BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — Former Indiana Hoosiers Men’s Basketball head coach Bob Knight died at the age of 83 Wednesday, according to the Knight Legacy.
A press release from the family organization said Knight passed away in his Bloomington home surrounded by family.
“It is with heavy hearts that we share that Coach Bob Knight passed away at his home in Bloomington surrounded by his family. We are grateful for all the thoughts and prayers, and appreciate the continued respect for our privacy as Coach requested a private family gathering, which is being honored. We will continue to celebrate his life and remember him, today and forever as a beloved Husband, Father, Coach, and Friend.”
KNIGHT LEGACY
Knight was a three time national champion as head coach at Indiana, where he collected 662 of his 902 career wins. Knight currently stands sixth all-time in coaching wins across the history of DI college basketball, behind former protégé Mike Krzyzewski (1,202), Jim Boeheim (1,015), Bob Huggins (935), Jim Calhoun (920), and Roy Williams (903).
Courtside, Knight is best remembered for his fiery demeanor from the bench and being the last coach to achieve perfection across a single season at the DI level.
In 1985, Knight was ejected during a game versus Purdue University, where he threw a chair onto the court after drawing a technical foul not five minutes into the game.
Some nine years earlier, the Indiana Hoosiers beat the University of Michigan, 86-68, to claim the 1975-76 NCAA National Championship and complete a perfect season, finishing 32-0. No men’s college basketball team has accomplished the feat since.
Knight would go on to win two more national championships after Indiana’s perfect season in 1975-76 — one at the end of the 1980-81 season, and a third at the end of the 1986-87 season.
Overall, Knight finished his career with a 902-371 record. Before catching on with Indiana, Knight broke into the DI college basketball ranks at Army, where he coached for six years and earned a 102-50 record. After coaching Indiana to a 662-239 over 29 years, Knight was fired by then-Indiana University President Myles Brand in 2000, and picked up the head coaching position at Texas Tech for parts of seven seasons from 2002-08, where he went 138-82.
Off the court, Knight’s demeanor led him to incidents of physical conflict and controversy throughout his career, which included a conviction for assaulting a police officer in Puerto Rico, headbutting a player while screaming at him on the sideline of a game, accusations of him putting his hands around the neck of another player, and allegedly kicking his own son.
One of the more prominent controversies happened in 1992, where then-Indiana player Calbert Cheaney repeatedly snapped Knight with a towel after an NCAA tournament game in retaliation to his head coach wielding a bullwhip at practice as a joke.
Still, Knight was never found to have officially broken NCAA rules or regulations, and continued to hold himself to a high standard as a coach, even after his departure from Indiana.
According to an ESPN article from 2003, Knight told Texas Tech to keep his entire $250,000 salary because he thought he didn’t do a good enough job coaching his team.
“I’m just not at all satisfied with what transpired with our team in terms of our fundamental execution. I don’t think it’s anybody’s fault but mine,” Knight said in the article.
In lieu of flowers, the Knight family asks those wanting to honor coach Knight’s memory to make a donation toward the Alzheimer’s Association or Marian University.
