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Bobby Knight - Professional Achievements
 

In college basketball, the name Bob Knight is synonymous with greatness and winning. Just take a glance at the file on this legendary Indiana University basketball coach. The numbers and achievements to prove what he has done, not only for Indiana University, but for the game itself, are there in black and white.

Bob Knight is his own man, one who represents high principles, expectations and demands, for his players, his coaching staff and most of all, himself. He is also an educator. His ability to teach young men the game of basketball and the game of life is one of his most noted characteristics.

Knight proved over and over again that he is the finest basketball coach in America. No other coach can cite NCAA and NIT championships, and Olympic and Pan American gold medals among his achievements. There are only two coaches in the history of collegiate basketball who have won more than the three national championships Knight has won during his Indiana career. He was selected to the National Basketball Hall of Fame in May of 1991. Only Knight and North Carolina’s Dean Smith have both coached and played on NCAA championship teams -- Knight at Ohio State in 1960, Smith at Kansas in 1952.

Knight is among the youngest head coaches to have won 200, 300, 400, 500 and 600 games in his career. Knight has a touch of genius about him. He has the uncanny ability to extract the full potential from his teams, whether they be multi-talented like the 1975 and 1976 squads which went undefeated in Big Ten play.

During Knight’s 24 year stint at Indiana, the Hoosiers won an amazing 557 games, including 17 seasons of 20 or more wins, while losing but 185, a remarkable .751 winning percentage. There were some amazing accomplishments along the way.

Knight has not only been successful nationally, but internationally as well. In 1979, he guided the U.S. Pan American team to a gold medal in Puerto Rico. In 1984, he coached what may well have been the best amateur basketball team ever assembled, the U.S. Olympic team, which easily won the gold medal in the XXIII Olympiad in Los Angeles.

As Olympic coach, Knight arranged for the trials to be held in Bloomington, where over 34,000 fans on consecutive nights witnesses exhibition games. And on a July evening, the Indianapolis Hoosier Dome played host to a doubleheader involving men’s and women’s Olympic teams and drew a record indoor crowd of 67,596 partisan Hoosier fans.

His coaching techniques and teaching skills have made him in great demand as a clinic speaker around the country. High school coaches flock to Indiana. His summer camp for youngsters is always filled to capacity with a waiting list.

Knight has long been active in the National Association of Basketball Coaches, serving in various capacities. He served a term as trustee of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and was named an honorary member of Beta Gamma Sigma, the national business honor society. He has also lent his name to help support charitable and youth organizations throughout the state.

Additional Information
 

Knight’s coaching genius has not gone unnoticed. He won the Big Ten’s Coach of the Year award three times in four years (1973, 1975 and 1976), and has since added three more awards (1980, 1981 and 1989). In 1975, he was a unanimous selection as National Coach of the Year, an honor he was accorded in 1976 by Associated Press, United Press International and Basketball Weekly. In 1987, he was picked as the Naismith Coach of the Year. In 1989, he garnered National Coach of the Year honors by Associated Press, United Press International and United States Basketball Writers among others.

Knight takes immense pride in the graduation rate of his players. All but one of his four-year players have completed degrees, a ratio of nearly 99 percent.

Equally as pleasing to Knight is the number of assistants and former players who have gone on to become successful head coaches, a list that numbers 9 at the present time. That Knight has been able to achieve success for such a long period of time attests to his innovation and creativity.

A native of Orrville, Ohio, Knight is a product of Ohio State University where he was an assistant coach at Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, one year before entering the U.S. Army where he was assigned to assist coach Tates Locke at West Point. When Locked became head coach at Miami of Ohio University in 1965, Knight, then only 24, was named to succeed him.

Bob is the father of two sons, Tim a 1986 graduate of Stanford University who runs his own promotions and marketing company, and Pat, who just this past year finished his career with the Hoosiers. Knight and his wife, Karen were married in 1988.

Programs
 

"Making the Effort"