The Knight In Light Blue
Texas Tech coach does it his way, and only his way
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Oct. 24, 2007
By David Scott
Special to CSTV.com
He'll take the Dr. Pepper and the glass of ice. But you can keep the V8 vegetable juice, thanks anyway.
"I don't want that stuff. God damn," Bobby Knight said to the kind soul delivering drink options to the sometimes crotchety coach.
He's 67 for cryin' out loud. Not 97. Give him the sugar, the caffeine, the calories of Dr. P and spare him the vitamins and minerals of that pureed crap.
Give him the old, underappreciated coaches like Don Donoher of Dayton, the old pioneering administrators like John Goldner of
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Give him spit over shine. Gyms over arenas. Beating an opponent instead of outscoring one.
"I've always liked the people at the NIT better than those at the NCAA," said Knight after a couple of folks at Big 12 Media Day wondered why the Texas Tech (but always Indiana) coach wore a gold NIT watch on his left wrist. "With the exception of Walter Byers."
Blunt, yes. Poetic too, though. Be sure to bury Bob Knight upside down so the world can kiss his ass.
In a week when images of fellow 1940-Year-of-Birth guy, gentleman Joe Torre, were everywhere, it was a revealing time to catch a public glimpse of Knight, as he enters his seventh season at Texas Tech continues his fifth decade as a head coach.
The parallels and contrasts between baseball man Torre and basketball guy Knight were hard to ignore. Both have consistently squeezed the most out of what they have (high-priced or low) and command their players respect.
While Torre has done it mostly with honey and Knight with a healthy dose vinegar, the two men share a common career crossroads. Torre, as evidenced by his love-in/press conference last Friday, can ride into a broadcasting career (something he's done in the past) or find another job in managing.
Knight, on the other hand, has already put the wheels in motion for his own potential coaching sunset. His son, Pat, has been publicly anointed as his dad's successor and Knight, the grandfather of two, is getting more and more grandfatherly all the time -- witness last week's wearing of a light blue, fuzzy sweater he must have stolen from Mr. Rogers' closet.
"If you were to ask me today [Wednesday], `How long are you going to coach?,'" Knight said. "Well, I'm going to coach Thursday. If you ask me on tomorrow, I would say Friday. I've never really known how long I was going to coach."
Long enough to be the top level's all-time winningest coach, a feat he accomplished on New Year's Day.
"That was not anything I wanted to accomplish or now that I've done that, [I can stop coaching]. . . that wasn't anything like that," he said.
That means there's been some thought to what it was like, correct?
"No, not really," he said. "Some things happen in sports because you're really good or you really put things together. Some things can happen because you've done it for a long time.
"I did it for a long time."
At a high level with proven methods.
"I would hope so," he confided, "but first and foremost, I did it a long time."
If Knight sounds like he's talking in the past, maybe he is.
At this point in the preseason the lightning rod coach has said the following most often: "Didn't I tell you yesterday just exactly what the hell I wanted you to do? Now why the hell do I have to tell you the same thing today?"
By February he won't have to ask such questions any more. And by the end of March...well, you've got to understand that Knight is one of the Feisty 67ers, guys like Torre, Joe Gibbs and Paul Tagliabue.
It's Knight's way, or it's his way. There are no other choices.
And the fact that no one is talking about this Red Raider bunch in terms of the Big 12 elite makes you figure they probably will be when the Big 12 Tournament kicks off in March in
"We'll just see," Knight said of the squad that lost leading scorer Jarrius Jackson but returns second leading scorer and top rebounder, senior Martin Zeno. "I haven't seen much yet."
With the coaching record achieved, the rein-handing arranged and the career "resurrected," Knight can still show his feistiness with the best of them.
"We had two games last year that were decided, both of them, by bad officiating," Knight said. "That makes a hell of a difference. We were an eight seed, with those two wins, maybe we're a five or a six. Referees make bad calls. I mean, referees on occasion make terrible calls. Officials have become too sacrosanct."
Still, it won't stop him from complaining -- new bench decorum rules be damned.
"I think when I complain at least," he bragged, "they know I know what I'm talking about."
He's Robert Montgomery Knight of course, so he's got to stir the pot and give them all a big fat "I told you so" every once in a while.
Even while he was praising the brand new College Basketball Experience interactive playground/museum last week, Knight couldn't resist offering his opinion that the venue should be called the College Basketball Hall of Fame. Which, as with so much of what Knight utters, does make a lot of sense.
He hates the 3-pointer, always has, because it takes away from coaching and as he says, "There's less good offensive play today than ever. There's nobody that knows the history of basketball better than I do."
Need proof? The whole NBA refereeing scandal with Tim Donaghy was something Knight had foreshadowed a decade ago, at the behest of Digger Phelps.
"One time, about 10 years ago, Digger and I did a deal on officiating -- an interview -- at the time of either the Boston College or Arizona State [scandal]. And that guy's father [ex-NCAA ref and Final Four veteran, Gerry Donaghy] and [NCAA overseer of men's basketball officials] Hank Nichols crucified Digger and me when I suggested the way to fix a game is through an official."
Here, Knight is forward in his chair, enjoying the telling of another good Knight Tale.
"Think about this now," he said. "What I said is, why take a 19-year-old? If you're a gambler why trust a 19-year-old kid to do what you want done when you can go to a damn official and he can make three calls at the end of the game?
"I wrote Nichols a letter to remind him of it about a month ago and sent him a copy of the article, which I had kept," Knight continued, still waiting to hear back from Nichols, who retires at the end of this season.
"Hell no I wouldn't hear back from the sumabitch, no way. But that was bull -- to say it wasn't possible. That's the most possible thing that could happen in gambling in sports. It's ridiculous to think that hasn't happened. The irony of it was that it was this kid's father who really blistered [Digger and Knight]."
For Knight, one good blister deserves another (no matter how many years removed from the original offense) but last Wednesday, Knight -- who still had a bit of his fishing sunburn and reasonable doses of his offseason patience -- wasn't quite cranky enough to get truly disgusted with "you media."
There was more Grandpa Bob than Coach Knight and those moments are always precious. This is Knight on the Farewell Tour, of sorts. It is Knight in all his glory, but also in his mellowing phase.
"If you can coach, you can coach anything," he said. "[Bill] Parcells could coach anything. [Tony] LaRussa could coach anything. I think I could coach anything.
"I once met [ex-Iowa football coach and one of the Wing T innovators) Forest Evashevski and he came up an introduced himself. I said, `I know all about you, Coach.' And he said to me, `Coach, you're my all time favorite basketball coach because you coach the god damn game like you're a football coach.'"
Knight loved the praise then and enjoyed in its re-telling, too.
"When [I watch other sports], I never try and [coach the game] afterward, it's not second-guessing," he said. "I do that every time I watch something but I don't do it after it's done. Here's what I would do under these circumstances. Like going for a field goal or taking a pitcher out. Like when LSU beat Florida in football [earlier this year]. My thought is kick a field goal [trailing 24-21 with time running out] and that way we can't lose the game. I was really interested in fact they didn't. [Les] Miles said we have a chance to win right now. That was one of the gutsiest decisions I ever saw anybody make when Miles went for the touchdown. That had been his whole history in that game."
The same way Knight's whole history has been a lot more Dr. Pepper than V8.
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