Unforgettable – Bob Knight A Coaching Force Like No Other
11/4/2023 6:00:00 PM | Men's Basketball
By Pete DiPrimio
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – For Mike Woodson, when it comes to Robert Montgomery Knight, it's no contest.
"He's the greatest coach that ever graced the college basketball floor," the Indiana basketball coach says.
Woodson speaks from the Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall media room that Bob Knight once dominated for 29 years as a coaching giant, winning 662 games at IU, and 902 overall with stops at Army and Texas Tech. He passed away this week at age 83.
Knight won with ferocious competitiveness, coaching brilliance, and unmatched passion. He was feisty and funny, charismatic and caring, a bigger-than-life figure who transcended sports.
In his prime, he rated among the most famous people on earth. His passing evokes memories as strong as the moment they happened.
Thirty years from his playing days, former Indiana All-American Calbert Cheaney, now the Hoosiers' director of player development, remembers it well.
"He was going to be tough on you; he was going to push you; he was going to make you not like him sometimes, but at the end of the day, when you graduated and did your own thing, he'd do anything for you. You'd call him and he'd do whatever you needed. That's the type of person he was."
Knight teams won three national championships and 11 Big Ten regular-season titles, including the 32-0 1976 team that remains the last major college undefeated national champion. He won with shut-down defense and full-throttle offense, and when the NCAA instituted the 3-point shot starting in the 1986-87 season, he unleashed All-America guard Steve Alford to national-title-winning perimeter effect.
"He was always two steps ahead of everybody," Woodson says. "He saw things that as players we didn't see. Most great coaches are like that. His mind was phenomenal in his process of beating his opponent."
For Knight, it was mind over matter, preaching mental was to physical as four was to one.
Case in point -- when IU won the 1987 national title, it beat LSU 77-76, UNLV 97-93, and Syracuse 74-73 in its final three games as much because of its preparation and tough-minded crunch-time play as its physical talent.
"You can will yourself to win, but can you prepare yourself to win?" Woodson says. "That's what he did. He prepared guys to play at a higher level than most teams that he coached against."
Woodson strives to continue that legacy. Coddling players isn't part of the process.
"I've always believed that players want to be coached," he says. "It's finding the right buttons to coach them. That's what Knight was so great at doing.
"Yeah, he lost some players along the way who couldn't take it or struggled with the way he coached. For the most part, the guys that stuck around, they enjoyed playing for him because he got the most out of them."
Woodson uses a similar approach, and the result is consecutive NCAA tourney appearances after IU went five straight seasons without making it.
"I'm going to continue to push guys and make sure they do all the things necessary on the court as well as off the court. That's how I learned. That's something he instilled in me. It's making sure my players do all the things necessary while they're here, on and off the court. While I'm coaching this Indiana team, I'm going to do the same thing."
*****
Cheaney rates as one of Knight's greatest players, a terrific scorer and leader who remains the Big Ten career scoring leader with 2,613 points.
He went on to play and coach in the NBA, as well as coach in college.
No one left a bigger impact on him.
"Coach was one of the smartest coaches I've ever been around," Cheaney says. "What he taught back then, he was ahead of his time."
At IU, Cheaney won basically every accolade a player can achieve -- three-time All-American, a pair of 1993 national-player-of-the-year awards -- but still sometimes found himself on the wrong end of a Knight tirade.
The coach was always about equal opportunity.
"My freshman year was rough because you're trying to understand how the man operates," Cheaney says. "He pushes you so hard, not so much the physical part, but the mental part. He's trying to get you to understand how this game works and how to compete at a high level and how to be extremely prepared.
"Once I finally got it, it's amazing how much respect and admiration he has for you because you're trying to do what he wants you to do, and he knows that you want to win, and he knows that you want to compete at the highest level and perform at the highest level for him and for the university and for the program."
While at IU, Cheaney played on the 1992 Final Four team and the 1993 Big Ten championship squad that finished 17-1 in league play. The Hoosiers were 105-27 during his four seasons.
"Yes, there were times when he went fire and brimstone on me," Cheaney says, "but that's just Coach. He wants to win extremely badly. He wants you to feel that way, too.
"He was all about team and what it's all about to win as a team."
