DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Bobby Knight Resigns

Rivals.com story

Rivals.com Staff Reports
Bob Knight, the winningest NCAA men's division I basketball coach in history, has retired as Texas Tech's coach effective immediately.

Knight, 67, won his 902nd game Saturday when the Red Raiders downed Oklahoma State. He will be replaced by his son, Pat. Knight informed athletic director Gerald Myers of his decision Monday morning.

Knight won three national titles at Indiana, in 1976, '81 and '87. In all, he took the Hoosiers to 24 NCAA tournament appearances and reached the Final Four two other times.

During his tenure at Texas Tech, Knight was 138-82, and he led the Red Raiders to the NCAA Tournament in four of his six seasons, reaching the Sweet 16 in 2005. The Red Raiders are 11-8 this season and 3-3 in the Big 12, tied for sixth in the conference with Oklahoma.

Knight is one of six men who have played and coached in the Final Four. He played for Ohio State when the Buckeyes reached the Final Four in 1960, '61 and '62. He and Dean Smith are the only mean who have played and coached for a national champion.

Knight's three national titles are tied for third-most, behind John Wooden's 10 and Adolph Rupp's four. Mike Krzyzewski, who played for Knight at Army, also has three titles. Krzyzewski began his college coaching career as a graduate assistant at Indiana under Knight in 1974.

Knight's five Final Four appearances are tied for sixth all-time.

He also coached U.S. teams to gold medals in the 1979 Pan American Games and the 1984 Olympics.

Knight perhaps is as well-known for his temper and behavior as he is for his win total. He was fired at Indiana on Sept. 10, 2000, by then-IU president Myles Brand for what Brand termed a continuing pattern of "defiant and hostile" behavior.

Knight always has taken great pride in the academic achievement of his players, and during his coaching career, which began in 1965 at Army, all but four of his four-year players completed degrees, a ratio of nearly 98 percent.

I will get banned if I say the things I want to about this man.

Good bye, don't come back.

I wonder why he's doing this seemingly so suddenly. (seemingly to me, I don't follow bball that much, so maybe this has been on the horizon for a while).

My guess would be so that his son Pat is guaranteed to be the coach at least the rest of the year. Just a guess, though.

Bobby Knight is such an interesting man. As a coach, he's a pain, he's a jerk, and I don't think I would want a son of mine playing for him. However, he gets a lot out of the kids he gets, he gets them to graduate. Plus, working in Orrville, I see some of the stuff he's given back. He gave money to the school for their gym, gave money to help build a new (amazing) library for a town the size of Orrville and then signed a few things to hang in the library. He's not a great guy, but I also don't think he's entirely evil (I'm not sure how much of a compliment that really is).

Wow. I hope there is nothing wrong w/him.

Was there any indication that he was going to retire? I hadn't heard anything.

He was a great coach and a great man. He did some dumb things, but he did far more good. I wish there were more people like him in the world, rather than all the soccer moms and their offspring.

If I had to guess I'd say he wanted the win record to show his detractors, then be done with it.

Sad day for College Hoops ... and TT in particular ...

say what u want about the man ... but the good far outweighs the bad... NOT EVEN CLOSE ... most of the bozos that hate him dont have a clue about what he does and what hes really about ....

and it sickens me when guys like Jim Boehim (who coule care less about his kids ... well other than they stay eligible) are talked about in glowing terms and Knight is constantly crapped on ... very SAD and tells u exactly why society in general is the way it is ..

Oh well .. GREAT CAREER MR. KNIGHT ..... enjoy your retirement .. u surely earned it ...

knight gets "crapped on" because of how he presents himself to others. I'm sick of hearing about all the nice things he does behind closed doors and how he graduates his players. That's all well and good but if you act like a jerk every other second of the day, it doesn't count. There are a lot of coaches that can graduate their players without being aloof and arogant.

I read John Feinstein's 'A Season On The Brink', so I'm aware of the many faces of bob knight. Unless you're in his inner circle, he treats you like garbage (or lower than garbage)

He stayed in the game long enough to chase the wins record....and now he quits on his team.

