Who knew we were witnessing history on Saturday?
I just got three phone calls in about 4 minutes telling me Bob Knight just resigned. One of them said: “Well, you witnessed Bob Knight’s last game.”
Wow, I thought, I did.
Me and about 8,350 other people. Which, by the way, makes me smile and shake my head. If anybody had known that was Knight’s last game, the place would have been packed. Instead it was half-empty and everything about the game from the crowd to the basketball was totally lackluster. Strange way to leave, but then again Bob Knight’s a strange guy.
At Big 12 media days back in October, Knight spent his time on the podium discussing the World Series. Baseball, no basketball. A little horse racing, more baseball. He ended it by thanking the media for “recognizing my exceptional talent in analyzing baseball here this morning.” Entertaining, but strange nonetheless.
Thinking back, I’m glad I asked him a question on Saturday, in his last postgame press conference (for the record, he didn’t really answer the question, just started talking about something else, but whatever).
I’m dying to hear why the man resigned, and I have to think it was unexpected. I spent 20 minutes on the phone with his son Pat, then the head coach designate, on Friday morning for a story I wrote about him and Sean Sutton’s friendship on Saturday. Nothing in my conversation with Pat led me to believe Knight was on the verge of retirement; in fact, Pat said kind of abstractly that he would talk to Sean about the transition when it was imminent, but he definitely didn’t say it as though it was four days away from happening.
But I get the feeling that with Bob Knight, you really never know, no matter who you are.
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