All the years I coached, we sent a card to every professor for each kid I had, and I was able to keep track on a daily basis who cut class or who was dropping a grade average.
There are as many guys in coaching who do a lousy job as there are in the media. Those are two professions that are a lot alike. There aren’t a hell of a lot of really good coaches or writers.
I’ve never felt my job was to win basketball games – rather, that the essence of my job as a coach was to do everything I could to give my players the background necessary to succeed in life.
And I guarantee you, I’m a better athlete than any f***g body writing. To this day, they don’t want to play tennis with me. The don’t want to play me in golf. They don’t want to f***g run with me
From the time I started teaching, when I was 21, I’ve always signed my name Bob Knight. My college coach called me Bobby, still does. But I have never introduced myself to anybody in my adult life in any way other than, “I’m Bob Knight.”
I’d probably be better off without trying to satisfy me, with my sense of humor. There are things that I have said that are funny to me, but they weren’t to somebody in the press. So that hasn’t worked to my benefit.
My overall point is that ‘one and dones’ are not healthy for college basketball. I should not have made it personal to Kentucky and its players and I apologize.
As I’ve said, basketball has been, I think, a real cooperative venture. There have been a lot of people that have been involved in it: coaches, administrators – not recently – fans and nobody, nobody any more so than students over the years.
