Knight resigns

[MOCR]

ESPN: College coaching legend Knight resigns from Texas Tech (http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3230737)

Very interesting. The University President resigned Friday, but I doubt the two events are related...

[Jane Craig]

I'd throw a chair in his honor, but I don't want to mess up my floor.

[adam & doctor drew]

gotta be a story behind this.
why wouldn't he just wait til the end of the season?

[Another side]

I'd throw a chair in his honor, but I don't want to mess up my floor.

... but the truth is, next to Wooden, he may have been the greatest college coach, ever.

[Wedge]

gotta be a story behind this.
why wouldn't he just wait til the end of the season?

Yes there is something behind this....Knight’s a self-righteous ass who does what he wants. Pat Forde has an excellent article on ESPN.com today.

He'll get a pass from most of the media because he ran clean programs, graduated players and won on his terms. Not to mention the guy can flat-out coach the game. However, there are a lot of coaches you can say this about that don't come with the extra baggage. The bottom line is he's a bully who doesn't live up to his own high standards of character.

[amp]

Damn Wedge!! You hit it right on the head.

To boil it down to a few words: Great Coach, Bad Human Being.

[Tripe Face]

... but the truth is, next to Wooden, he may have been the greatest college coach, ever.

My nominee for Wooden's second is Jim Phelan.

[adam & doctor drew]

here's (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=3230826&sportCat=ncb) the Forde article and I agree with much of it.

and Krzyzewski's gotta be on the list of best ever, IMO.

[Another side]

My nominee for Wooden's second is Jim Phelan.

We don't do bow ties.

[Another side]

here's (http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=3230826&sportCat=ncb) the Forde article and I agree with much of it.

and Krzyzewski's gotta be on the list of best ever, IMO.

... we better add Dean Smith and even Roy Williams (before's he's done)

[MOCR]

Being tired is probably his "cover story", but now, after speaking with several folks I know within Texas Tech, I think he was sending Chancellor Kent Hance a message by this resignation.

Dr. Jon Whitmore "resigned" last Friday. It was a forced resignation by Hance. Whitmore was the one that stood behind Knight during the "Saladgate" episode involving the previous TTU Chancellor, David Smith. Say what you will about Knight, but the man is certainly loyal and no doubt recalls what Whitmore did for him. Whitmore got booted and I'm sure that didn't sit well with Knight.

That Knight resigns only 2 days following Whitmore is no coincidence.

Forde's article is a good read and very much true in several respects, but I submit that perhaps Knight IS doing the noble and right thing, and it has nothing to do with the sport of basketball...

[cinehead]

Being tired is probably his "cover story", but now, after speaking with several folks I know within Texas Tech, I think he was sending Chancellor Kent Hance a message by this resignation.

Dr. Jon Whitmore "resigned" last Friday. It was a forced resignation by Hance. Whitmore was the one that stood behind Knight during the "Saladgate" episode involving the previous TTU Chancellor, David Smith. Say what you will about Knight, but the man is certainly loyal and no doubt recalls what Whitmore did for him. Whitmore got booted and I'm sure that didn't sit well with Knight.

That Knight resigns only 2 days following Whitmore is no coincidence.

Forde's article is a good read and very much true in several respects, but I submit that perhaps Knight IS doing the noble and right thing, and it has nothing to do with the sport of basketball...

Quitting on his players in the middle of the season is pretty unforgivable.
He's no better than Bobby Petrino.

[JoinUsForCake]

Good riddance! The collective collegiate coaching pool just got a little bit classier.

[the original buttongod]

Bobby Knight's next move http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rv6Hb9Ic8MQ

[Another side]

... the head job at Colorado and it wouldn't hurt my feelings any.

[Bandit]

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I thought Sportswriter Bruce Jenkins in SF had an interesting take on the Knight retirement & career ...

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/a/2008/02/09/SPFLUV4K9.DTL

Farewell to Knight

"Tell you one thing about being 92 years old," Pete Newell said by phone the other day. "It's a real pain in the ass." Still relevant, amid bursts of fine humor, Newell is the man Bobby Knight called for advice about leaving the Texas Tech job. It has always been that way between two of the greatest basketball minds in history. They talked for an hour and a half, and in Newell's opinion, "I really think he's done. Just by the way he sounded. Every coach reaches that point. Sometimes it can happen pretty fast." ... Critics have slammed Knight for quitting on his team, but in the collegiate game, there's no proper time to leave. The North Carolina players were expecting another year of Dean Smith in 1997, when he abruptly retired before the first practice. John Thompson and Lefty Driesell each left the game, for good, in midseason. Newell's Cal Bears went 28-2 in 1959-60, losing the NCAA championship game (to Ohio State) after winning it the year before, and yet Newell retired on the spot. He just felt it was time, and after one last fling - coaching the victorious 1960 Olympic team - he never looked back ... The Tech players certainly aren't complaining about Knight's departure. They anticipated the transition to his son, Pat, without much concern. And Bobby did potential recruits a big favor, leaving no mystery about who's coaching the team next fall.
Thanks to Newell, with whom I worked on his biography, I spent an unforgettable day with Knight around the campus of Indiana University in the early '90s. I've always admired him, unconditionally, but I'm weird that way. I was a very fortunate son of Gordon Jenkins, a prominent composer-arranger-conductor for the better part of the 20th century, and he worked closely with three of the most difficult people in the history of the music business: Al Jolson, Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra. Jolson could be an insufferable brat; the drug-sodden Garland was almost impossible to get on stage; Sinatra could make Tony Soprano seem tame. And yet, my father revered and worshiped them all. Such was the magnitude of their talent - it washed all else away. As you descend about 16 stories to the world of sportswriting, I can tell you that working with manager Billy Martin in the Oakland days, and spending that time with Knight, rank among the richest experiences. You cannot comprehend the power of their presence - a bit disturbing, sometimes, but invariably riveting.
So go ahead, put the thrown chair and the boorish behavior at the top of Knight's resume. I'll remember the day his Indiana team beat Michael Jordan with five guys from the hardware store (1984 NCAA regionals). Take the popular stance that the game has passed him by; I'll claim that if Knight could hand-pick his players for the next U.S. national team - perhaps only five or six from the NBA - he would destroy the international competition ... Telling story: When Newell first saw Knight, coaching Army during the 1969 Cable Car Classic in San Francisco, he was appalled. At one point, a furious Knight called timeout, noticed one of his bench players rising to his feet, and pushed him back down. "The whole bench fell down," Newell recalled. "The whole team's got their legs up in the air (laughter)." The thing about it was, Newell kept watching. Something important was taking place. That was always the case when Knight took the floor. Just as there could only be one Billy Martin, one Sinatra, there could only be one Bobby Knight. Even two would be far too many. Just try not to forget the high notes. They were seldom struck with such clarity.