Bob Knight: The Unauthorized Biography

Book Summary

The man they call Robert Montgomery Knight has been a legendary, and at the same time controversial, figure in college basketball. In his 40+ years of coaching, he has won four national championships, amassed over 800 wins (currently putting him within close range of Adolph Rupp and Dean Smith), and just as much conroversy for his actions on and off the court.

This first autobiography of The General is one of the most well-written and well-researched books of any sports figure I've ever read. Up until the time I bought the book, I had only known Knight as a college basketball coach who won three NCAA championships, threw a chair during a game in '85, knocked an LSU fan over a trash can (not into, as legend has it) in a Philadelphia hotel corridor four years earlier, and got busted by a police officer in Puerto Rico while coach of the US team at the 1979 Pan-American Games. While reading this book, I found that at times he was a bit of a humane person. There are two instances to prove my claim.

In 1969, after a win against Navy while Knight was head coach at West Point, he handed the game ball to a young man named Mike Krzyzewski (yes, the same one who now coaches at Duke University.) Moments later, a call came from Chicago, saying that the former's father had met a sudden demise due to a cerebral hemmorage. The next morning, Knight drove the future Coach K to the airport in a snowstorm, and would join him later. He wound up staying with Krzyzewski until the elder's funeral.

Just over a decade later, one of Knight's star players at Indiana, Landon Turner, was involved in a car accident that left him with a fractured spine. Knight, who was on his annual fishing expedition, got news of the crash and mentally scorned Turner. Some time later, though, his conscience got the better of him and soon decided to start a trust fund in Turner's name and helped look after him. I'd tell you what happened to Turner, but I don't want to spoil the book for you.

Whether you view Knight as a legend and molder of young men, or as an intimidating bully whose controversies outweigh his glories, you'll find the biography on The General a stimulating, gripping, and interesting read.