Cheaney's competitive nature made him respond to a Knight tirade by upping the ante.
"If he yelled at me or told me I'm not doing such-and-such, it was like, okay, I'll show you. Then once I'd show him, he'd sit down and shut up. That's the type of relationship we had.
"I think he had that type of relationship with all of his players. If you do what he asked you to do, he'll shut up."
For Cheaney, Knight's demanding ways were nothing new. His mother was tougher.
"She was probably more of a disciplinarian than he was," he says. "That made it a little easier."
Cheaney still has the notebook from his Hoosier days. Knight's attention to detail on offense and defense were legendary then, and still are.
"A lot of players just want the ball in their hands and everybody to get out of the way, but you've got to know how the game works," Cheaney says. "He was very detailed in teaching us.
We knew exactly what teams were going to run because we were so prepared. That's what separated Coach from a lot of coaches."
*****
Woodson wanted to tap into Knight's coaching insight upon taking the IU job in the spring of 2021. Imagine the film and strategy sessions they might have had.
Knight's health wouldn't allow it.
"What better person to sit next to and chop it up and talk basketball than Bob Knight?" Woodson says. "I was new to this college game. It would have been unbelievable to have him help me navigate through the waters of college basketball."
Knight occasionally attended practices. When he did, senior guard Xavier Johnson says, the energy level instantly picked up.
"We had probably the best practices we had, seeing the guy who built this foundation."
Adds senior guard Trey Galloway: "Whenever he came to practice, we knew it was business."
Galloway is the son of a state-title-winning Indiana high school basketball coach (his father, Mark, coaches at Culver Academies) and has long known of Knight's achievements.
"It's knowing what (Knight) meant to this place, the tradition he left and built. It's incredible. He had a special thing going on here."
Knight's impact went well beyond the basketball court. Perhaps the biggest for Woodson is ensuring his players can always -- always -- count on him.
"I would hope my players can respect me enough after they're done playing that they can say, 'Hey, Mike, can you help me?' That's more important to me than anything."
Knight helped Woodson get his first coaching job. All it took was one call to the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks.
"The next day I was hired as a first-time assistant in the NBA," Woodson says.
"He meant the world to me in terms of my growth. He basically shaped my whole career. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Bob Knight."
With Knight, perception could cloud reality. What you thought you saw wasn't always what happened. Woodson remembers playing Puerto Rico for a gold medal in the 1979 Pan Am Games. A double-digit Team USA lead had shrunk to three. Knight called a timeout, grabbed Woodson's jersey, and pulled the team captain into a face-to-face encounter that suggested an intense tongue lashing -- or worse -- was coming.
"From the viewers' eyes, you probably thought, (Knight is) up to no good," Woodson says. "He pulled me and said, 'Woody, don't let us lose the gold medal.'"
The result -- the U.S. went on a 9-0 run to secure the victory.
"It's just the little things," Woodson says. "He came to the main source, and that was me as the captain. The fact that he pulled me in never once entered my mind. It was what he said.
"It registered. We got the job done and won the gold medal."
What was Knight really like as a coach? For one thing, he wasn't a hugger.
"His idea of putting his arm around you was he'd hit you in the back of the head," Cheaney says.
The problem -- Knight wore a big national championship ring that delivered the impact of an anvil.
"He'd national championship you to the back of the head and it hurt," Cheaney says, "but that was his idea of love." *****
You've never seen so many tears and cheers.
Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall rocked with emotion two decades in the making.
Bob Knight was back.
It was all love and celebration when Knight returned to Assembly Hall for the first time since his September of 2000 firing. IU was hosting rival Purdue in a February of 2020 showdown and most of his former players attended. The arena was packed and loud. The game was nationally televised. The sporting world buzzed.
"We needed to bring him back," Woodson says. "He needed to be back here. This is Bob Knight's house; make no mistake about it. He had to be back.
"All the players that turned out and the fan support that we got that night for him, it was unbelievable. Hoosier Nation is going to miss him."
Cheaney certainly does. He heard the news of Knight's passing after Wednesday's practice. It hit hard.
"I know he was 83, but you still think that he was taken too soon. At the end of the day, that's life. Time is undefeated. At some point, we're all going to be there.
