Knight's story to be released today

The fact that Bob Knight's new book will be released today, the week of the Final Four, is not surprising. After all, Knight is college basketball's most infamous coach, and the Final Four is its most exciting moment.\nWhat is surprising is that the team Knight once coached is back in the Final Four, on the shoulders of new coach Mike Davis. Whether the resurgence of IU basketball will rekindle interest in the program's past -- and Knight's book -- is yet to be seen.\nKnight wrote "Knight: My Story," (St. Martin's Press, $24.95), with former Herald-Times sports editor Bob Hammel. The 375-page book chronicles Knight's life from his childhood in tiny Orrville, Ohio, through his playing days at Ohio State, his 29 years of coaching at IU and through his dismissal from IU and hiring at Texas Tech, which he calls the "right place" for him to "start over again."\nIn his years at IU, Knight wrote that his biggest mistakes were staying for about five years too long at Indiana and giving sports writer John Feinstein access to the team for a year. Feinstein wrote "A Season on the Brink," which was recently made into a movie by ESPN.\nFor the most part, Knight's book is full of appreciation and compelling side-stories, but Knight doesn't hold back when blasting the press and the IU administration, especially in the chapter about his firing in 2000, "A long year."\nKnight denies choking Neil Reid and said the administration treated him unfairly and fired him for their own personal reasons.\n"If (IU President Myles) Brand were to put on one side all those reasons for firing me, and on the other side were all the things I had done for Indiana University, I think the scale would show how embarrassingly light his case was," Knight wrote.\nIn a statement, Brand disputed Knight's account and said he would not comment further.\n"Having read Texas Tech Coach Bob Knight's account of the events leading up to his dismissal by Indiana University, I strongly disagree with his depiction of those events and of Indiana University," Brand said. "As a university president, I fully expect to be the target of criticism from time to time. But I am particularly dismayed by the personal attacks directed by Knight at other long-time University employees and trustees, many of whom have devoted their lives to Indiana University and continue to serve this university well. I greatly appreciate their loyal service, and am sorry to see them targeted in this effort to generate controversy and book sales."\nKnight blasts former athletics director Clarence Doninger, former vice president Christopher Simpson and former trustee president John Walda, among others. He also charges that the University mismanaged and wasted money in order to "spin" his firing.\n"They were an amazingly free-spending group on their own behalf for an outfit that could find only two-percent raises for its best professors," Knight wrote.\nKnight told The Associated Press that he wrote the book because he was tired of reading what others wrote about him.\n"I just thought I'd tell it my way," Knight said.\nBrand said he wishes Knight well.\n"I stand by the actions we took and the reasons for them," Brand said.\nKnight will be signing copies of his book at the Bloomington Barnes and Noble Booksellers April 7.