...and yes, I typed bk's name in lower case on purpose.

The guy was a heck of a coach, despite his temper.

He reminds me a lot of Woody Hayes. Both had hot tempers, and were known for not controlling emotions ... but most of that stemmed from them wanting to be the best, and going to great lengths to be successful. Both guys got the best that they could out of players, and were known to do a lot of good things quietly behind the scenes. They really cared about the people within their program, and most people you talk to that knew them wouldn't want them to ever change.

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Wow. I hope there is nothing wrong w/him.

Was there any indication that he was going to retire? I hadn't heard anything.

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From all that I've heard, he was going to retire at the end of the year... but as the season wore on, he realized he had a very young team and they would benefit more from finishing the season under the new coach... he also said he was just tired. Hard to blame him, given his age. Coaching big time college sports is very demanding.

In my heart I think there is a little self-serving interest in this. His son is now the coach so he has the rest of the season to try to earn the full time gig, if he had resigned in the off-season, TT might have shopped the job out. So leaving in mid-season really did help his son out.

All in all though, I think more positively of Knight than I do negatively... He had his flaws but he was a great coach.... Not everybody can be Mr./ Ms. Congeniality...

My dad loves Knight so I took a little deeper look at him because of that. He clearly has his faults but, he was a great coach and if you listen to most of the guys that played for him and heard what they have to say about him and the respect they still have for him, you'll understand what really counts.

Knight's final act a hypocritical one in a career full of them
By Pat Forde
ESPN.com
Updated: February 5, 2008, 9:39 AM ET

If this is it and Bob Knight has really just folded and walked in midseason, it's one more hypocritical moment in a career full of them.

Knight has always been a putative disciplinarian who lacked self-discipline. Now a man who demands loyalty has abandoned a Texas Tech team that is 12-8 (3-3 Big 12) and No. 54 in the RPI -- in other words, still harboring NCAA Tournament hopes. Along the way, the guy who has always disdained individual player glory sure didn't quit before he reached that 900-victory plateau, did he?

So now Knight takes his record 902 wins and quits. Bobby Petrino was charbroiled for leaving the Atlanta Falcons with three games left and the team at 3-10, but The General surrenders with at least 11 games to go and we're supposed to give him a pass?

I don't think so. Not if there are no health issues attached for him or anyone in his immediate family, and by all indications from those surrounding Knight, there are none. Remember, this is a guy who signed a three-year contract extension in September.

Knight told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal that the timing was largely to benefit his son and successor, Pat.

"My thinking was that for Pat and for this team -- most of which is returning next year -- the best thing for the long run for this team would be for Pat and his staff to coach these remaining 10 [regular-season] games," Knight said, according to the paper. "And [to] get an understanding, get a real feel for each other, be able to think over the course of the spring and summer going into next season about how people had played, how things had been done offensively or defensively, what could be done or couldn't be done, what to stay away from, what to work on and develop that from a game standpoint as the coach in charge of everything rather than as an assistant coach."

That's nice for Pat Knight, who has a chance to be a very successful head coach. But what about the four seniors on the Tech roster: leading scorer Martin Zeno, No. 3 assist man Charlie Burgess and reserves Esmir Rizvic and Tyler Hoffmeister? How do they feel about having the last weeks of their college careers turned over to on-the-job training for the coach's son?

You'll hear a lot in the coming days about Bob Knight doing this "on his terms." Of course he did. When has Bob Knight ever done anything that was not on his terms? He is a walking one-way street.

The irony of this is where Knight's terms left him in the end.

Knight's terms left him at a remote basketball backwater on the Texas prairie, where the stands at the home gym are rarely full. Knight's terms left him a bit player on the national stage, his relevance leaking steadily as he made Texas Tech basketball better but couldn't make it matter. Knight's terms left him far from the basketball mecca where he had his greatest glory and became a polarizing icon in the sport.

