Bob Knight dies at 83: Legendary Indiana basketball coach guided Hoosiers to 3 nationwide championships

One of many biggest 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 one of the well-known — and controversial — coaches in American sports activities throughout the Nineteen Seventies, ’80s and ’90s, is gone. His dying was introduced by his household’s group on Wednesday, six days after Knight turned 83.

Knight died the place he lived out his remaining years, the place his legacy will eternally loom largest: Bloomington, Indiana. The Hoosiers have been beneath Knight’s command for 29 seasons from 1971 to 2000. He elevated Indiana to blue blood standing in males’s faculty 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 have been most all-time in males’s faculty 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 workforce remains to be the final Division I males’s workforce 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 workforce, not the undefeated one, that he thought was his greatest general. He additionally guided IU to Remaining 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 Remaining 4 journey beneath Knight.

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

He developed the nickname “The Normal” each resulting from his time at Military and due to his no-nonsense, authoritative teaching model. Knight carved out the vast majority of his legacy whereas at Indiana, which included contempt and counterblast when he was fired in 2000 by IU president Myles Model after putting 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 useless.”

“I feel 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 have been. And so far as the hierarchy at Indiana College at the moment, I’ve completely no respect by any means for these folks. With that in thoughts, I’ve no real 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 in poor health 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 among 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 instances monthly to look at Woodson tutor his workforce. Quietly, and with out searching for consideration for it, Knight selected to embrace the place that introduced him to glory and the forefront of American sports activities.

Trying again on Knight’s legacy

Robert Montgomery Knight was born Oct. 25, 1940, in Massillon, Ohio. His first brush with greatness in faculty 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 workforce that gained a nationwide championship. He performed on Remaining 4 groups in 1961 and 1962. Inside three years of graduating from Ohio State, Knight bought 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 listing: Mike Krzyzewski. 

Knight and Krzyzewski had no-nonsense attributes to their teaching personas that may join them eternally. Many chapters within the story of school basketball are related to these two males, with eight nationwide titles and greater than 2,000 wins to their title. In 1992, Krzyzewski’s Duke workforce beat Knight and Indiana within the Remaining 4 on its method to a second straight nationwide championship. It turned 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 biggest coaches within the historical past of basketball in the present day,” Krzyzewski stated Wednesday. “Clearly, he was one among a sort. Coach Knight recruited me, mentored me and had a profound influence on my profession and in my life. This can be a super 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 perhaps anyplace else. That was true earlier than Knight arrived in 1971, however on his method to successful three nationwide titles, IU hoops turned a spiritual expertise for therefore many within the Hoosier State. Knight was their god, and he knew it.

Knight used fire-and-brimstone ways to will Indiana to top-tier standing within the sport. For this, he turned beloved in Indiana and hated in lots of different locations. He was confrontational and boastful, typically chiding the media — be it with real scorn or by means of droll sarcasm. His reel of memorable press convention quotes and antics is so long as perhaps some other coach in historical past. Of print media, he as soon as proudly stated, “All of us study to write down 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 towards a Puerto Rican police officer in 1979. In 1988, he made abhorrent comments about rape to NBC Information journalist Connie Chung. Many different incidents peppered his profession and made him one of the polarizing coaches in American sports activities historical past.

He was cussed, no query. That stubbornness can be what introduced him to the apex of his career. It is what led him to be regarded by some as the best faculty 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 approach by means of faculty. Knight additionally prided his near-100% monitor document of graduating Indiana student-athletes. To Knight, displaying up for sophistication was simply as necessary as displaying up for basketball observe, if no more so.

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

To play for Bob Knight was to be often called one of many toughest-minded gamers within the sport. As is the case with most nice coaches, his groups have been a mirrored image of his character, 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 crimson to the face and immediately able to hurling a chair, mid-game, across the floor of Assembly Hall. 

Over three many years, Indiana watched legends emerge beneath 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 Workforce USA within the Olympics the place a bunch that featured Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin and Wayman Tisdale gained the gold medal in Los Angeles. Knight is one among 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 capacity as among the finest 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 instances in seven seasons, lifting the Crimson Raiders from faculty hoops dormancy. Upon his retirement, Knight segued from teaching to broadcasting, serving as a colour commentator at ESPN from 2008-15. 

The definitive profile on Knight as a coach — and as a human guided by the whole lot from huge 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 of one of many biggest 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 can be lots. He set a mould for teaching that may’t be finished in the present day, for apparent causes.

He constructed up a legacy that may reside eternally in Indiana and in faculty 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 approach by means of a observe. His convictions may seemingly maintain the temperature of lava, and his intimidating ways left an imprint on the faculty recreation that may by no means be forgotten. 

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