Bob Knight dies at 83: Legendary Indiana basketball coach guided Hoosiers to a few nationwide championships

One of many best basketball coaches in historical past has died. Bob Knight, the teaching baron who lifted the Indiana Hoosiers to immortality on his method to changing into some of the well-known — and controversial — coaches in American sports activities throughout the Nineteen Seventies, ’80s and ’90s, is gone. His demise was introduced by his household’s group on Wednesday, six days after Knight turned 83.

Knight died the place he lived out his closing years, the place his legacy will perpetually loom largest: Bloomington, Indiana. The Hoosiers had been underneath Knight’s command for 29 seasons from 1971 to 2000. He elevated Indiana to blue blood standing in males’s school basketball with the Hoosiers changing into essentially the most constantly profitable program within the Massive Ten.

Knight retired from teaching in 2008. When he stepped away, his 902 wins had been most all-time in males’s school basketball. He now sits sixth all time in males’s Division I historical past. Knight coached IU to nationwide championships in 1976, 1981 and 1987. Practically 50 years later, his 1975-76 Indiana group remains to be the final Division I males’s group to go undefeated. The season earlier than that, Indiana completed 31-1 and misplaced within the Elite Eight to Kentucky. Knight stated it was that group, not the undefeated one, that he thought was his finest total. He additionally guided IU to Ultimate Fours in 1973 and 1992.

Knight gained nationwide coach of the yr awards in 1975, 1976, 1987 and 1989; he was an eight-time Massive Ten Coach of the Yr. In 1991, Knight was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Corridor of Fame. The next season, Indiana took its final Ultimate 4 journey underneath Knight.

Knight’s movement offense was a revolutionary idea when he introduced it to Indiana within the Nineteen Seventies. It influenced a era of coaches who adopted in his footsteps. Although not practically as well-liked because it was in within the Eighties and Nineteen Nineties, it’s nonetheless utilized by some coaches immediately. 

He developed the nickname “The Common” each resulting from his time at Military and due to his no-nonsense, authoritative teaching model. Knight carved out nearly all of his legacy whereas at Indiana, which included contempt and counterblast when he was fired in 2000 by IU athletic director Myles Model after placing a pupil. 

The strict taskmaster was placed on a zero-tolerance warning in 2000 after a video from a 1997 Indiana observe aired on CNN. It appeared to indicate Knight choking former participant Neil Reed. Months later, Knight’s destiny was sealed when he allegedly grabbed IU pupil Kent Harvey, who had approached him and purportedly stated, “Hey, Knight, what’s up?” Knight refused to resign when requested by Model, and he was then dismissed.

The firing prompted waves of intense backlash round Bloomington. Indiana followers and college students protested for days on campus. Knight’s firing made nationwide information and created a rift in this system that lasted for practically 20 years. Knight went on “The Dan Patrick Present” in 2017 and stated of anybody affiliated together with his firing, “I hope they’re all lifeless.”

“I believe I’ve at all times actually loved the followers. I at all times will,” Knight stated throughout that interview. “On my dying day, I’ll take into consideration how nice the followers at Indiana had been. And so far as the hierarchy at Indiana College at the moment, I’ve completely no respect in any respect for these folks. With that in thoughts, I’ve little interest in ever going again to that college.”

However he did return. On Feb. 8, 2020, Knight returned to Meeting Corridor to be honored. It was his first look at a Hoosiers basketball occasion in 20 years — a momentous event, contemplating the 20 years of unwell will from Knight’s aspect that preceded the reunion.

Within the closing years of his life, as his well being waned, Knight warmed to this system. The mending was aided by the truth that one in all his former gamers, Mike Woodson, was employed as Indiana’s coach. Through the 2022-23 season, Knight made the brief journey from his dwelling to Indiana observe a number of occasions per thirty days to look at Woodson tutor his group. Quietly, and with out looking for consideration for it, Knight selected to embrace the place that introduced him to glory and the forefront of American sports activities.

Wanting again on Knight’s legacy

Robert Montgomery Knight was born Oct. 25, 1940, in Massillon, Ohio. His first brush with greatness in school basketball got here the place he performed: Ohio State. As a teammate of future Naismith Corridor of Famers Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek, Knight was a part of the 1959-60 OSU group that gained a nationwide championship. He performed on Ultimate 4 groups in 1961 and 1962. Inside three years of graduating from Ohio State, Knight received the top teaching gig at Military, the place he led this system for six seasons and established his magisterial streak.

It was at Military in 1966 that he met and mentored the person who would, 45 years later, surpass Knight on the all-time wins checklist: Mike Krzyzewski. 

Knight and Krzyzewski had no-nonsense attributes to their teaching personas that can join them perpetually. Many chapters within the story of school basketball are linked to these two males, with eight nationwide titles and greater than 2,000 wins to their title. In 1992, Krzyzewski’s Duke group beat Knight and Indiana within the Ultimate 4 on its method to a second straight nationwide championship. It grew to become an ungainly plot twist for instructor and pupil, one which impacted their relationship. 