If Knight had been willing to budge off "his terms" -- to treat people with the respect he always demanded, to refrain from bullying, to avoid the abusive behavior -- this moment would be far different.

The tribute would be unanimous and universal.

Had he not blown himself up with toxic temper at Indiana University, they could have run a parade route through the state from East Chicago to Vevay, and fans would have lined every mile of it. And he would have been closer to 1,000 wins than 900.

Had he managed to avoid confrontation instead of seeking it, his respect would be as widespread as John Wooden's, Dean Smith's and Mike Krzyzewski's. Because he's a better pure coach than Smith, at least as good as Krzyzewski and in the argument with Wooden. They all have had better talent than Knight.

It would be nice if Robert Montgomery Knight could simply be remembered and revered for three national titles, for 32-0, for the Olympic gold medal, for being the maestro of motion offense and the nonnegotiable believer in man-to-man defense. It would be nice if the career highlight reel stopped after testimonials from Buckner and May and Benson and Isiah and Alford and Cheaney. It would be nice if Assembly Hall's court bore the name of Indiana's greatest coach.

But nice was never part of the package with Knight. Which is why he'll also be remembered for the thrown chair and the choked player and the grabbed student at the end in Bloomington. It's why the player testimonials will be interspersed with tape of bellowed profanities, head-butted players and more burned bridges than a brigade of pyromaniacs could produce. It's why the divorce from IU became so bitter, and why his name probably will never adorn that Assembly Hall hardwood.

In the end, it feels hollow for Bob Knight to shuffle offstage on a February Monday, far from the spotlight of his sport and nearly three years removed from his last NCAA Tournament victory. At least he did not exit in Woody Hayes fashion, as had often been feared and forecast, but there is something un-General-like about it.

Perhaps this is it:

He is often championed by people who believe he stood for old-fashioned American values. Finishing what you start is one of those values, and now Bob Knight has contradicted his mythology one last time by walking out on the job.

Pat Forde is a senior writer for ESPN.com. He can be reached at ESPN4D@aol.com.

I know alot of people think very little of Bobby Knight, but I for one have always respected him, sure he isnt a perfect ROLE model for coaching or how to handle things, but really who is. we all make mistakes, I've always liked Bobby's tell it like it is attitude, errogant yes, volgur, yep, to the point yes, lets you know where you stand yep that to, I think the way Knight has taken young sometimes spoiled kids and turned them into men has always impressed me, as time wwnt on, it got harder & harder as kids became softer and spoiled, but knights work ethic and graduation rates are to be commended, perfect No, but better than the majority. If my son wanted to play college b-ball I would have no problem sending him to knight, I would know he would come out of that program, with a education, a responcible respectible man. i'm not big into basketball, but will miss bobby knight, I'm sure there are thousands of arguments why he was a good coach or why he was a bad coach along with being a bad person but, it's not for me to say i dont now him personnaly, i'll just go by what his players say.


Tight Lines Bobby

See, I don't get that. There are hundreds other coaches that can teach basketball, preach values and education and still be a nice guy. Why is bob knight exempt from that standard?

He's allowed to be a total ass to everyone that comes across his path because he knows how to teach an effective man-to-man defense? He can attack a student for asking him, "What's up Knight?" and everyone only praises him for graduating his players? I just don't understand.

Him and Bill Belichick are the same person. Aloof, arrogant, pompous.and an overall big fat jerk!

He may have a great basketball mind........but he's a total waste of a human being otherwise.

This is really odd... I'm kinda wondering if there isn't a good reason for this.. maybe a health related reason perhaps.. It kinda has those overtones I think.. and let's face it, Knight isn't the kinda guy that would come out and say anything like that..

I just have to wonder...

Knight is a very angry, flippant and hard headed man. He also happens to be a very good basketball coach and teacher who genuinely cares about the kids who come through, and makes sure they are prepared for life outside of and after basketball. He's also a dinosaur in terms of being an honest, hard working coach who conducted business entirely on the level.

