LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — Bob Knight died Wednesday, and if you’re only here to read about the three NCAA championships, the 1984 Olympic gold medal, the 902 victories and the way that Knight made Indiana University The Program To Fear in college basketball in the '70s and '80s, this is not a column for you.
But if you only came to talk about the chair toss, the crude comment to Connie Chung, the fight with the policeman in Puerto Rico, pulling his team off the court in an exhibition game and Knight’s fiery departure from IU in September 2000, you also should read elsewhere.
Writing something that everyone will celebrate about Bob Knight and what he meant to Indiana University as well as all of college basketball is as difficult as trying to beat Knight’s best teams in his prime.
Challenging. Complicated. Complex.
And ultimately as impossible as trying to beat Knight’s finest team — the one that won all 32 games and his first NCAA title in 1976, the year the imperfect man delivered college basketball’s last season of perfection.
Knight roared into Bloomington from West Point in 1971, with a brush cut, the wiry, athletic body of a former Ohio State basketball player and a brilliant ability to teach winning basketball.
Assembly Hall opened that year. I, too, arrived as an IU freshman, taking a seat in the balcony for Knight’s first game — Dec. 1, 1971 against Ball State.
I saw what everybody saw — a different way for Indiana to approach basketball.
Knight took over a program known as the Hurryin’ Hoosiers. Knight was in a hurry to do one thing — convince everybody the surest way to win basketball games was with defense, rebounding, bruising picks, crisp passing, grit, fundamentals and another layer of defense.
This was my first one-on-one exposure to Knight, as a reporter for the Indiana Daily Student newspaper in 1975:
The Hoosiers were preparing for a critical game against Purdue. In those days that was more than simply a spirited rivalry game. The NCAA limited every conference to one tournament bid. It was a game the Hoosiers and Boilermakers needed to win.
After I waited outside the floor during a closed practice, Knight invited me into the coaches’ dressing room off the southwest corner of the court.
I asked one question. It was a question about Purdue. He answered without making eye contact while untying his high-top canvas Converse sneakers.
I asked a second question. It was also about Purdue.
This time Knight made eye contact as fiercely as eye contact can be made.
“If you’re so blankety-blank interested in Purdue why don’t you get in your blankety-blank car and drive to West Lafayette?” Knight barked.
End of the interview. Start of lesson. Knight’s game was to challenge you — and measure your response.
But that was far from the end of my time with Knight. In those days, he allowed one reporter from the Daily Student to make road trip flights with the team.
My second trip was to Iowa City and Minneapolis. It was early February, not long after Indiana guard John Laskowski was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated with a story about the Hoosiers’ undefeated season.
Written by Curry Kirkpatrick, the story alternated between praise and wise cracks, Kirkpatrick’s signature style. Knight was not a big wise crack guy — unless he was making them.
He did not appreciate Kirkpatrick calling him a “rampaging martinet,” or writing that the IU players dined on “bread and water,” while he closeted them in their hotel rooms during a trip to a holiday tournament in Honolulu.
With that story on my mind and likely his, Knight wrapped an arm around my head and gave me a Dutch rub as I fetched my luggage from the undercarriage of the team bus at the hotel.
With the players, assistant coaches and Bloomington sports writer Bob Hammel watching, Knight directed me to name my favorite sports writer.
FILE - Indiana coach Bob Knight gestures while instructing players, including Rick Calloway (20) and Daryl Thomas (24), during a win over UNLV in an NCAA men's college basketball tournament semifinal March 30, 1987, in New Orleans. Knight, the brilliant and combustible coach who won three NCAA titles at Indiana and for years was the scowling face of college basketball, has died. He was 83. Knight's family made the announcement on social media on Wednesday night, Nov. 1, 2023, saying he was surrounded by family members at his home in Bloomington, Ind. (AP Photo/Bob Jordan, File)
“Not Curry Kirkpatrick,” I replied.
Whew.
“I’ll take Bob Hammel.”
Knight loved that answer — and told one of the student managers to make sure that I got a nice room as well as the same evening snack that went to the players.
Textbook Knight. Always testing everybody in the room, no matter who was in the room. Might be an official or it might be a politician. I once heard him (kiddingly) give Indiana Gov. Otis Bowen and Sen. Birch Bayh the business for waiting too long before they made congratulatory phone calls about an IU victory to advance to the 1981 Final Four.
He was demanding. He was demeaning. He tolerated no misbehavior from his players. Yet he behaved terribly, bristling at authority in unnecessary ways.
There won't be another Knight, a man who always commanded the camera or microphone. Society has changed. Social media would have brought him down. His inability or refusal to adapt to how players expected to be coached contributed to the decline in Knight's winning percentage over the second half of his career.
He loved reading, history and education — and made certain that his players got one, often in more than only the classroom.
He was incredibly generous — to players who needed assistance like the paralyzed Landon Turner, to the IU library, to coaches trying to find their way, even to sports writers that he respected.
He was incredibly boorish, unloading profanity on officials, conference commissioners, NCAA officials and Mike Krzyzewski, who played for him at Army and worked for him at Indiana. Once Knight’s favorite player, Coach K became a guy Knight later refused to acknowledge. Think about that.
Sad. Needlessly sad.
Just like his disassociation from Indiana in 2000 became needlessly sad, with Knight once professing that he would never return to the school after he took the job at Texas Tech.
Fortunately, with encouragement from friends and his son, Patrick, Knight changed course. He moved back to Bloomington for his final years as his health problems escalated.
His final public appearance at Assembly Hall unfolded quickly on Feb. 8, 2020. Surrounded by many of his most beloved players, he walked to center court and even briefly addressed the crowd.
The building shook with unbridled joy and admiration. The video has drawn millions of views.
Compelling. Unforgettably compelling.
The national obituaries about Knight will dwell on the NCAA titles, the 1984 Olympics, his induction in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, his fractured relationship with Indiana and all the crazy video clips you can find on YouTube.
Knight was all of that — and more.
One of the most successful & influential figures in the history of college basketball. pic.twitter.com/6XMvJvcuaB
— Indiana Basketball (@IndianaMBB) November 1, 2023
But he was also this: In addition to one intimidated student newspaper sports writer, there were also five freshmen basketball players — Steve Green, John Laskowski, John Kamstra, Steve Ahlfeld and Doug Allen — who arrived with Knight at IU in 1971,
All five left Indiana with a Big Ten title, a trip to the Final Four and a degree.
Allen had a successful business career in Kansas.
Laskowski played in the NBA and owns businesses in Bloomington.
Dr. Green played in the ABA and NBA and retired from his dental practice in Indianapolis.
Kamstra is the chief financial officer at Cook Medical, one of the largest companies in Bloomington.
Dr. Ahlfeld remains one of the IU basketball team’s physicians.
Yes, Bob Knight was the imperfect man who coached the last perfect college basketball team. But those five guys who arrived with him at IU in 1971 reflect Bob Knight as much as the games he won and the championships he celebrated.
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