Bobby Knight

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Robert Montgomery "Bobby" Knight (born October 25, 1940 in Massillon, Ohio) is the head men's basketball coach at Texas Tech University. He previously held the same position at Indiana University and the United States Military Academy. Knight is one of NCAA Division I college basketball's most controversial coaches but is the third all-time winningest coach in the men's division, behind Dean Smith and Adolph Rupp. With only 10 wins separating him and all-time leader Dean Smith, Knight will probably break the all-time record next season.

Bob Knight began his coaching career at Cuyahoga Falls (Ohio) High School where he was at for one year, then accepted an assistant coaching position at Army in 1963. Two years later he was named the head coach at the relatively young age of 24. In six seasons at West Point, Knight won 102 games, and coached future Hall of Famer Mike Krzyzewski. Knight then headed to Indiana University in 1971. Knight immediately endeared himself to the basketball-mad state of Indiana with his disciplined approach to the game. Educated in military history, Knight was given the nickname "The General" by former University of Detroit and Detroit Pistons coach-turned-broadcaster Dick Vitale. Within two years, Knight turned a mediocre team into a Big Ten Conference powerhouse. Indiana reached the Final Four in 1973, losing to UCLA. In 1975 the Indiana Hoosiers were undefeated and the number one team in the nation, when leading scorer and All-American Scott May, the father of former North Carolina star and current Charlotte Bobcats player Sean May, broke his arm during the Hoosiers' historic defeat of arch-rival Purdue on Purdue's home court.

In 1976, the Hoosiers made history, posting a perfect 32-0 record and winning ...

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...de four trips to the Final Four and won three National Championships. The only other active coach with three National Championships is his former Army assistant, Mike Krzyzewski of Duke, who may end up surpassing Knight's win total for a new record. While Knight has not yet matched this success at Texas Tech, he is already making a case for himself as the school's best coach ever.

• 2. Indiana University was an enabler. Because Knight won with a clean program, the school let him get away with the kinds of things that would have ruined a losing coach.

• 1. The public. Both fans and the media have taken Knight's incidents and treated them as a show, and have also become enablers. Like certain other sports figures and teams, he is loved as much as hated, and for many of those who love him, it is partly due to the same fiery personality that causes others to hate him.

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