Bobby Knight Quotes

Robert Montgomery Knight is a retired American basketball coach. Nicknamed "The General", Knight won 902 NCAA Division I men's college basketball games, the most all-time at the time of his retirement and currently second all-time, behind his former player and assistant coach Mike Krzyzewski of Duke University. Knight is best known as the head coach of the Indiana Hoosiers from 1971 to 2000. He also coached at Texas Tech and at Army .

While at Indiana, Knight led his teams to three NCAA championships, one National Invitation Tournament championship, and 11 Big Ten Conference championships. His 1975–76 team went the entire season and 1976 NCAA tournament without a single loss and remains the only team to accomplished such a feat since then. Knight received National Coach of the Year honors four times and Big Ten Coach of the Year honors eight times. In 1984, he coached the USA men's Olympic team to a gold medal, becoming one of only three basketball coaches to win an NCAA title, NIT title, and an Olympic gold medal.

Knight was one of college basketball's most successful and innovative coaches, having perfected and popularized the motion offense. He has also been praised for running clean programs and graduating most of his players. However, Knight has also attracted controversy; he famously threw a chair across the court during a game, was once arrested for assault, and regularly displayed a combative nature during encounters with members of the press. Knight remains "the object of near fanatical devotion" from many of his former players and Indiana fans.

In 2008, Knight joined ESPN as a men's college basketball studio analyst during Championship Week and for coverage of the NCAA Tournament. He continued covering college basketball for ESPN through the 2014-15 season.

✵ 25. October 1940 – 1. November 2023
Bobby Knight photo
Bobby Knight: 3   quotes 1   like

Famous Bobby Knight Quotes

“I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.”

Knight's reply to interviewer Connie Chung's question. "There are times Bobby Knight can't do it his way—and what does he do then?" From an NBC television interview by Connie Chung on April 25, 1988 as reported in the May 09, 1988 issue of Sports Illustrated. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1067309/index.htm

“The key is not the will to win… everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.”

Knight: My Story http://www.campofchamps.com/book_of_the_month_knight.htm, Chapter: Cornerstone and Credos. By Bobby Knight and Bob Hammel, 2002. Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (March 26, 2002) ISBN: 978-0312282578.

“When my time on earth is gone and my activities here are past, I want they bury me upside down, and my critics can kiss my ass.”

From a public address given by Knight at Indiana University. As reported by BBC Sports, Knight moves to Texas http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/other_sports/1236191.stm, by Kevin Asseo, 22 March, 2001. The quotation can be heard on "Bob Knight Sportscenter Top 10 Soundbites". The quotation may be attributed to a longer poem from a 1970's velvet blacklight poster, titled "My Critics RIP - Ross", that depicted a drawing of a man laying face down with lipstick covering his bare buttocks.

Similar authors

Les Brown photo
Les Brown 24
American politician
Golda Meir photo
Golda Meir 38
former prime minister of Israel
Christopher Morley photo
Christopher Morley 30
American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet
Oliver Herford photo
Oliver Herford 14
American writer
Joseph Brodsky photo
Joseph Brodsky 17
Russian and American poet and Nobel Prize for Literature la…
William Saroyan photo
William Saroyan 190
American writer
Kenneth Arrow photo
Kenneth Arrow 37
American economist
Steve Jobs photo
Steve Jobs 150
American entrepreneur and co-founder of Apple Inc.
Jimi Hendrix photo
Jimi Hendrix 52
American musician, singer and songwriter
Arthur Compton photo
Arthur Compton 2
American physicist