When it comes to sports, I've always considered it a forbidden subject I want to know nothing about.
There have only been less than a handful of moments in my life where I have been interested in sports. One of them happened in 2001 whenever a sportscaster mentioned the name, “Bobby Knight.”
At the time, I wasn't interested in learning if Knight’s team, the Texas Tech Red Raiders won or lost. I wanted to see if “The General,” Knight’s nickname, would do what he had done so many times before - churn out what would likely be another Oscar-nominated, foul mouthed performance. There is no doubt most anything he said would probably wind up as yet another addition to the already growing media library of famous clips and sound bites seen on http://www.youtube.com/.
Much to the surprise of fans but not those who believed he always took charge of his own destiny, Knight announced during mid-season that day he was retiring as head coach of the Texas Tech Red Raiders handing the reigns over to his son, Patrick Knight.
I paid no attention to Knight’s early controversial antics back in his days at Indiana arguing with referees. I knew nothing, for example, about the infamous 1985 chair-throwing incident where Knight reacted to a referee’s call during a game against the Purdue Boilermakers.
Knight's foul-mouthed, sometimes volatile yet informative interview with contributing editor Lawrence Grobel in the March 2001 issue of Playboy magazine piqued my interest.
Here was a guy who had done a number of positive things for basketball since he began coaching in 1962, first at the United States Military Academy until 1971, when he took over as head coach at Indiana University. The college was the place Knight probably thought he’d spend his entire coaching career until his retirement. An altercation with freshman Kent Harvey where Knight yelled and grabbed the student by the arm for not showing him any respect ended "The General's" controversial chapter there when the powers-that-be fired the coaching legend on Sept. 10, 2001.
Not surprisingly that particular incident was among many Grobel discussed with Knight in the Playboy interview. Knight, who was getting fed up having to explain himself again about various incidents at one point demanded the contributing editor hand him the interview tapes so he could destroy them.
Today, if I want to get to the real story, I got to listen to conservative talk radio. So it was with great delight upon reading about Knight’s retirement at the time, I found several clips of him on http://www.youtube.com/ berating the news media - a profession he once defined as “one or two steps above prostitution.”
I was practically short of cheering him on.
Who can blame Knight for getting upset when a sportswriter asked him one time, how did it feel to lose to a team after recently coming off of another win? The question is the equivalent of having a nurse come in and say to an old man suffering from terminal cancer who is about to go through another round of chemotherapy, “How are we doing today?”
When someone asked him if he ever has a “game face” when he is out coaching during the games, Knight told the reporter he had no idea what that was.
“In my entire adult life, I have never used the expression game face,” he said. “So I have no (expletive) idea what it means or what you are supposed to do.”
Knight then gave several humorous “game face” looks to the media.
When a reporter asked Knight back in 1993 how he thinks his player Damon Bailey will play in 1994, Knight said he would have to wait until then to see him play. He then grabbed an empty glass, banged on it a few times and treated it like it was a crystal ball.
“The image is fading…just a second, just a second…coming back, coming back, yes, yes…images are tough to deal with. Sometimes you got to get them in line,” he mockingly said. “Yes, I see…I see Bailey doing better.”
When the same reporter asked him practically the same question but in a different way, Knight picked up the glass saying “this is a (expletive) damn piece of cheap crystal here.”
“This isn’t expensive enough to answer all these questions,” he said. “Wait a minute there is something forming here, forming…it says, “What a (expletive) question.”
Like that Playboy interview which addressed a majority of Knight’s less-than-stellar moments, I wasn’t surprised upon reading about his retirement how practically every article I read about him brought up almost as many negatives as they did positives.
While at Indiana, he led his teams to three NCAA Division I Tournament Championships in 1976, 1981, and 1987, one National Invitation Tournament championship in 1979, and 11 Big Ten Conference championships in 1973, 74, 75, 76, 80, 81, 83, 87, 89, 91, and 93.
In the 1984 Olympics, his U.S. basketball team received the gold medal and in 1991, he was voted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame.
In looking up articles on the internet, not once did I find anything about him involved in illegal recruitment practices or drug problems; issues that often plague or put an end to a college’s prestigious athletic departments.
When Knight put on that Texas Tech sweater for the first time in 2001 after being hired as the university’s new basketball coach, he called it “the most comfortable red sweater I have had on six years.”
When Bob Weltlich, a former assistant coach Knight hired back in his days at the United States Military Academy and then at Indiana before taking a coaching job at Mississippi in 1977, he asked his former employer and friend during Knight’s 41st season what is it that keeps him coaching.
Knight said he liked the game of basketball.
“Guys play chess forever,” he said “I might as well coach forever.”
I would have liked to see Knight wait until he reached a total of 1,000 wins before announcing his retirement from coaching the sport at the time. Perhaps at the age of 67 in 2008 with 902 wins under his belt maybe there was not a whole lot more to prove.
It's been 22 years since I got interested in college basketball thanks to Bobby Knight. I predicted back then the only other time I'd talk about "The General" would be when another chapter would end.
There have only been less than a handful of moments in my life where I have been interested in sports. One of them happened in 2001 whenever a sportscaster mentioned the name, “Bobby Knight.”
At the time, I wasn't interested in learning if Knight’s team, the Texas Tech Red Raiders won or lost. I wanted to see if “The General,” Knight’s nickname, would do what he had done so many times before - churn out what would likely be another Oscar-nominated, foul mouthed performance. There is no doubt most anything he said would probably wind up as yet another addition to the already growing media library of famous clips and sound bites seen on http://www.youtube.com/.
For me, as far as college basketball was concerned, Bobby Knight WAS the show. If I had been a student at Indiana or Texas Tech at the time he was there, I most likely would have attended the games just to see how he’d react.That era ended on Feb. 4, 2008 and I don’t believe college basketball has been the same since.