"I know that he lived a nice full life. He had people around him that loved him. He was one of the greatest coaches I've ever been around. The world lost a great man."
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – For Mike Woodson, when it comes to Robert Montgomery Knight, it's no contest.
"He's the greatest coach that ever graced the college basketball floor," the Indiana basketball coach says.
Woodson speaks from the Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall media room that Bob Knight once dominated for 29 years as a coaching giant, winning 662 games at IU, and 902 overall with stops at Army and Texas Tech. He passed away this week at age 83.
Knight won with ferocious competitiveness, coaching brilliance, and unmatched passion. He was feisty and funny, charismatic and caring, a bigger-than-life figure who transcended sports.
In his prime, he rated among the most famous people on earth. His passing evokes memories as strong as the moment they happened.
Thirty years from his playing days, former Indiana All-American Calbert Cheaney, now the Hoosiers' director of player development, remembers it well.
"He was going to be tough on you; he was going to push you; he was going to make you not like him sometimes, but at the end of the day, when you graduated and did your own thing, he'd do anything for you. You'd call him and he'd do whatever you needed. That's the type of person he was."
Knight teams won three national championships and 11 Big Ten regular-season titles, including the 32-0 1976 team that remains the last major college undefeated national champion. He won with shut-down defense and full-throttle offense, and when the NCAA instituted the 3-point shot starting in the 1986-87 season, he unleashed All-America guard Steve Alford to national-title-winning perimeter effect.
"He was always two steps ahead of everybody," Woodson says. "He saw things that as players we didn't see. Most great coaches are like that. His mind was phenomenal in his process of beating his opponent."
For Knight, it was mind over matter, preaching mental was to physical as four was to one.
Case in point -- when IU won the 1987 national title, it beat LSU 77-76, UNLV 97-93, and Syracuse 74-73 in its final three games as much because of its preparation and tough-minded crunch-time play as its physical talent.
"You can will yourself to win, but can you prepare yourself to win?" Woodson says. "That's what he did. He prepared guys to play at a higher level than most teams that he coached against."
Woodson strives to continue that legacy. Coddling players isn't part of the process.
"I've always believed that players want to be coached," he says. "It's finding the right buttons to coach them. That's what Knight was so great at doing.
"Yeah, he lost some players along the way who couldn't take it or struggled with the way he coached. For the most part, the guys that stuck around, they enjoyed playing for him because he got the most out of them."
Woodson uses a similar approach, and the result is consecutive NCAA tourney appearances after IU went five straight seasons without making it.
"I'm going to continue to push guys and make sure they do all the things necessary on the court as well as off the court. That's how I learned. That's something he instilled in me. It's making sure my players do all the things necessary while they're here, on and off the court. While I'm coaching this Indiana team, I'm going to do the same thing."
Cheaney rates as one of Knight's greatest players, a terrific scorer and leader who remains the Big Ten career scoring leader with 2,613 points.
He went on to play and coach in the NBA, as well as coach in college.
No one left a bigger impact on him.
"Coach was one of the smartest coaches I've ever been around," Cheaney says. "What he taught back then, he was ahead of his time."
At IU, Cheaney won basically every accolade a player can achieve -- three-time All-American, a pair of 1993 national-player-of-the-year awards -- but still sometimes found himself on the wrong end of a Knight tirade.
The coach was always about equal opportunity.
"My freshman year was rough because you're trying to understand how the man operates," Cheaney says. "He pushes you so hard, not so much the physical part, but the mental part. He's trying to get you to understand how this game works and how to compete at a high level and how to be extremely prepared.
"Once I finally got it, it's amazing how much respect and admiration he has for you because you're trying to do what he wants you to do, and he knows that you want to win, and he knows that you want to compete at the highest level and perform at the highest level for him and for the university and for the program."
While at IU, Cheaney played on the 1992 Final Four team and the 1993 Big Ten championship squad that finished 17-1 in league play. The Hoosiers were 105-27 during his four seasons.
"Yes, there were times when he went fire and brimstone on me," Cheaney says, "but that's just Coach. He wants to win extremely badly. He wants you to feel that way, too.
"He was all about team and what it's all about to win as a team."
Cheaney's competitive nature made him respond to a Knight tirade by upping the ante.
