southcampus;1622862; said:
bucknut502;1622940; said:
Musberger was trying to go about that conversation in the most politically correct way possible, almost to a point where he was putting words in Knight's mouth, but Bobby made sure to get his true feelings out there.
Bob Knight
Age: 69
Family: Married, with two children and two grandsons.
Residence: Lubbock, Texas
Occupation: ESPN basketball analyst after winning three national championships as Indiana coach and a Division I-record 902 victories at Army, Indiana and Texas Tech.
Bobby Knight's fondness for his 1960 championship mates remains strong, even if the NCAA still sparks his ire: Bill Livingston
By Bill Livingston, The Plain Dealer
January 31, 2010
Jay LaPrete / Associated Press
For only the second time since he graduated from Ohio State, Bob Knight took part in an OSU ceremony on Sunday as the school honored its 1960 NCAA championship men's basketball team. Knight, a reserve on that team, spoke of his respect for his old coach, the late Fred Taylor.
COLUMBUS -- Flushed with victory before anyone thought it was their time to win, several members of Ohio State's 1960 NCAA basketball championship team went looking for sustenance after the game. The Buckeyes had just trounced California in the Bears' backyard at the San Francisco Cow Palace, but the doorman at the first restaurant they found said it was closing time.
"We just won the national championship," said Larry Siegfried.
"Of what?" said the man, shutting the door in their faces.
In 1960, the NCAA Tournament hadn't morphed into the Big Dance. It was a different world, smaller, and not as driven by the need for instant gratification, the players' growling bellies aside.
The luminaries on the Ohio State team were sophomores Jerry Lucas and John Havlicek. Sophomore Bob Knight was a substitute who averaged 3.7 points. They are so well remembered, Knight thinks, because they are the only Ohio State team to win it all.
Jay LaPrete / Associated Press
"Where there?s a great team, there?s a great coach. No team ever won a national championship with a better coach than Fred Taylor,? Knight said before a banner honoring Taylor and the 1960 team was raised at Value City Arena.Never the team's best player, he became in later years its lightning rod. He could be a one-man tempest, overheating, boiling and torturing the Indiana University teapot until the school blew the whistle on him in a scream of exasperation. Even to some of his teammates, it was a calculated risk to turn the public address microphone over to him at halftime of the Buckeyes' rout of Minnesota on Sunday.
"Where there's a great painting, there's a great painter. Where there's a great and unique building, there's a great architect. Where there's a great team, there's a great coach. No team ever won a national championship with a better coach than Fred Taylor," Knight said of his old Ohio State mentor.
It was a sweet, self-effacing moment. Knight, making only his second appearance ever at an official OSU function because of his many years of coaching elsewhere, stood in a pool of light in otherwise darkened Value City Arena. He is a man with a very pronounced sense of his own place in the sport, yet he paid a heartfelt tribute to the man who shaped him when he was young.
Bob Knight taught Duke's Mike Krzyzewski about life, loyalty and defense
By Jeff Rabjohns
Posted: April 5, 2010
As Mike Krzyzewski stands on the doorstep of passing his mentor in national championships, his affinity and respect for Bob Knight is unwavering.
Inaccurate image? Coach Mike Krzyzewski, reacting to a play in Duke's victory over West Virginia on Saturday, projects a different persona on television than in person. "You see him as a stern person on TV," former Duke player Dahntay Jones said. "He's totally the opposite once you get on campus."
- ROBERT SCHEER / The Star
The two -- in the small number of men in the conversation of greatest college basketball coaches -- have been linked for more than four decades.
A relationship that began as player-coach has grown to colleagues and expanded to equals.
Knight won three national championships at Indiana University. Krzyzewski, who played for Knight at Army and was a graduate assistant for him at IU, can win his fourth championship at Duke if the Blue Devils defeat Butler in tonight's title game at Lucas Oil Stadium.
"I was lucky to be recruited by him out of Chicago," Krzyzewski said on the eve of coaching in his eighth national championship game. "I didn't always appreciate the lessons I was learning from him while he was teaching them, but I think I became a lot tougher.
"I certainly understood the game lot better. I learned about loyalty, passion and preparation at the highest level. And we formed a great relationship because I was his point guard for three years.
"We're best friends. He's been my coach, my mentor and now he's one of my best friends."
10 years later, Knight nowhere near reconciliation with IU
By Terry Hutchens ? The Indianapolis Star ? September 9, 2010
Bob Knight comforted his wife, Karen, before he spoke to nearly 8,000 students on the Dunn Meadow field, a short distance from IU's administration building. (Couier-Journal file photo by Durell Hall Jr.) Sept. 13, 2000
Months before the great divorce that rocked Indiana University, Karen Knight told her husband, ?If the horse is dead, get off it.?
IU ripped the reins out of Bob Knight's hands first on Sept.10, 2000, and exactly a decade later, a gaping hole remains in the family portrait.
The conversation has shifted, however, from whether the patriarch deserved to be fired to these lingering questions:
Can IU properly honor its three-time NCAA champion coach, the only 900-game winner in men's DivisionI history?
Is a miracle mending possible via athletic director Fred Glass?
The overwhelming sentiment is that IU and its fans want a reunion but aren't convinced one is forthcoming.
It's clear only one opinion matters: Knight's, and he has provided little reason to start planning the party. He didn't show up last November when IU inducted him into its Hall of Fame, and he didn't respond to interview requests for this story.
Bob Hammel, former sports editor of the Herald-Times in Bloomington and one of Knight's closest friends, said the coach, who will turn 70 in October, is ?rigid? about the idea of reconciliation and still harbors ill will.
?I just think he's so locked into the fact that there are still so many people (at IU) that he can't stand,? Hammel said. ?There are still too many and still too much of a negative feeling, at least in his mind anyway. Most of them are gone, but not all of them. Until they're all gone, I don't think it will happen.?
