Knight, "Bobby" (Robert)
Basketball
b. Oct. 25, 1940, Orville, OH
Knight earned ten letters in three sports at Ohio State University. He was a sophomore substitute on the basketball team that won the 1960 NCAA championship, and he also played for the teams that lost in the finals of the 1961 and 1962 NCAA tournaments.
After graduating, Knight entered the Army and became assistant basketball coach at the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. Two years later, he was named head coach. At 24, he was the youngest Division I basketball coach in history.
His emphasis on solid team defense soon became obvious. In his five years at West Point, three of his teams led the nation in defense and the other two finished second. Knight compiled a record of 102 wins against 50 losses before going to Indiana University in 1971.
At Indiana, he was thrust into the national spotlight and was frequently criticized by media and fans for his courtside behavior. Knight often grabbed players and shouted angrily at them. He once threw a chair onto the floor to protest an official's decision. And he was involved in international controversy twice, once for allegedly striking a security guard in Puerto Rico while coaching the 1979 Pan-American Games team, the other time for pulling his Indiana team off the floor after he had been ejected from a game against the Soviet Union.
But, while a few players transferred from Indiana to other schools, most of his players defended him. At a time when a number of college basketball programs were tainted by recruiting violations, there was never a hint of scandal at Indiana, and Knight's players had a consistently high graduation rate.
They also produced on the court. Under Knight, Indiana won three NCAA championships, in 1976, 1981, and 1987, and the 1975-76 team won all 32 of its games. Knight got his 300th career victory in 1979, at the age of thirty-nine, the youngest coach ever to reach that figure.
During the '90s, though, Indiana didn't do well in the NCAA tournament, even though Knight's teams won consistently during the regular season, and criticism of his behavior mounted. After a former player claimed that Knight had physically abused him, the university president in effect put the coach on probation in May of 2000, announcing a "zero tolerance policy."
In September, a student claimed that Knight had grabbed him and let out a string of curse words because the student called him by his last name instead of referring to him as "Mr. Knight." Knight denied the charge, but he was abruptly fired.
After a year out of basketball, Knight became the head coach at Texas Tech in 2001. He promptly led the school to a 23-9 and its first NCAA tournament appearance in six years. In his second season, though, the record slipped to 18-12, and Knight announced that he would not accept his salary for the year because of that disappointing performance.
Through 2002-03, Knight has an 804-311 record. He ranks fourth all-time in total victories.