Bob Knight’s fervent, divisive personality created a legacy greater than life itself.
The final time I saw Bob Knight, it served as a startling reminder that time is not defeated. The guy that stumbled haltingly into Assembly Hall on February 8, 2020, was stooped and looked nothing like the imposing icon I had witnessed rule that basketball stronghold with an iron hand and a burning passion. Over the course of several decades, Knight evoked a lot of emotions in people, but pity was never one of them. Up to that point. Though it was not here, the end was in sight.
At the age of 79, Knight was eventually courted back to Indiana University by his devoted former teammates. They had used coercion to get him to reconcile with the institution that had fired him twenty years prior. They wanted to use this opportunity to express their gratitude to one another as a fan base and to their former coach. They felt a mutual desire for closure and catharsis, so they pushed for it to happen before it was too late. It seemed as though the roars and the outpouring were something the entire state needed to hear. Indiana needed to be reminded of all the intense feelings his man evoked, both positive and negative. They required another sensation of it.
“I don’t know if we’ll see something like this again in college basketball,” said Randy Wittman, who played on one of Knight’s three national championship teams, the 1981 version. Wittman was right, but not simply about the scene that day in Assembly Hall. We won’t see anything like Bob Knight again in college basketball. Nothing close.
That is positive in a few significant ways. Knight’s style of coaching is no longer viable, and it never should be. Knight’s emotional and physical abuse of numerous others around him undermined his brilliance; this weakness resulted in his shocking departure from Indiana. Autocrats seldom leave on their own volition. However, a coach of such enormous stature within his own domain is also unheard of. While there have been many outstanding college basketball coaches, none have had the same unique charisma as Knight. It was more than just the victory; it was the inflexible conviction about the ideal style of basketball play. Consequently, it was the manner in which others in his immediate vicinity ate up that belief.