Hall since I'd moved back up here from my sportswriting days in Florida ? and I was in for a surprise.
I'd ridden over to Bloomington, Ind., for the game between Ohio State and Knight's Indiana Hoosiers with fellow sportswriter Marc Katz.
When we picked up our passes, Marc got his on press row. Mine had no seat number, just "Southeast Corner" written on it.
The usher pointed me to the top of the arena, where ? behind a four-foot wall ? I found a lone metal chair with my name on it.
I had to stand to see the court and fans teased me about having really ticked somebody off. Then it dawned on me. Just before I'd left Miami, I'd written a column taking Knight to task for what he'd said about Puerto Ricans ? " ... The only thing they know how to do is grow bananas," ? in Sports Illustrated.



Cont...

[Steve19]

A very balanced and well-written article about Knight's retirement:

si.com

Doing it his way

Iconic Knight fulfills wish of going out on own terms


Bob Knight always assured me that he wouldn't go out like Woody Hayes, the iconic Ohio State football coach who imploded on national TV during the 1978 Gator Bowl. Late in the game, Clemson linebacker Charlie Baumann intercepted a Buckeye pass and was tackled on the Ohio State sideline. Hayes punched Baumann in the neck when he got up, and the officials kicked Hayes out of the game. A few days later he was fired by the university where he had won three national championships.

Knight got to know Hayes during his undergraduate days at Ohio State from 1958-62, and, the truth be told, he derived a lot more of his coaching personality and style from Hayes than he did from his basketball coach, Fred Taylor. Even then, Knight knew that coaching would be his destiny, so he often picked Hayes' brains and attended his practices.

He liked the way Hayes emphasized academics, made friends with faculty members, and avidly studied military history. He also noted that like Ted Williams, his baseball idol, Hayes had little use for the media and sometimes allowed his passion for winning to boil over into confrontations with officials, fellow coaches, and fans.

I once asked Knight -- it might have been after the infamous chair-tossing incident in the early 1980s -- if he ever worried that he would pull a Woody.

"No," he said. "It'll never happen. I'm always in a lot more control than I might look. I know what I'm doing. I'm going to go out under my own terms."

And so he did.
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[continues]
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Unfortunately for Knight, he'll be remembered more for his displays of temper than for his commitment to academics and abiding by the NCAA rules. But all that aside, he was a coaching giant. He revolutionized Big Ten basketball with his emphasis on man-to-man defense, and today almost every major college team in America plays a variation of the motion offense that Knight learned from Newell, Henry Iba, and others.

When Hayes was fired at Ohio State, he said, "Nobody despises to lose more than I do. That's got me into trouble over the years, but it also made a man of mediocre ability into a pretty good coach."

That could fit Knight as well as Hayes, except for this: Neither was a made of mediocre ability. Like Hayes, Knight had a passion for his sport that burned deeply within, often to his detriment.

"Hell, Billy," he once told me, "you have to understand that I can't be what you want me to be. I have to be what I want me to be."

And to the end, for better or worse, he was.

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Dispatch

Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (tnawrestling.com) says it is offering its first-ever coaching job to Bob Knight, who resigned this week as Texas Tech basketball coach.
Jeff Jarrett, co-founder of the program that appears on pay-per-view, says TNA has a lighter schedule than college basketball, which should appeal to the fiery former Indiana coach. He said TNA not only endorses chair-throwing but has an endless supply of steel chairs.

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

Dispatch

February 8, 2008

Good Knight

Belatedly, coach Thad Matta was asked during a session with the media today his thoughts on Bob Knight?s exit from the coaching profession. Matta said he hated to see him leave.
?From the time I was born, he was coaching,? said Matta, who is 40. ?I just think he?s been tremendous for the game of basketball. Without a doubt . . . he is the best.?
Knight won a NCAA-record 902 games in his career but was 0-1 against Matta. Ohio State beat Texas Tech 77-71 in Dallas in Matta?s first season as Buckeyes coach.
Matta said after that game, in December 2004, that he never wanted to coach against Knight again. Matta had been hired by Ohio State only five months earlier, after a monthlong search during which Knight tried unsuccessfully to pressure his alma mater into hiring him.
?You think about the timing of that deal . . . and all the stuff that went into it about him possibly coming here,? Matta said. ?Here I am. I almost felt bad in some ways.?
But it did not stop Matta from trying to contact Knight before the Buckeyes played in the Final Four last year.
?I tried in Atlanta to get him in to speak to our team,? Matta said. ?He had won a national championship for Ohio State and had won three of them as a head coach (at Indiana). I would have loved the opportunity for him to have spoken to the team.?
But it never came to pass.
?He was fishing,? Matta said.
Bill Hosket also was in the Schottenstein Center today to speak to the media about Ohio State?s 1968 Final Four team, for which he played, being honored before Sunday?s game against Indiana. He also weighed in on Knight.
Hosket played for Fred Taylor, who also coached Knight at Ohio State, and was friendly with Knight. They spoke last fall, and Hosket said he was not surprised by the resignation.
?John Havlicek and I were talking on the phone a month ago and John was just kind of wondering out loud, `I wonder why he keeps doing this??? Hosket said.
?You could tell it wasn?t the same Bob Knight as it has been in the past. This business is tough enough, and if you don?t have 100 percent passion for it, it could really get difficult.
I thought for sure it was going to happen at the end of the year.?
What initially was reported as a retirement has since been reclassified a resignation after Knight told ESPN?s Jay Bilas that he would consider coaching again if it was the right situation.
Hosket said he would be surprised ?but not shocked? if Knight coaches again.
?He has to be a little bit frustrated not going out (on top). Everybody wants to ride out on a white horse and win that last one," Hosket said. "For someone who had so much winning in his career, he doesn?t need that anymore. But everyone likes to end it on a high note, and it?s the toughest profession in the world to do that.?