Last Days of Knight
- Thread starter bkmtnittany1
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I saw him speak at Eisenhower as a part of the PSU distinguished speaker series. He is very charismatic and funny, and an asshole at the same time. It was well worth the price of admission.
Great coach! Great molder of men. Early victim of PC madness.
Or lucky to have been around at a time when it was more socially acceptable to treat your players like shit as long as you won.
I believe it was some of both. I was amazed to see this was originally a CNN story, and how much care CNN claimed to have taken to present a true story. I'm not sure they really did at the time, and based on the fake news and biased stories I see out of CNN today, I refuse to give them any benefit of the doubt.
With CNN and ESPiN, it seems to always be about the hype and advertising dollars, not the truth or fair and equal reporting.
I read that 98% of his 4 year players graduated. Doesn't mean he wasn't an arse but that should count for something.
I flew with Bobby to the Bahamas out of Charlotte many years ago. Well, maybe I didn’t fly WITH him, but he was on my flight. When we landed, we went out front to catch our shuttle and he was pacing back and forth because the car that was suppose to pick him up wasn’t there yet. He looked like he was on the sidelines pacing back and forth. He was pissed. Lol we jumped on our shuttle bus and Bobby was still waiting.
Thought that was one of the best 30 for 30’s (and that’s saying a lot, since I’ve really liked a lot of them). I’d say the fact that Knight wouldn’t last a month in a head coaching position today says good things about how we’ve evolved as a society.
He assaulted his players and viciously bullied those around him. He was a sh*tbag and the world will be a better place when he is gone.
Plus, last 15 years or so of his career sucked. He lived off of past glory while the game passed him by. Indiana should have fired him 10 years before they did because he stunk.
It counts for something but pales in comparison to mistreating your players. I’m sure he could have gotten his players to graduate without the God complex.
What a disappointment. I thought they were showing the series finale of this...
when he played for him he liked Knight .... Knight just became a miserable and awful guy. While he was always a hard nose coach & disciplinarian with a bad temper, I dont think he was always the complete dickhead he became late in life.
BTW, Dakich's description of how Knight handled the program with regards to recruiting & such sounds an awful lot like Joe from the 2000s.
Does every soldier love the drill sergeant who gave him the skills to survive in battle?
BK was very much like JVP in this regard. I'd say the ratio between those who love BK and those who didn't is likely comparable.
Do the youngsters on this board know that Joe and Knight were friends and that Knight came close to coaching here while he was still coaching at Westpoint?
Knight and Paterno were very similar for much of their careers. Both graduated players, both did not cheat, both demanded excellence in fundamentals and playing the game the right way.
Early in Paterno's career, he also was a mean SOB with a temper and could be quite petty disciplining his players. People need to read Posnanski's book. Two big differences:
1. Never heard any stories of Paterno being physically abusive
2. Paterno grew out of being the petty disciplinarian.
I think both of them show what happens when coaches hang around or are allowed to hang around too long. Their coaching style was very common for their time. Wooden was one of the few who did not fit that style from that period.
This was basketball, not war. I get your point and believe Knight was a great basketball mind. But he went over the line a few times. Throwing a chair across the court is just childish.
That said, I did come away from the documentary thinking that there was overreaction to Knight’s missteps.
Some did, some didn’t. I’ll bet a lot more disliked him and kept quiet though, especially later in his career. If you’re losing some of your best players, you’re doing something wrong.
I was shocked to find out that Neil Reed passed away.
Very sad for his family.
Very sad for his family.
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
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To get it to the other side?
Could you please cite some examples of Paterno's petty discipline and thank you for providing the links to them.
Ahhh yes. The ever popular, always illogical, cliche of equating military and athletic training.
It always amazed me how Bobby Knight, the alleged great disciplinarian, so often acted in an undisciplined manner.
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anon_xdc8rmuek44eq
Guest
The only example I can think of is when a player wanted to transfer, Paterno held his application up in front of the team and made some statement about how he would never let him transfer and threw the papers up in the air. Paraphrasing.
I’m not the one who issued the blanket proclamation of “his players loved him”...... nor a fan of silly strawman tangents to topics.
Personally, I couldn’t care less whether JVP and BKnight were BFFs, or sworn blood-enemies...... and I surely would have no knowledge as to JVP’s heartfelt opinions of BKnight (and I doubt if many folks would). Why would anyone care?
Some of the urban legends as to “who JVP was friends with”, would make one think JVP either had very indiscriminate tastes in such regards - - - - or that many of those urban legends are as bonafide as a Three-Dollar Bill.
