THE GENERAL, BOBBY KNIGHT
Wow. The first NCAA tournament I ever watched was in 1987. The last time the Indiana Hoosiers won it all by beating the Syracuse Orangemen. I’ll never forget it. I was a student at Wilkes College in Wilkes Barre, Pa. I lived on campus across the hall from a gentleman by the name of Dominic Bair. The party that night was in Dom’s room. Right before the game came on Dom looked at me and asked ” Ok Will, who’s your squad, Syracuse or Indiana? ” I weighed my options carefully and the one thing that struck me was the fact that I really hated Rony Seikaly, Syracuse’s big man in the middle. I guess I just didn’t understand the hype that surrounded him. I didn’t think he was that good, so I picked Indiana. Well, when everyone arrived, ( about 20 to 25 people ), Dom informed everyone I was going with Indiana, from that point on, the bets just started to fly. I was the only one backing Indiana. We all watched these two great teams battle each other and in the end, Indiana won; and I was hooked. I became an Indiana Hoosiers fan. But more than that, I became a Bob Knight fan. I have followed his career ever since. Now, I don’t need rehash his accomplishments, so many others will do that for me, suffice to say, he is one of the top five greatest college basketball coaches of all time. If this is the end of Coach Knight’s career, college basketball will never be the same. Not only does it lose one of the greatest coaches of all time, it loses the greatest personality it has ever seen!
There is no denying the contraversial figure that Bob Knight is, but we all have to realize that the contraversial figure that he is was bourne out of a passion for the game of basketball. A passion that has made him the winningest coach in the history of division one college basketball.
