Going gently into that good ‘Knight’

After 42 years of abrasive, aggressive and straight up successful Division I coaching, Bob Knight quietly stepped down and out of college basketball for good last Monday, Feb. 4. The Red Raiders of Texas Tech will no doubt miss the General, but IU is where Knight made the most history, leading the Hoosiers to three national titles, 11 Big Ten championships and an undefeated 1976-77 season. And let’s not forget that 23 players became All-Americans under Knight and nine were named Big Ten Most Valuable Players. \nSure, these are all reasons to love the General, but what about those great PR moments? How about the 1985 IU-Purdue game when Knight suddenly flung a folding chair across Assembly Hall? Or the infamous choking incident of 1997? Nah, he didn’t choke Neil Reed. He was just, eh, grabbing his neck to get his attention. OK, so our Bobby was a bit hot-tempered ... a ticking time bomb, perhaps. But everyone must admit the man ran one of the cleanest programs in NCAA history. His IU players boasted a 98 percent graduation rate, and Knight was known for calling professors to make sure his players were not only attending classes, but also doing well in them. A.J. Ratliff would not have made the cut.\nNow, we love Sampson and are willing to ignore his “innocent” phone calls because he got in-state talent that Mike Davis simply couldn’t, but it must be noted here that Knight never violated any recruiting rules (that we know of, anyway). He even made a comment once about his unwillingness to cross any ethical lines in recruiting. \n“I can probably (win) as well as anybody can. I would just cheat, get some money from a lot of people around Indianapolis who want to run the operation that way, and just go out and get the best basketball players I can. Then we’d beat everybody.”\nBut he didn’t need to do these things. His Hoosiers won 73 percent of their games fairly and with class.\nUnfortunately, what a lot of people remember about Knight was when IU fired him in 2000 for violating the “zero tolerance” policy, which included “no ‘inappropriate’ physical contact with students.” It all started after an IU freshman claimed Knight “blew up” at him for calling him simply “Knight” on campus. IU President Myles Brand said this was just the tip of the iceberg, and the University eventually let Knight go.\nAndy Katz, a senior writer for ESPN, called Knight “an embarrassment” to the program. But this shouldn’t be how we remember Coach Knight. He brought a charisma to IU basketball that we are still thriving off of today. And really, it doesn’t matter to him what we think, anyway. As Knight once said, “When my time on earth is gone, and my activities here are passed, I want them to bury me upside down, and my critics can kiss my ass.” Well said, Coach. We’ll miss seeing you on the sidelines.