Much to the surprise of fans but not those who believed he always took charge of his own destiny, Knight announced during mid-season that day he was retiring as head coach of the Texas Tech Red Raiders handing the reigns over to his son, Patrick Knight.
I paid no attention to Knight’s early controversial antics back in his days at Indiana arguing with referees. I knew nothing, for example, about the infamous 1985 chair-throwing incident where Knight reacted to a referee’s call during a game against the Purdue Boilermakers.
Knight's foul-mouthed, sometimes volatile yet informative interview with contributing editor Lawrence Grobel in the March 2001 issue of Playboy magazine piqued my interest.
Here was a guy who had done a number of positive things for basketball since he began coaching in 1962, first at the United States Military Academy until 1971, when he took over as head coach at Indiana University. The college was the place Knight probably thought he’d spend his entire coaching career until his retirement. An altercation with freshman Kent Harvey where Knight yelled and grabbed the student by the arm for not showing him any respect ended "The General's" controversial chapter there when the powers-that-be fired the coaching legend on Sept. 10, 2001.
Not surprisingly that particular incident was among many Grobel discussed with Knight in the Playboy interview. Knight, who was getting fed up having to explain himself again about various incidents at one point demanded the contributing editor hand him the interview tapes so he could destroy them.
I don’t blame Knight for losing it when dealing with the press. My respect for the news media has eroded so much the past three decades to the point I now call them "Fake News." Who doesn't? I put journalists in the same category as the slimy lawyers who know full well their clients did the crime, and yet manage to get them off anyway. They play favorites. Why else did Joe Biden get elected president in 2020? They always print the negatives, never the positives and never, ever give both sides of a story. That includes Fox News and Newsmax.“These guys sometimes believe they've been ordained from on high to give the general opinion of the populace, and that just isn't the case,” Knight told Grobel. “The thing that bothers me the most about the media is simple accuracy. There are as many guys in coaching who do a lousy job as there are in the media. Those are two professions that are a lot alike. There aren't a hell of a lot of really good coaches or writers.”
Today, if I want to get to the real story, I got to listen to conservative talk radio. So it was with great delight upon reading about Knight’s retirement at the time, I found several clips of him on http://www.youtube.com/ berating the news media - a profession he once defined as “one or two steps above prostitution.”
I was practically short of cheering him on.
Who can blame Knight for getting upset when a sportswriter asked him one time, how did it feel to lose to a team after recently coming off of another win? The question is the equivalent of having a nurse come in and say to an old man suffering from terminal cancer who is about to go through another round of chemotherapy, “How are we doing today?”
When someone asked him if he ever has a “game face” when he is out coaching during the games, Knight told the reporter he had no idea what that was.
“In my entire adult life, I have never used the expression game face,” he said. “So I have no (expletive) idea what it means or what you are supposed to do.”
Knight then gave several humorous “game face” looks to the media.
When a reporter asked Knight back in 1993 how he thinks his player Damon Bailey will play in 1994, Knight said he would have to wait until then to see him play. He then grabbed an empty glass, banged on it a few times and treated it like it was a crystal ball.
“The image is fading…just a second, just a second…coming back, coming back, yes, yes…images are tough to deal with. Sometimes you got to get them in line,” he mockingly said. “Yes, I see…I see Bailey doing better.”
When the same reporter asked him practically the same question but in a different way, Knight picked up the glass saying “this is a (expletive) damn piece of cheap crystal here.”
“This isn’t expensive enough to answer all these questions,” he said. “Wait a minute there is something forming here, forming…it says, “What a (expletive) question.”
Like that Playboy interview which addressed a majority of Knight’s less-than-stellar moments, I wasn’t surprised upon reading about his retirement how practically every article I read about him brought up almost as many negatives as they did positives.
The fact is the guy wasn't perfect. None of us are but his impressive coaching record spoke for itself.Since coaching in 1962, Knight racked up a combined total of 902 wins and 371 loses.
While at Indiana, he led his teams to three NCAA Division I Tournament Championships in 1976, 1981, and 1987, one National Invitation Tournament championship in 1979, and 11 Big Ten Conference championships in 1973, 74, 75, 76, 80, 81, 83, 87, 89, 91, and 93.
In the 1984 Olympics, his U.S. basketball team received the gold medal and in 1991, he was voted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame.
In looking up articles on the internet, not once did I find anything about him involved in illegal recruitment practices or drug problems; issues that often plague or put an end to a college’s prestigious athletic departments.
When Knight put on that Texas Tech sweater for the first time in 2001 after being hired as the university’s new basketball coach, he called it “the most comfortable red sweater I have had on six years.”
When Bob Weltlich, a former assistant coach Knight hired back in his days at the United States Military Academy and then at Indiana before taking a coaching job at Mississippi in 1977, he asked his former employer and friend during Knight’s 41st season what is it that keeps him coaching.
Knight said he liked the game of basketball.
“Guys play chess forever,” he said “I might as well coach forever.”
I would have liked to see Knight wait until he reached a total of 1,000 wins before announcing his retirement from coaching the sport at the time. Perhaps at the age of 67 in 2008 with 902 wins under his belt maybe there was not a whole lot more to prove.
It's been 22 years since I got interested in college basketball thanks to Bobby Knight. I predicted back then the only other time I'd talk about "The General" would be when another chapter would end.
That one came to an end on Nov. 1, 2023 when Bobby Knight passed away at 83.
Knight's death brought to mind a speech he gave in 1994 at Indiana University before the Hoosiers game against Wisconsin.
"When my time on earth is gone, and my activities here are passed, I want they bury me upside down, and my critics can kiss my ass!"
I've a feeling "The General" finally got his wish much to his delight.
©11/3/2023
