Bobby Knight in declining health.

[Lennys Tap]

I always had mixed emotions about Bobby Knight.    I admired his teams, his motion offense, his man-to-man help principles.   There were moments of true genius.  But I stopped liking him as a person after the chair throw and the Neil Reed incident.   It seemed as he got later in his career, it became more difficult to appreciate the coaching genius because the negatives of his personality became the story. 

Now, it is being reported that that great mind is disappearing.    I find myself contemplating the death thread here.    It is an end that faces us all.    And a question that faces us all.    Will we be remembered for the best of ourselves or the worst of ourselves?

Depends on the goodness (or lack thereof) of those doing the remembering.

[JWags85]

Jay Wright is a great coach. And I'm sure he occasionally gets frustrated and yells at a player or barks at support staff. But he somehow wins without being a bellicose bully 24/7. So do most good coaches. And although one could argue it's partly a generational thing, neither Wooden nor K nor many other great coaches over the years acted the way Knight did. Indeed, Wooden, while respecting Knight's coaching ability, was repulsed by his deeds and words.

Interesting choices as paragons of virtue. Coach K is a known PoS but does enough AMEX commericials and cozy interviews with Dickie V to gloss over the constant verbal abuse he’s laid on players and their families behind the scenes, much less countless Duke students and staffers he views as beneath him. His behavior after the UNC game speaks volumes of him.

And Wooden, well, the man built a legacy on old school values and cleanliness while setting the stage for the dirty money booster game that rules CBB these days. He wasn’t physically abusive, but his whitewashed legacy is always interesting to me.

[MU82]

Interesting choices as paragons of virtue. Coach K is a known PoS but does enough AMEX commericials and cozy interviews with Dickie V to gloss over the constant verbal abuse he’s laid on players and their families behind the scenes, much less countless Duke students and staffers he views as beneath him. His behavior after the UNC game speaks volumes of him.

And Wooden, well, the man built a legacy on old school values and cleanliness while setting the stage for the dirty money booster game that rules CBB these days. He wasn’t physically abusive, but his whitewashed legacy is always interesting to me.

Obviously, Wooden cheated like crazy, and Knight ran a famously clean program. But I wasn't talking about that. To the best of my knowledge, Wooden never physically and psychologically abused the 18-22 year olds under his charge.

I did not mean to paint K (or anyone else) as a paragon of virtue. While I am not aware of any physical abuse in K's long tenure at Duke, like you I know for a fact that he has gotten into his players' faces ... as most coaches at that level do sometimes. I mean, Calipari tore Herro a new one just a couple days ago.

Please provide links to articles with evidence that K is/was a practitioner of "constant verbal abuse he’s laid on players and their families behind the scenes, much less countless Duke students and staffers he views as beneath him."

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I have not heard about it.

We all know for a fact that Knight physically attacked a player and tried to cover it up. We all know for a fact that he accosted an IU student merely for calling him "Knight." We know for a fact that his verbal and psychological abuse of players is legendary, that he bullied people who volunteered at NCAA tournaments, that he threw furniture across the court, that he accused (without offering a shred of evidence) that refs were on the take, etc.

Knight eventually stopped winning big at Indiana not because he suddenly became a bad coach but because top recruits said, "Why do I need to take constant abuse? I can achieve all of my goals by playing for a coach who won't abuse me every day." He stopped landing A-list players, and even a great coach can't win big with B-list and and C-list players.

If K is as abusive as you say -- and again, maybe he is, and I will be very interested in seeing the video or reading the articles -- word of it apparently hasn't gotten out to the A-list players who line up to attend Duke. Yes, they know Duke can get them to the NBA, but so can Kentucky, Kansas, Michigan State, UNC, etc, etc.

[Pakuni]

My point is that Knight's methods and measures are being judged by today's standards and expectations.

Physically and verbally abusing kids was acceptable in the 70s and 80s?
Bob Knight is a bad person no matter what day's standards you're judging him by. He's a narcissistic bully who got away with it for so long not because of a different standard, but because his teams were winning. We fans have a long history of being way too eager to look past someone's misdeeds if he's winning. But once his Hoosiers started to consistently underachieve, the tolerance for Bob's methods not-so-mysteriously disappeared.
I don't with the man ill health or ill anything, but he's a colossal pr*ck and deserves to be remembered as such.

