FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Sports

Bobby Knight on Indiana Administration that Fired Him: "I Hope They're All Dead"

Former Indiana coach Bob Knight is a grumpy old asshole.

Showtime is airing a documentary tonight about the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers, which remains the last undefeated National Championship-winning team in college basketball. This morning, Bob Knight, legendary loose cannon and that team's coach, appeared on the Dan Patrick Show to talk Indiana, hoops, and (mostly) holding on to a grudge.

Knight was fired from Indiana on September 10, 2000 after 29 years that were marked by more than a few violent outbursts. These include:

Advertisement

That last one was the last straw. Then athletic director Myles Brand, after having already told Knight there was a zero-tolerance policy after the Neil Reed incident became public months earlier, gave Knight the option to resign. Knight refused and Brand fired him.

That was 17 years ago; since then, Knight coached at Texas Tech from 2001 to 2008 and has worked as an analyst for ESPN. And yet when Dan Patrick asked Knight on Friday if fans will ever see him return to Assembly Hall, and Knight's response was "as far as the hierarchy at Indiana University at that time, I have absolutely no respect whatsover for those people. And with that in mind I have no interest in ever going back to that University."

Given the opportunity to reconsider, and given that in 17 years most people have probably long since moved on, Knight doubled down: "I hope they're all dead."

Remember, when you talk about college coaches turning men into boys, that this is a 76-year-old man wishing people dead for something—a totally justifiable something, by the way—that happened nearly two decades ago.

[IndyStar]