Anybody covered Bob Knight?

You are right on.

 

This will out me, so I registered this name just to tell this story:

I used to cover Knight semi-regularly several years ago. After one game, a student reporter (who knows, maybe txscoop?) asked him a harmless question and Knight absolutely ripped into him. He criticized the kid's wording (he's good at that), and basically tried to bully him. He finishes by saying, "I'm just trying to help you in this so-called profession you've chosen for yourself, which is two steps up from prostitution."

Then he smacks his hands on the table, gets up and turns to leave. But just as he gets to the door, I yell out, "Bob, one more question!"

He turns and sneers at me. "What?," he growls.

"Just out of curiosity," I say, "what's in between?"

Knight grunted and walked out, but I think even he was laughing. If anything, it made the kid realize he shouldn't take Knight's insults so seriously.

 

I never covered Knight regularly, but my first experience was an entertaining one. I was a junior in college working for my student paper and we got credentialed for an event Knight's IU team was playing in. I pretty much went to the press conference just to watch because I wasn't writing about it.

Knight started with the usual general comments, starting with "I thought we played gutsy," and never looked at the media while doing it. Then a reporter from South Carolina, who was there to cover Clemson, asked Knight to characterize the team's play. Knight jumped on him: "I said we played gutsy. Let's see, I guess another word for gutsy would be tough-minded. See, if you're going to come up from South Carolina and cover our games you need to learn our language."

It was actually rather humorous, as are all of Knight's outbursts to some degree. But what I learned about Knight in the other isolated times that I've covered him, and from colleagues who covered him regularly, is that Knight tests reporters by throwing them shit. He wants to see if you know what you're talking about and have thought your questions through. He wants to know if you can back up what you're saying, and if you'll stand behind it. He has little patience for those who don't know what they're talking about, or are too cowardly to stand behind their work when it's questioned. If you can pass that test — which isn't easy — then he may show you some respect. And from what I've been told, he does respect a select few writers.

But most of us don't want to deal with that middle-school mindset long enough to earn our Bob Knight certification.

 

Thanks, M.F. It's funny, it really did make me feel better because it kinda loosened the mood in the room.

That was the first press conference I ever attended and I really didn't ask a bad question, it was just worded wrong if you're a basketball expert, which I clearly wasn't.

In fact, after he tried to make me feel stupid, I remember him giving a really good answer to the question.

I agree with txscoop. He is an ass, yes. But to be honest, he taught me more about the game of basketball than anyone else ever has, and he made me a better writer and reporter. I feel pretty blessed to have gotten to cover him for an entire season. I think it's made me better at what I do.

And hell, I'll forever be immortalized as the No. 8 spot on Sportscenter's Top 10 Bob Knight moments. Whatever, it took me about five minutes to get over it and move on.

Like txscoop said, once you get those first few questions out of the way, you realize he's just a basketball coach. I wasn't scared of him at all after that first time.

 

For all his faults, there is not, nor has there ever been a more fascinating coach in this country, or perhaps any country.

I also don't think I've ever seen another coach have the same press conference presence that Bob Knight has. The room gets silent when he walks in.

You can say the same thing about maybe five coaches anywhere.

The people I know who have covered Knight say they're the most scared when he's being really nice to them, which happens more often than you think.

 

I remember the first time I covered the Big 12 Tournament. It was awe-striking (is that a word??) on the difference between the pre-tournament pressers that they have for each coach.

Quin Snyder walked in for his, decent turnout. Eddie Sutton, same thing. Ricardo Patton, not so much. THEN, Bob Knight's 15-minute slot comes and the whole room fills up with reporters from all over the country wanting their shot at the legend. I, and many others, dealt with that every day. I think it's kind of a cool thing to look back on.

 

Quin Snyder is a prick.

 

He sounds a little Saban-esque, then. Lord knows the LSU/Miami/Alabama media has/is experienced several unique moments.

rb

 

Hey Mltru-- good to hear from you again. Why don't you let us all in on the question you asked Knight.

 

OK, by popular demand, here is the question. I can take a break from writing a story to throw myself to the wolves...

A little background: Ronald Ross was a walk-on at Tech -- great great kid, came from one of the winningest high school basketball programs in the country (Hobbs, N.M.) -- and played sparingly as a freshman.

This was his sophomore year and he was starting a lot of games, but was mostly being used as a defensive stopper and didn't display much offensive game.

So this game was near the end of nonconference play and Ross goes off for, I believe, 26 points, which far and away exceeded his previous career high.

So my question, I asked the very first question because I wanted to get it out of the way and my heart was pounding. It went something like this...

"Ronald Ross has been great on defense for y'all all season but tonight but were you at all surprised that tonight he showed what he can on the offensive side of the ball?"

Oh lord, that's right, I said "side of the ball" when referring to basketball, not football.

He went into a diatribe about how when you look out and see grass and yard markers, it's "other side of the ball" but when you see a hardwood floor it's "other end of the floor" blah blah blah. Then went into the prostitution thing.

I was probably as red as Bob's old sweater vests, but even I laughed at the prostitution comment, then even more at M.F.'s question.

Later on, Knight's prick SID, Randy Farley, came up to me and said, "Bob wanted me to tell you that he actually thought your question was good, but he likes to make an example out of people he's never seen before."

I was like, gee, thanks, Randy.

Anyway, I wouldn't take the experience back for anything. Like I said before, I've never used that terminology again when talking about basketball and that's just the tip of the iceberg of what I learned about the game after growing up around football and baseball pretty much exclusively.

 

I wouldn't trade anyother coach for him. Never laughed so much listening to a Knight presser. Plus he can say one sentence that makes the story better, especially the lede.

 

I used to be the network board op for his coach's shows while he was at IU. He never took phone calls (like that's a surprise), so I always called Don (the voice of IU) at home, hooked up to his home studio, then he called Bob Knight.

So many stories. Countless nights when he ate while doing the show and it was hard to understand him at times.

The best night was when he was cleaning his gun. I can't remember if he said it on air or if it was during a commercial, but Don asked him what he was doing, and he said "just cleaning my gun." At one point, if I remember correctly, he dropped it and all I heard was him say, "oh shit!" If he was cleaning it, there should have been no opportunity for the gun to go off, but apparently he was concerned. More cursing got on the air during that show than I've ever heard before. I think the FCC would enjoy fining the hell out of that show now.

I suppose it should be no surprise since his neighbors have alleged that he was shooting too close to his house and that he's shot at people before.