King Kaufman's Sports Daily

Good riddance, Bob Knight. The legendary bully and hypocrite quits midseason, something he'd never tolerate from his players. Figures.

By King Kaufman

Read more: Sports, Basketball, Bob Knight, College Basketball, King Kaufman, Sports Daily

Feb. 6, 2008 |

Bob Knight is gone, and good riddance.

I know. Winningest coach in men's Division I basketball history. Graduated an absurdly high percentage of his players. Never, ever, neverevevever cheated. Did nice things that nobody ever heard about such as taking care of former player Landon Turner, whom -- as, uh, everybody knows -- Knight helped after a crippling car accident.

Great coach, great teacher. Good riddance.

Knight, 67, abruptly resigned Monday as coach at Texas Tech, citing exhaustion and handing the team over to his designated successor, his 36-year-old son, Pat. The younger Knight says he'd talked his father out of retiring a year ago and again a month ago. Not this time. So now Pat Knight gets to follow a legend never having established himself as anything other than the coach's kid. Good luck, kid. You're going to need it.

The good news for Pat Knight -- who for all I know will become the next John Wooden -- is that the world can now safely go back to ignoring Texas Tech men's basketball. That's what it had been doing way back when. I mean Sunday.

For all the talk of an era ending with the last of the tough, old-school coaches walking off into the sunset, Bob Knight had ceased to be relevant years ago. For most of the last 20 years, he's only gotten his name in the papers when he pulled off his trademark move, bullying someone who for whatever reason wasn't in a position to fight back.

The signature moment of this last part of his career was the 1995 press conference he held up for several minutes while he publicly berated some NCAA volunteer for passing along the incorrect information that Knight wouldn't appear. It was vintage Knight: He was whaling on probably the single most powerless person in the building.

Knight and his supporters will talk your ear off about following the rules, doing things the right way, about how that's what's important, and about how all anybody wants to remember is that he threw a chair or slammed a phone or slapped a player or chewed out some clerk.

They'll tell you that his insistence on following the rules is the reason Knight, the one guy old Diogenes was looking for with his lamp, didn't get to coach the same kind of talent the other all-time great coaches did. He couldn't and wouldn't compete with the cheaters for the elite talent.

To use one of Knight's favorite words: Bullshit.

Next page: Who was ever more undisciplined than Bob Knight?