"If he yelled at me or told me I'm not doing such-and-such, it was like, okay, I'll show you. Then once I'd show him, he'd sit down and shut up. That's the type of relationship we had.
"I think he had that type of relationship with all of his players. If you do what he asked you to do, he'll shut up."
For Cheaney, Knight's demanding ways were nothing new. His mother was tougher.
"She was probably more of a disciplinarian than he was," he says. "That made it a little easier."
Cheaney still has the notebook from his Hoosier days. Knight's attention to detail on offense and defense were legendary then, and still are.
"A lot of players just want the ball in their hands and everybody to get out of the way, but you've got to know how the game works," Cheaney says. "He was very detailed in teaching us.
We knew exactly what teams were going to run because we were so prepared. That's what separated Coach from a lot of coaches."
Woodson wanted to tap into Knight's coaching insight upon taking the IU job in the spring of 2021. Imagine the film and strategy sessions they might have had.
Knight's health wouldn't allow it.
"What better person to sit next to and chop it up and talk basketball than Bob Knight?" Woodson says. "I was new to this college game. It would have been unbelievable to have him help me navigate through the waters of college basketball."
Knight occasionally attended practices. When he did, senior guard Xavier Johnson says, the energy level instantly picked up.
"We had probably the best practices we had, seeing the guy who built this foundation."
Adds senior guard Trey Galloway: "Whenever he came to practice, we knew it was business."
Galloway is the son of a state-title-winning Indiana high school basketball coach (his father, Mark, coaches at Culver Academies) and has long known of Knight's achievements.
"It's knowing what (Knight) meant to this place, the tradition he left and built. It's incredible. He had a special thing going on here."
Knight's impact went well beyond the basketball court. Perhaps the biggest for Woodson is ensuring his players can always -- always -- count on him.
"I would hope my players can respect me enough after they're done playing that they can say, 'Hey, Mike, can you help me?' That's more important to me than anything."
Knight helped Woodson get his first coaching job. All it took was one call to the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks.
"The next day I was hired as a first-time assistant in the NBA," Woodson says.
"He meant the world to me in terms of my growth. He basically shaped my whole career. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Bob Knight."
With Knight, perception could cloud reality. What you thought you saw wasn't always what happened. Woodson remembers playing Puerto Rico for a gold medal in the 1979 Pan Am Games. A double-digit Team USA lead had shrunk to three. Knight called a timeout, grabbed Woodson's jersey, and pulled the team captain into a face-to-face encounter that suggested an intense tongue lashing -- or worse -- was coming.
"From the viewers' eyes, you probably thought, (Knight is) up to no good," Woodson says. "He pulled me and said, 'Woody, don't let us lose the gold medal.'"
The result -- the U.S. went on a 9-0 run to secure the victory.
"It's just the little things," Woodson says. "He came to the main source, and that was me as the captain. The fact that he pulled me in never once entered my mind. It was what he said.
"It registered. We got the job done and won the gold medal."
What was Knight really like as a coach? For one thing, he wasn't a hugger.
"His idea of putting his arm around you was he'd hit you in the back of the head," Cheaney says.
The problem -- Knight wore a big national championship ring that delivered the impact of an anvil.
"He'd national championship you to the back of the head and it hurt," Cheaney says, "but that was his idea of love." *****
You've never seen so many tears and cheers.
Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall rocked with emotion two decades in the making.
Bob Knight was back.
It was all love and celebration when Knight returned to Assembly Hall for the first time since his September of 2000 firing. IU was hosting rival Purdue in a February of 2020 showdown and most of his former players attended. The arena was packed and loud. The game was nationally televised. The sporting world buzzed.
"We needed to bring him back," Woodson says. "He needed to be back here. This is Bob Knight's house; make no mistake about it. He had to be back.
"All the players that turned out and the fan support that we got that night for him, it was unbelievable. Hoosier Nation is going to miss him."
Cheaney certainly does. He heard the news of Knight's passing after Wednesday's practice. It hit hard.
"I know he was 83, but you still think that he was taken too soon. At the end of the day, that's life. Time is undefeated. At some point, we're all going to be there.
"I know that he lived a nice full life. He had people around him that loved him. He was one of the greatest coaches I've ever been around. The world lost a great man."
Players Mentioned
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