Nobody's perfect, and you will usually find that all of the greats always had a serious flaw of some sort.

I would love to have a son of mine play for Bobby Knight...the only problem is I'd probably raise a son who would laugh at half of Bob's crap.

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Nobody's perfect

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The guy graduated an almost perfect percentage of his kids, and nearly every single one of them sings his praises. He's about the cleanest coach you'll ever see in regards to the rules of recruiting.

He reminds me of a dying breed of mean, angry but beneath the exterior caring and wise men. Anyone who hates him has every right to, and I don't even hold it against them, as he's rather piggish and volatile.

But there seems to be an undeniable method to his madness.

You're right. Boeheim is a phony. Another one is Digger Phelps. Most arrogant SOB I ever met.

Let me tell you a Knight story. A long, long time ago I was coaching high school basketball. I was an assistant w/a pretty good program. We went to various clinics every year.

We go to one in southern Ohio and there were a lot of good coaches there. Knight comes on and talks and talks and talks. He was such a great teacher. I am looking at this guy and he had time for everyone. Well.....I get it in my mind to ask a question.......I formulate a good one in my mind.......well, he pretty much answered it by the time it was my turn to ask, but my hand was up and I was pretty flustered, so I ask the question he already answered anyway. He looks at me like I was the dumbest blank in the world, *L* but he then expounds on it.

Later, he met w/us. He was an acquaintance of our head coach. We talked w/us for quite some time and one thing I really noticed........the guy loved the game. He just sees things differently. He was very rough around the edges, cussed a lot, but he was so mesmerizing. We loved basketball and that was good enough for him. He had time for us.

Phelps, on the other hand, arrived in a limo. He gets out and speaks for about 15 min., and walks right out and starts his networking crap. He was an arrogant piece of crap.

One guy who was really a great guy that you might not think would be is Jerry Tarkanian, the old UNLV coach. He was great friends w/our head coach and this guy was a riot. He was cool as hell and really a nice person, but man, the NCAA had it in for him. He wasn't near the cheater that he was known for. I can tell you one big-time cheater though...........Fisher, the guy who was at Michigan. He was a snake and now that might explain why he left when he did. Michigan, while I hate them, isn't that type of school.

One more thing about Knight..........his players always ended up respecting the guy and saying great things about him. We live in a world that is becoming softer and softer and it's more important to say the right things, rather than do the right things. My son excelled in football and baseball, but if he would have been good enough to play hoops, I would have been honored for him to play for Knight.

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From all that I've heard, he was going to retire at the end of the year... but as the season wore on, he realized he had a very young team and they would benefit more from finishing the season under the new coach... he also said he was just tired. Hard to blame him, given his age. Coaching big time college sports is very demanding.

In my heart I think there is a little self-serving interest in this.

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Okay thanks. And I agree about trying to help his son. I suppose that could be looked at as a negative.

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Okay thanks. And I agree about trying to help his son. I suppose that could be looked at as a negative.

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From my experience with the way people perceive things.. those who like him will view it as a positive in that he was looking out for the long term best interest of a young team and helping his son get established in the position... those that don't like him will view it as underhanded, self-serving, and abandoning a team that might still make the tournament...

I personally like him, I hope his son does well and the team gets to the sweet 16... (unless they play Maryland first... )

That's a good point.

I kinda look at it a different way. First, I must reiterate that I like Knight. But, my thinking is that perhaps Knight and the university already agreed that his son would be the next coach. This might be a good opportunity to get his feet wet.

Does that sound biased?

Andy Katz just reported on ESPN college gamenight that Pat Knight was always gonna be the coach when Bob stepped down. He had it in his contract.

From ESPN TTU-Baylor Recap

Texas Tech tabbed Knight as the coach designate before the 2005-06 season, but it seemed the wait would be longer when in September his father signed a three-year extension through the 2011-12 season. Now Pat Knight has a five-year deal as coach.

its about time...

He is Bill Parcells x 100!!!