Knight’s family made the announcement on social media on Wednesday night, saying he was surrounded by family members at his home in Bloomington, Indiana.
FILE - Former Indiana basketball head coach Bobby Knight makes an appearance at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind., Feb. 8, 2020. Knight's family announced Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023, that he had died at the age of 83.BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Bob Knight, the brilliant and combustible coach who won three NCAA titles at Indiana and for years was the scowling face of college basketball, has died. He was 83.
His critics fumed relentlessly about his conduct, but his defenders were legion. There was this side of Knight as well: He took pride in his players’ high graduation rates, and during a rule-breaking era he never was accused of a major NCAA violation. “He changed basketball in this state, the way you compete, the way you win,” Steve Alford, the leader of Knight’s last national championship team in 1987, once said. “It started in Indiana, but he really changed college basketball. You look at the motion offense and people everywhere used it.”
Robert Montgomery Knight was born Oct. 25, 1940, in Massillon, Ohio. His mother, whom Knight credited as his strongest childhood influence, was a schoolteacher and his father worked for the railroad. The run concluded with Indiana’s first national championship in 23 years. That 1975-76 team went 32-0, ending a two-year span when the Hoosiers were 63-1 and captured back-to-back Big Ten championships with 18-0 records. It remains the last time a major college men’s team finished with a perfect record. That team was voted the greatest in college basketball history by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association in 2013.
-- Knight was convicted in absentia of assaulting a Puerto Rican police officer during the 1979 Pan American Games. “There are times I walk into a meeting or a friend calls to say, ‘I saw you on TV last night,’” Reid said on the 20th anniversary of the incident. “I know what they’re talking about.” Then, on Sept. 10, 2000, after winning a school-record 662 games and 11 Big Ten titles in 29 seasons, his time at Indiana came to a shocking end. While passing Knight in an Assembly Hall corridor, Indiana student Kent Harvey said, “Hey, what’s up, Knight?” Knight considered it disrespectful, grabbed Harvey’s arm and lectured him about manners. A few days later, Brand fired Knight.
For nearly two decades, Indiana officials attempted to make peace. Knight refused, even skipping his induction into the school’s athletic Hall of Fame in 2009.
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