Bob Knight

The executive editor and senior writer at Sports Illustrated discusses his recent article that looks into the “basketball bromance” between Bob Knight and Dean Smith and the future of great university coaches.

In between his college and pro careers, Jordan showed glimpses of his greatness in Indianapolis leading up to the Olympic Games.

Are calls for the dismissal of the IU athletic director just good sense, or jumping the gun?

“I hope I don’t wind up wandering the streets. Or writing long-winded emails to my friends.”

“What the hell
 difference does it make?” says Knight. “So I’m 50.”

“When did the sport coat give way to the sweater?” I asked. “Why did Bobby become Bob?” Questions hardly so nervy as to provoke the explosion that followed.

“I do remember that he was swearing after we went off air,” recalls one of Knight’s former ESPN broadcast crew members. “Something or other was always pissing him off.”

“When you have a guy who’s a genius, a lot of people don’t understand him,” says Lawrence Funderburke. “Not to excuse anything he’s done, but he thinks differently and he sees differently.”

Indiana basketball’s defining rivalry rekindles twice in February with two new episodes of a series Purdue currently leads by a reasonably commanding 115–89. Here’s what got (and kept) the ball rolling:

“I went to Ohio State instead of one of your favorite schools,” Knight told the audience in Grand Rapids, which reacted with a hearty chorus of boos.

Indiana’s once-in-a-lifetime moment in the political sun has had a way humbling all five presidential candidates, as we’ve welcomed them into our watering holes, pancake houses, ice cream shops, and gymnasiums.

“The greatest endorsement in the history of Indiana, folks,” Trump said of Knight. “What a winner. What a winner. Such a great man. You know, our country doesn’t win any more. That’s what we need right there—let me tell you.”

He might not have the discipline he insisted on from others, but Hoosiers are richer for the contradiction.

Forty years ago, Larry Bird passed on a chance at big-time basketball. The small-town star left Bob Knight’s IU team before a single game and returned home.

Dan Dakich interviews “Bob Knight”