Bob Knight - ESPN Up Close with Digger Phelps (part 1)

you watch and listen bob

knight

draws attention and most of the time it's intentional former notre dame head coach and current

espn

analyst

digger

phelps

recently sat down with coach

knight

and the result is a five-

part

special that takes you inside the legend. Part one of our Sunday conversation with Bob Knight. If you had to pick a general with all the military history at West Point in military history. Which general really impressed you? Yeah, I think if you study, Grant Guy will never lose. They talk about Grant like a butcher that the North just threw men and men and men into the civil war, well, in, in, and this will be pretty

close

.

Grant lost about 10 people out of every 100 who

part

icipated in the battle. Lee lost. Damn

close

to 20 19 maybe Grant lost fewer men um yeah Lincoln made a great comment you know someone was complaining about Grant drinking too much and that's what you know open to conjecture I think a lot of that stuff is probably very exaggerated, but Lincoln's comment It was okay, find out what he's drinking and send it to the rest of my generals. A good friend of mine, a good friend of yours, he told me: Ask Coach Knight why two things are going wrong. The change is worth it ethnically and in discipline.

You know, one thing that I think has changed is that schools and parents still hold a class here in the fall. You know, I mean it's not nuclear physics, but a teaching and training class. and if you're going to teach at school, you have to be there every day, if you're going to train, you can't miss practice, so I try in this small way to make these kids understand that I can't miss. I have this. class on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 10 minutes 10 and no matter what I can't miss, I mean, I think I'm doing a little bit for the kids by making them do that and uh, but we, we, we don't parents. uh, you weren't as demanding with your kids as your parents were with you or I was with mine, the same thing and we've just lost a lot of parents today, I want the kids to really like them in quotes, you know right, the first responsibility of parenting is getting kids to do what they're supposed to do and sometimes that's a hard thing and it's gotten harder and I thought, well, Jimmy doesn't have to be at 10 o'clock, why do I have to be at 10 o'clock? spot?

Well, the main reason, Johnny, you have to arrive at 10 o'clock is because damn, I tell you to arrive at 10 o'clock and that's it. My wife was reading something interesting last summer, I finally said, Karen, what? What the hell are you reading? She said I'm reading an article written by a psychologist about current education and how all this positive reinforcement has been a failure. You know it's okay, Johnny, you didn't turn in your homework today, but try to turn it in. tomorrow you know that's like saying say it billy I know you've missed seven shots in a row but don't let that bother you if you get another one just take it if you miss 15 in a row I don't, I don't I've never been able to understand that approach so I guess I say well, what are they?

Well, it's this positive reinforcement, we just have to demand it from the children again, he says and explains this a little. A little more, she lowers her glasses, looks at me over a glass and says: you know you've lasted long enough to be in fashion again, let's go to the doghouse syndrome. I've had players in the doghouse of the

digger

, Bob Knight. he has a doghouse so to speak, why don't fans understand that his players understand this doghouse syndrome? and I don't determine what is going to be in Indiana, the kids determine that through their play in previous games and their play in practice and their attention to detail and the kids that show you as a coach that they are going to do the best job. on behalf of the team, but people lose sight that you and I talk when we talk during the season, we were playing on the phone during a Big Ten conference tournament in Chicago, we finally connected the morning of the Purdue game and I didn't . you like to sing your voice you were depressed you were just in it like that not the bob gentleman I know and you told me date I want to talk to you after this season my reaction was are you going to get out of the game? you're thinking about getting out of the game, what was really going through your mind, you know, I think there's always a moment where you think, boy, is there something else?

I once told a guy, John Bantz, that he's a rarity, a good writer for Indianapolis. star and I once told him that I couldn't imagine myself training after 40. And that would have given me about 10 or 11 seasons here and then that happened and then I once thought, well, you know, if I ever train. I wouldn't coach the Olympic team that well, that was 13 years ago, so I think there's always been moments where you think about how much longer you want to train. I realized that if you coach six more years here in Indiana and average 20 wins a year if Jim Phelan doesn't surpass Dean Smith and a number of wins Dean breaks Adolf's record Bob Knight could leave the game as the coach with the most college basketball wins with number of wins Do you have enough energy to coach another six years?

I could train another six years, I definitely think, but it wouldn't be for that reason. I mean, I would like to leave college basketball having caught more fish than anyone who has coached college basketball and so what keeps me training is just what I've talked about how much I enjoy the game, how much I like trying to put together the next game plan if you give it something, I think the game if you give it what you have and you sit back and I think you have received a lot more than what you have given it.

