Bobby KnightEssay Preview: Bobby KnightReport this essayRobert Montgomery “Bobby” Knight (born October 25, 1940 in Massillon, Ohio) is the head mens basketball coach at Texas Tech University. He previously held the same position at Indiana University and the United States Military Academy. Knight is one of NCAA Division I college basketballs most controversial coaches but is the third all-time winningest coach in the mens division, behind Dean Smith and Adolph Rupp. With only 10 wins separating him and all-time leader Dean Smith, Knight will probably break the all-time record next season.
Bob Knight began his coaching career at Cuyahoga Falls (Ohio) High School where he was at for one year, then accepted an assistant coaching position at Army in 1963. Two years later he was named the head coach at the relatively young age of 24. In six seasons at West Point, Knight won 102 games, and coached future Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski. Knight then headed to Indiana University in 1971. Knight immediately endeared himself to the basketball-mad state of Indiana with his disciplined approach to the game. Educated in military history, Knight was given the nickname “The General” by former University of Detroit and Detroit Pistons coach-turned-broadcaster Dick Vitale. Within two years, Knight turned a mediocre team into a Big Ten Conference powerhouse. Indiana reached the Final Four in 1973, losing to UCLA. In 1975 the Indiana Hoosiers were undefeated and the number one team in the nation, when leading scorer and All-American Scott May, the father of former North Carolina star and current Charlotte Bobcats player Sean May, broke his arm during the Hoosiers historic defeat of arch-rival Purdue on Purdues home court.
In 1976, the Hoosiers made history, posting a perfect 32-0 record and winning the national championship, beating Michigan 86-68. Immediately after the game, Knight lamented that “it should have been two.” No Division I mens team has replicated the feat since. Under Knight, the Hoosiers would also win championships in 1981 and 1987. The 1981 team featured future Hall of Fame NBA point guard Isaiah Thomas. Knight is only one of four coaches to win NCAA, NIT, and Olympic championships, joining the legendary coaches, Dean Smith of North Carolina, Adolph Rupp of Kentucky, and Pete Newell of California in that achievement.
Besides the 1975 Mens Division I tournament loss, many fans and pundits consider Bob Knights only other true failure as Hoosiers head coach was his inability to convince future National Basketball Association legend Larry Bird to stay at Indiana. Bird, who was raised in the small southern Indiana town of French Lick, could not acclimate himself to the massive IU campus. He left Indiana never having attended a single practice and transferred to the far smaller Indiana State University.
Bob Knights basketball philosiphy requires tough, selfless, and intelligent play by players and the sacrifice of individual glory for the sake of the teams success. Inarguably, this has become difficult in an era when underclassmen began leaving college in greater numbers for the greener pastures of the NBA. However, Bob Knight has consistently had among the highest graduation rates among the college coaching fraternity.
Bob Knight is, undisputedly, a disciplinarian with controversy following him wherever he goes. His long coaching career is replete with incidents where his volatile temper and surliness have come to the surface. Not only have his own players bore the brunt of Knights behavior, but so have opposing players, reporters, referees, and Indiana University officials alike. Moreover, sometimes bizarre incidents involving him have often made national and international news.
In 1974, during a regular-season win over Kentucky, Knight, after a conference and discussion with Wildcat coach Joe B. Hall, slapped Hall in the back of the head after Hall turned to return to his bench. This caused a riff between the former friends, although they have since reconciled. In 1979, Bob Knight was arrested for assaulting a police officer during the Pan American Games in Puerto Rico. Knight was angry that a practice gymnasium was not opened to his team. The team swept through the tournament, posting a 9-0 record. Bob Knight was later convicted in absentia in a Puerto Rican court. However, the charges were later dropped when Indiana Governor Otis R. Bowen refused to cooperate in extraditing him to the island commonwealth.
Other notable incidents include Knight pulling guard Jim Wisman off the court by his jersey in 1976, throwing a chair across the court in protest of a referees call during a 1985 game against the rival Purdue Boilermakers, allegedly kicking his own son, Pat Knight, during a 1993 game (Knight claims he actually kicked a chair), and berating a NCAA university volunteer at a 1998 news conference, for which the school was later fined $30,000. Womens groups nationwide were outraged by Bob Knights comments during an April, 1988 interview with Connie Chung in which Knight said, “I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” Knights comment was in reference to an Indiana basketball game in which he felt the referees were making poor calls against the Hoosiers. Knight claimed he called for Chung to not use the comment in the story immediately after saying it and Chung agreed it would not be used. A crowd of about 300 protested on the Indiana University campus.
An Indiana University secretary also accused Knight of throwing a potted plant at her, and assistant coach Ron Felling claimed Knight threw him off a chair, and punched him in the chest after eavesdropping Knight overheard him criticizing his program and methods on the telephone. Felling sued Knight for assault and received an out-of-court settlement of $35,000 from IU. Many feel it was Felling who precipitated Knights 2000 firing by Indiana University president Myles Brand by leaking a video of a private practice session to the media in which Knight appears to strike and hold the throat of player Neil Reed. It is believed that Felling leaked the video in retaliation for being fired by Knight for disloyalty. Reed was later voted off the team by his own teammates. But, arguably the most controversial incident involved Knight feigning whipping black player named
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