THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Bob Knight on the sideline during record-setting win number 880 (1/1/07).
Bob Knight's resignation as Texas Tech basketball coach triggered a flood of memories, brittle memories from the days when he was the ornery and almost-unbeatable Indiana coach.
It's ironic that Knight would retire during the week of an Indiana-Ohio State game because he made the rivalry what it was. OSU fans were crazy to beat him and seldom did. Throughout the 1970s and '80s, the Buckeyes were always good, and because of Knight, usually not good enough. Knight's success, combined with his petulant behavior and his status as an OSU graduate, could be maddening to those on the Ohio State side.
He was as egotistical as he was brilliant, as funny as he was nasty, which is saying a lot. My mind conjures memories of a visit to his house with then- Dispatch sports editor Dick Otte, who covered Knight when he played basketball at Ohio State and counted him among his close friends. Knight was having some kind of party and showing a tape of the most recent Bob Knight Show on his VCR. He wanted everyone to see how he had dressed up a donkey in a Purdue blanket, introduced it as the Purdue athletic director and proceeded to ask it a series of embarrassing questions. The Big Ten didn't like that. Knight didn't care.
Then there was the time we were in town to cover an Indiana-OSU football game in Bloomington in early November. Knight invited several members of the Columbus media to watch basketball practice -- no reporters were ever allowed in practice -- and when it ended, we all started to leave.
A manager stopped us.
"Coach Knight wanted me to give you guys something," the manager said. He came back seconds later with a stack of mimeographed quote sheets, just like the ones Indiana officials passed out after games when Knight refused to talk to reporters.
"Some post-practice quotes from Indiana coach Bobby Knight" was the sheet's heading. " '(Bleep) the press.' "
As funny as it was, the practice we had witnessed stunned me. He had berated one of the players badly, not once but several times. Even in those days, when that kind of bullying was more common, the display made me cringe.
Indiana University basketball coach Bobby Knight congratulates center Kent Benson as he comes off the floor near the end of the Michigan State game on Feb. 9, 1976. Benson led the Hoosiers to a 85-70 victory by scoring 38 points.
Ohio sportswriters lived in fear, not of Knight, but of his return to his alma mater. No sportswriter with a shred of objectivity wanted to cover this guy, because they knew how miserable he could make their lives.
His name came up in Ohio State coach searches several times, and he was genuinely interested in coming back in 1976 before Eldon Miller was hired. But Ohio State's athletic director at the time, Ed Weaver, sent a subordinate to interview Knight, knowing it would insult him. It did, so Knight stayed put and commenced to beating Miller's teams repeatedly, especially in Assembly Hall.
One time there, when OSU was favored, Knight fired up struggling young center Uwe Blab by playing the German national anthem before the game. A suitably emotional Blab played brilliantly, and the Buckeyes lost again.
Knight's 902 wins, most of any Division I basketball coach, are more than a testament to his longevity. He was a master of motivation. His teams played suffocating man-to-man defense when most teams didn't play any defense at all, and until the college game went to the shot clock and the three-point shot, he was easily the game's greatest tactician.
But when the game changed and Knight didn't win all the time, his Indiana superiors became less tolerant of his behavior. Most Ohio State fans were happy to see him go.
Now that he has been at Texas Tech six years, I can honestly say that his retirement almost makes me sad. The game won't be the same without him, and his intellect -- even his incidents -- will be missed.
It's easy for me to say, though. He's 1,300 miles away and I didn't have to cover him.
Bob Hunter is a sports columnist for The Dispatch
bhunter@dispatch.com
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