For more information on Bobby Knight, log on to

espn

.com. You can read dozens of memories and impressions from your fellow fans about Sunday's conversation about Coach Knight's food. For you, that's just a big TV production again, our night won't be retired or anything like that. We're just going to do a big TV story on him tonight in part two of five. Indiana's coach takes us back to the days when he wasn't Indiana's coach. and he speaks of his affection for those he met along the way. West Point was there with you, yeah, it came, uh, the second year I was the head coach and you guys hit it off right now, oh parson, the same goddess from the heavens that didn't I don't know if it was Al Michaels or Um Deardorff who He said on a Monday night broadcast that there was no institution in the world big enough that if those two guys were there they wouldn't find each other.

When Parcells and I talk you know there's always a change in their voice when they've won or lost and I think the guys that really care about you or me or Bill or whoever, the guys that really always feel that way. I've always had the ability to respect those who've been through it and you really got close to all these kids while other kids were going to the movies or going on dates or whatever, I was hanging out with kids that my coaches were always with. Well, when I started training, I thought who can tell you more about training, well, someone who has been in this forever and that's three, three big names, for me, b, e, iva and newell, and then others three, ours. lap girl and and our back and every dean and those six people that I spent a lot of time talking to and being around hank guy the 84 Olympic team that we put together here in Bloomington you had him on that team not only because he was thank you, but for another reason , well I thought we really got a job at the '72 Olympics in 1972, he was 68 and had already coached two notable Olympic teams and they loved him and ignored him, and Alvin Robertson has his arm around him while he was talking to the kids and looked at him and said, okay, he said we have to go out and play defense and we have to block and we're just going to beat their butts.

Go and I thought that was one of the great introductory speeches I'd ever heard played tonight. We have the internal team fight and there are 19,000 people down there. Move Jordan to the garden. Let's go as if not. You don't have to worry about a backup guard and you have Jordan playing guard or defending an offense. I told a very good friend of mine that I had a draft pick that year that was pretty high in the NBA and I told him you had to pick Jordan well. We need a center. I said play Jordan at center.

What difference there are? I said, I don't care what you need, play where you need it, but get it and they didn't take it, and they took a guy who just did it. He hasn't lasted long in the NBA and I mean and I meant I wasn't trying to emphasize that this guy is a great player, I'm just saying play him at center because no one can guard him at center, he probably can. guard, most of those guys, let's go to Larry Bird, a lot of people don't realize that Larry Bird was from French Lick, a small town that came to IU, but actually, before basketball started on this side of the league, I don't think I was really ready. going to school at that time, I just don't think that wherever he would have gone and I wasn't as attuned to his needs when he was a kid as I should have been, you know, I held back, right? recruit him oh yeah, I know he had a scholarship oh yeah, right, I mean, I thought he had the best hands of any kid I'd ever seen, the best hand-eye coordination, he's only six-six and weighed about 180 pounds at the time. and by the next summer he was six foot nine and weighed 225 or 230, so he grew a lot after graduating high school, but I wasn't as in tune with his needs as an individual as I should have been and Larry came back home and then obviously went to indiana state and had a tremendous professional career.

I think Byrd embodies what a man can do with what he has if he's willing to work at it, but in college, when he went to Indiana State, he created his dream game, so to talk to the other guy, magic johnson who was obviously at michigan state only for two years one of the best college players you have ever coached against johnson was very good in college now i thought he was extremely good in college lucas is the best player in i think he has ever played in big technology. You think about Lucas's statistics. He averaged more than 17 rebounds per game for three years.

I mean, no one gets 17 rebounds in a game anymore. He rated Johnson as one of the best players he has ever played, but. Johnson played for a coach, Judd Heathcote, who used him extremely well, he used what he had very well and by the time the ncaa tournament came around that year, they were a pretty dominant team. Let's talk a little about Dean Smith and what he has accomplished. and you know what he was for college basketball, a true innovator, dean was a true student of the game of basketball and, uh, dean and i have always been good friends, we don't necessarily think exactly the same way, but very close, He has a very sharp mind, a very good appreciation and understanding of the game, but above all, he did what college coaches should do.

He graduated the players. He had players who did all kinds of things besides play professional basketball. added to society, he did not detract from it. He's been one of the biggest key people in basketball for as long as I've been doing it. I mean, as good as anyone you know. You can log in at espn.com.