[SERocks]

He stopped landing A-list players, and even a great coach can't win big with B-list and and C-list players.

Isn't that what Brad Stevens had mostly at Butler? 

[Pakuni]

Isn't that what Brad Stevens had mostly at Butler?

I wouldn't call Gordon Hayward,  Shelvin Mack and Matt Howard B- and C-list players.
They were under-recruited, for sure, but really good at basketball.

And I'm not sure I'd say Knight stopped landing A-list players. He was still getting McDonald's AAs in his latter says at It's Indiana It's Indiana, just not many of them stuck around to deal with his abuse (i.e. Luke Recker, Neil Reed, Jason Collier).

[MU82]

Isn't that what Brad Stevens had mostly at Butler?

How many decades did Stevens excel at Butler? How many different decades did Stevens take a team to the Final Four? Knight won 3 titles and went to the FF in the '70s, '80s and '90s. Stevens?

I get your point. Every so often, a coach can win big with lesser (or as Pakuni says, under-recruited) talent. But it's hard to say Stevens was more than an outlier, and he also has a small sample size. Bo might be a better model for the argument, because he coached at Wisconsin much longer than Stevens did and had much more NCAA tournament success (as well as every other kind of success) than Stevens did.

By the end, Knight was landing few 5-stars, certainly not several in a year. And as Pakuni said, the few who did go there learned quickly that they didn't like being abused by a bully.

[Jockey]

Bob Knight was old school. Pure and simple.

Whatever you think of his methods, his personal matters etc., he was a winner. A brilliant basketball mind and the kids who stuck it out with him respected him.

He got into trouble for throwing a chair and starting to choke a kid. Gee, we know a revered basketball coach who decked one of his guards in practice and had a fist-fight with an all-American forward. Same coach went off on the NCAA (with good reason) and ended up with two technicals in a NatChamp game. Not even Knight did that, not matter how bad he thought he was being screwed.

Perhaps the difference between Bob Knight and our revered basketball coach is twofold. First, Knight was harsh and militaristic both in public and private. You got full frontal everytime and every place. Our revered basketball coach was a bit of a free spirit.

Secondly, our revered basketball coach knew the PR aspect of his game. He was in control in public and he rarely, to my knowledge, ever said anything  that could be used to hang him. He knew how to play the image game and he did to the hilt. Knight was an "I am who I am" kinda guy.

Certainly, Knight is one of the all-time great coaches. No one disputes that.

But, unlike a decent man like McGuire, Knight was an all-time d'bag to the nth degree. Just a wretched, horrible human being.

Had a long conversation at our Baseball fantasy draft last year with one of the other owners. He was an Indiana grad and worked in the Athletic Dept. for 2 years. He said that there was never even one time when that Knight ever acknowledged him in the halls. He would say "Hello" or "Good Morning" and never once got any reaction at all. After talking with others, he learned Knight treated everyone who worked there the same way. Unless you were "important". you did not even exist in Knight's world.

[Jon]

Interesting choices as paragons of virtue. Coach K is a known PoS but does enough AMEX commericials and cozy interviews with Dickie V to gloss over the constant verbal abuse he’s laid on players and their families behind the scenes, much less countless Duke students and staffers he views as beneath him. His behavior after the UNC game speaks volumes of him.

And Wooden, well, the man built a legacy on old school values and cleanliness while setting the stage for the dirty money booster game that rules CBB these days. He wasn’t physically abusive, but his whitewashed legacy is always interesting to me.

You are spot on Wags.

K is as foul mouthed as Knight at his worst (guess who was K's mentor?)

As for Wooden, he was the dirtiest coach in the history of the NCAA. Alcindor's dad was a postman. His uptick in lifestyle after Lew signed with UCLA was staggering. The USPS must have given a raise to the mail sorters that year because the Alcindors were never in need of anything.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

You are spot on Wags.

K is as foul mouthed as Knight at his worst (guess who was K's mentor?)

As for Wooden, he was the dirtiest coach in the history of the NCAA. Alcindor's dad was a postman. His uptick in lifestyle after Lew signed with UCLA was staggering. The USPS must have given a raise to the mail sorters that year because the Alcindors were never in need of anything.

Wooden was squeaky clean.  The friends of the program took care of everything else.  wink, wink, nod, nod.

Al was probably in the same boat, but the rules were different back in the 60s and 70s vs today.

[Cheeks]

Certainly, Knight is one of the all-time great coaches. No one disputes that.

