Current
Texas Tech men's basketball coach and former
Indiana University men's
basketball coach, unfortunately more famous for his
temper than for his tremendous coaching
record.
Robert Montgomery Knight started his coaching career at Army in 1965, and after 5 winning seasons in 6 years, he moved on to Indiana, where he'd spend the next 3 decades.
At Indiana, his team was a perennial Big Ten power and national force. His Hoosiers won 11 Big Ten titles and were NCAA champions in 1976, 1981, and 1987. The 1976 squad went a perfect 32-0 and is regarded as one of the best college teams in history. In fact, no team since has had a perfect season. His 1979 team won the NIT.
Knight also had coaching success on the international level, coaching the U.S. men's basketball squad to gold medals in the 1979 Pan American Games and 1984 Olympics.
His success led him to be inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame in 1991.
Marring all the good is the very bad of Bob Knight. His temper is legendary and the single image that many associate with Knight is his flinging a chair across the court in anger during a game versus Purdue. He's had numerous altercations (many of them physical) with players, officials, media, fans and strangers. After being warned numerous times by Indiana officials, the last straw came in September 2000 when he laid a hand on a student who yelled "Hey, Knight!" He was fired days later.
The book "A Season on the Brink" (1986) by John Feinstein follows Knight and his Indiana team through the 1985-1986 season and gives great insight into Knight the coach and Knight the man.
Knight went to college at Ohio State and was part of their 1960 NCAA championship team. Knight, along with Dean Smith, are the only two people to have won NCAA championships as both a player and a coach.
In March 2001, Texas Tech took a chance and hired Knight to coach their team.
Knight's career coaching mark (through 2000) is an amazing 763-290.