For Krzyzewski, Knight’s affect was by no means removed from his basketball philosophies. 

“We misplaced one of many best coaches within the historical past of basketball immediately,” Krzyzewski stated Wednesday. “Clearly, he was one in all a sort. Coach Knight recruited me, mentored me and had a profound influence on my profession and in my life. This can be a large loss for our sport, and our household is deeply saddened by his passing. We provide our sincerest condolences to Karen, Tim, Pat and their households throughout this tough time.”

In Indiana, basketball meant extra there than possibly wherever else. That was true earlier than Knight arrived in 1971, however on his method to successful three nationwide titles, IU hoops grew to become a spiritual expertise for therefore many within the Hoosier State. Knight was their god, and he knew it.

Knight used fire-and-brimstone techniques to will Indiana to top-tier standing within the sport. For this, he grew to become beloved in Indiana and hated in lots of different locations. He was confrontational and smug, usually chiding the media — be it with real scorn or by way of droll sarcasm. His reel of memorable press convention quotes and antics is so long as possibly another coach in historical past. Of print media, he as soon as proudly stated, “All of us be taught to put in writing within the second grade … most of us go on to larger issues.”

Knight was by no means removed from controversy. He was accused of assault in opposition to a Puerto Rican police officer in 1979. In 1988, he made abhorrent feedback about rape to NBC Information journalist Connie Chung. Many different incidents peppered his profession and made him some of the polarizing coaches in American sports activities historical past.

He was cussed, no query. That stubbornness can also be what introduced him to the apex of his occupation. It is what led him to be regarded by some as the best school basketball coach ever; it may be argued no males’s coach ever gained extra with much less. For the gamers who selected to remain and play for him, many swore by his model, even when some hated the method as they made their means by way of school. Knight additionally prided his near-100% monitor document of graduating Indiana student-athletes. To Knight, exhibiting up for sophistication was simply as necessary as exhibiting up for basketball observe, if no more so.

Difficult as he was, Knight was outspoken about how he abhorred dishonest. Even amid the sagas he spurred with his legendary mood and oft-unchecked conduct, Indiana males’s basketball underneath his watch was by no means within the NCAA’s crosshairs for wrongdoing. 

To play for Bob Knight was to be referred to as one of many toughest-minded gamers within the sport. As is the case with most nice coaches, his groups had been a mirrored image of his persona, his clashing ethics and sometimes-brutish behavioral tendencies. He demanded his gamers comport themselves with excessive character, but this was a person who was fast to be purple to the face and immediately able to hurling a chair, mid-game, throughout the ground of Meeting Corridor. 

Over three many years, Indiana watched legends emerge underneath Knight — Kent Benson, Quinn Bucker, Scott Might, Isiah Thomas, Calbert Cheaney, Steve Alford — however a portion of Knight’s legacy as an elite, all-time coach is tied to how he recruited and developed athletes who weren’t sure-fire future NBA gamers. Thomas was the one participant he coached who went on to be an NBA All-Star.

And nonetheless, Knight knew greatness when he noticed it. 

In 1984, Knight coached Staff USA within the Olympics the place a gaggle that featured Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin and Wayman Tisdale gained the gold medal in Los Angeles. Knight is one in all three coaches to win an NCAA championship, an NIT championship and an Olympic gold medal.

His legendary fame as a coach included a pointy scout’s eye. As he coached a younger core of immensely gifted gamers at these Olympics, Knight recognized Jordan’s athleticism, competitiveness and all-around basketball skill as probably the greatest he’d ever seen. 

Jordan had but to play a recreation within the NBA.

The ultimate stage of Knight’s teaching profession lasted from 2001-08 when he coached Texas Tech. He took this system to the NCAA Event 4 occasions in seven seasons, lifting the Purple Raiders from school hoops dormancy. Upon his retirement, Knight segued from teaching to broadcasting, serving as a coloration commentator at ESPN from 2008-15. 

The definitive profile on Knight as a coach — and as a human guided by every thing from large motivations to minor slights — was written in 1981 by legendary Sports activities Illustrated author Frank DeFord. In “The Rabbit Hunter,” DeFord poignantly encapsulated what made Knight tick, what drove him, and the behaviors that foreshadowed his downfall at Indiana practically 20 years later. It is thought-about one of many best items of sportswriting within the historical past of the shape. Knight was a topic befitting of the accolade.

Knight was a person and coach from one other period. He won’t ever be duplicated, and the explanations for which are a lot. He set a mildew for teaching that may’t be carried out immediately, for apparent causes.

He constructed up a legacy that can stay perpetually in Indiana and in school basketball. To some coaches, he’s nonetheless essentially the most gifted basketball thoughts to storm up and down a sideline or whistle and scold his means by way of a observe. His convictions might seemingly maintain the temperature of lava, and his intimidating techniques left an imprint on the school recreation that can by no means be forgotten. 

Bob Knight validated Indiana Hoosiers basketball for many years and lifted his sport’s reputation in a means few different legends can declare. Because it at all times was with Knight, his enduring legacy stays as controversial because it was plain.