RIP Bobby Knight

Gonna hear a lot of euphemisms for "asshole" over the next few days.

AP went with "tempestuous."

 

One fewer asshole walking the planet.

 

I began loving college hoops with the great Indy teams with Scott May/Kent Benson/Abernathy/Wilkerson/Quinn Buckner and very much enjoyed watching Knight demand man to man defense. I then moved on to the other championship teams with the Isiah Thomas '81 team and the Keith Smart/Alford team.

However his crass, bullying ways that came to light ("just lie back and enjoy [the rape]") completely soured me (in addition to the choking incident with forgot the player) so much that its hard for me to even hope he RIPs. I understand that his was a different time but he was an entitled, sexist bastard and I've got a difficult time with that.

 

Neil Reed was the player he strangled. Choking is when something blocks your airway internally. Seeing how IU fans vilified him instead of Knight is an enduring memory for me.

 

RIP?

The guy was a bully and an abuser. Fuck him.

 

I bet his tombstone says “Robert Montgomery Knight”…….it most definitely won’t just say “KNIGHT”.

 

Man could coach 'em up.

All I got.

 

I'm part of a really-not-that-exclusive club of media members who were personally bitched out by Bobby Knight. But it was still fun to watch him do his thing.

 

Hey Knight! Cross him off then.

 

We’d have to rent out all 17,000 seats in Assembly Hall for all of us club members to meet up.

 

He won without cheating, which should be unique but wasn’t. And not always the best talent, probably because he didn’t cheat. And he seemed pretty proud to coach at West Point and in the Olympics.

But in so many ways a miserable prick who was godded up because he was a “character”

 

What an interesting, storied legacy. You can watch the 1976 Indiana documentary on Showtime and then the "Last Days of Knight" 30 for 30 and get the amazingly good and the equally amazingly bad.

If anything it showed that it's very rare for a legendary coach that's indentified with a program to leave said program under peaceful good terms. More times than not they tend to be pushed in a fashion not complimentary to their body of work.