But, unlike a decent man like McGuire, Knight was an all-time d'bag to the nth degree. Just a wretched, horrible human being.

Had a long conversation at our Baseball fantasy draft last year with one of the other owners. He was an Indiana grad and worked in the Athletic Dept. for 2 years. He said that there was never even one time when that Knight ever acknowledged him in the halls. He would say "Hello" or "Good Morning" and never once got any reaction at all. After talking with others, he learned Knight treated everyone who worked there the same way. Unless you were "important". you did not even exist in Knight's world.

Knight acknowledged us all the time.  He was a friend of Al McGuire’s.

People see one side I guess.

Coach K has a dirty mouth?  Oh noes.

[MU82]

Al was probably in the same boat, but the rules were different back in the 60s and 70s vs today.

Indeed.

[JWags85]

I did not mean to paint K (or anyone else) as a paragon of virtue. While I am not aware of any physical abuse in K's long tenure at Duke, like you I know for a fact that he has gotten into his players' faces ... as most coaches at that level do sometimes. I mean, Calipari tore Herro a new one just a couple days ago.

Please provide links to articles with evidence that K is/was a practitioner of "constant verbal abuse he’s laid on players and their families behind the scenes, much less countless Duke students and staffers he views as beneath him."

I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I have not heard about it.

If K is as abusive as you say -- and again, maybe he is, and I will be very interested in seeing the video or reading the articles -- word of it apparently hasn't gotten out to the A-list players who line up to attend Duke. Yes, they know Duke can get them to the NBA, but so can Kentucky, Kansas, Michigan State, UNC, etc, etc.

He made Semi Ojelye’s mom cry and humiliated her and her husband when they asked about their son’s future at Duke.

Told William Avery he was “f***ing up my program” when he had the NERVE to leave as a lottery pick.

In the 90s, he obliterated the student newspaper sportswriters cause they gave the team a B+ midseason grade, told them to get their heads out of their asses.

Nick Collison called to inform him that he was going to Kansas and K replies “I don’t f***ing care”

He humiliated Dillon Brooks on national television and then flat out lied about it.

He may not have choked anyone, but it takes 5 min to find myriad examples of his scumbag behavior and sociopathic need for dominance and reputation enhancement over truth. He’s the anti-Al

[MU82]

He made Semi Ojelye’s mom cry and humiliated her and her husband when they asked about their son’s future at Duke.

Told William Avery he was “f***ing up my program” when he had the NERVE to leave as a lottery pick.

In the 90s, he obliterated the student newspaper sportswriters cause they gave the team a B+ midseason grade, told them to get their heads out of their asses.

Nick Collison called to inform him that he was going to Kansas and K replies “I don’t f***ing care”

He humiliated Dillon Brooks on national television and then flat out lied about it.

He may not have choked anyone, but it takes 5 min to find myriad examples of his scumbag behavior and sociopathic need for dominance and reputation enhancement over truth. He’s the anti-Al

None of those scenarios/actions are good. Can't defend them, and I won't try.

Still, I would have preferred a link from a credibly-sourced article.

And you're right ... none of them are as bad as physically abusing players.

And if all of that is true, I wonder why recruits still flock to Duke when there are many other legit-title-contending, NBA-player-producing programs that perhaps don't have such a "scumbag ... (with a) sociopathic need for dominance and reputation enhancement over truth" running the show.

I'm not asking that to be a wise guy. I legitimately wonder why. If all it takes is 5 minutes of googling to uncover the horrors of playing for Coach K, why would parents let their kids go there instead of to, say, Kansas or Villanova?

[Benny B]

Physically and verbally abusing kids was acceptable in the 70s and 80s?

I think the point is that it wasn't acceptable, but society consistently looked the other way.

I blame the nazis and communists.  After WWII, many coaches started taking the drill sergeant approach (likely because many had previously served and personally witnessed the successes and failures that strict adherence to ruthless instruction and efficiency - i.e. verbal abuse - could bring about)... incidentally, this was also the reason that hazing started making its way onto college campuses via fraternities and athletics.

People just accepted it, all the while completely ignorant to the fact that the military was successful with such a technique because they broke you down so they could build you up... most damaging was when coaches, fraternities - and in a lot of cases, parents - etc. used such paramilitary tactics simply to break others down and then saw no reason to build back up once they had compliance.