Well Stormy it is in fact true they were friends. Knight always met up with Joe on fridays before they played at Indiana. Often times barging into the off the record sessions on friday night with claims of "old school... is that out describe your offense"
I'm not just talking about basketball. I'm talking about life. He was much like Joe in that regard.
Read Posnanski's book, particularly the parts about Don Abbey. Paterno went out of his way to humiliate him.
There were quite a few players who could not stand Paterno when they were at PSU, their views changed about him later on. Before Joe got old, he was no picnic to play for.
I do know overweight lineman did not care for Paterno. His was very strict about having a lean team.
That may have actually been a big reason for our struggles in the early 2000s. Our linemen were way undersized compared with the rest of the Big Ten.
Will they ever make 30 for 30 about Paterno, Sandusky, or the “Scandal”? I really doubt it.
Probably for the same reason Sara Ganim has never written a book. It just will reveal that the current accepted narrative is completely nonsensical and that it only persists because people simply don’t want to put too much thought into making sense of a situation where “anal intercouse with boys” supposedly occurred.
The story I read or heard was from an interview with Knight many years ago. While I recall that there was a clear reason in his mind that he threw the chair, I am probably not 100% on all the surrounding facts from the story. How true the entire story is is up for personal interpretation, but it was from a writer or journalist (I know, I know) who talked to Knight about it.
He was trying to get in front of the NCAA (I think, or maybe just the B1G), and the powers that be would not grant him a meeting. From Knight's POV, it was because they knew he was right about whatever he was pissed off about, more than likely an instance or 12 of cheating from another school. So, he said, he knew that if he was to be suspended for some infraction, he would be granted a meeting. When he yet again disagreed with an official's call(s), he threw the chair to make sure he got tossed from the game and subsequently suspended. When he got the meeting about the suspension, he took the opportunity to state his case on whatever the other issue was. In his POV, he was forced to do something drastic because the chiefs would not grant him a meeting on the subject he wanted. (That piece of the story sounds very, very plausible, imo.)
I'm no fan of Knight's because of his bullying and off-the-wall temper brought on by his own perceived demons, way beyond what I believe to be reasonable. He was/is a brilliant coach, very smart, cared about his players in his own way, did many good things for people behind the scenes, trusted very few people for his own reasons.
I read the book about their 1987 Championship season by John Feinstein way back when. I remember thinking that it elevated my opinion of Knight, showed the good side of him that few people knew about, gave insight to his coaching during practices and games, and his ongoing internal struggle with anything less than perfection. Not long after, Knight came out and blasted the book as being very anti-Bobby Knight and distorted and made him look bad.... the exact opposite take away I had as an objective reader.
Another favorite story about him is the one where a recruit from Chicago who signed with Illinois after heavy recruiting from IU was killed prior to his freshman year. Knight visited the kid's mother to express his sympathies. (The Illinois coach had not, if I recall.) Anyway, the Mother says to Knight, 'What should I do about the money?' What money? 'The money they gave me.' Who gave you? 'Illinois. Wait here.' She went into a bedroom and came back with two shopping bags full of cash. 'They gave me this money for son to sign with them. Should I give it back?' No, said Knight. Keep it. It's yours.
At times Joe could be a condescending prick in his latter years, especially towards the media. In fact, I'm of the belief this helped lead to his downfall (i.e. these same reporters published hundreds of articles where they twisted his "With the benefit of hindsight..." statement into an admission of guilt).
That said, IMHO it is grossly unfair comparing the way Joe treated people to how Bobby Knight treated people. Joe was an egomaniac who at times could be grumpy, rude and condescending. Knight, on the other hand, was a foul-mouthed boorish bully megalomaniac whose monstrous behavior is simply the not acceptable anywhere in a civilized society.
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OK..... IDK if they were "friends" or not (or even WTF that nebulous term means in this context)… but, let's say they were "friends".....
Who the F cares? And what does any of it have to do with the topic at hand?
[Spoiler: That is - obviously
It has nothing to do with the topic. I was informing you yes that they were in fact friends. And yes they were in fact close friends.
Knight was scheduled to fly fish on Spruce Creek years ago where I guided. The head of the operation decided to place folding chairs around the stream as a joke (an idea I didn't like at all). Turns out he had to cancel but I often wondered how that would have went over
Joe was condescending to the media for good reason. Every single PC was the same damn thing. "When are you going to retire?" Joe wanted to talk about his team. The press was insufferable!
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