Thursday, January 17, 2008

Congrats to Coach Knight


There are a whole lot of people who hate Bobby Knight, I am not one of them. I think it is perfectly acceptable for a coach to be tough on his players as long as he is doing it to help shape them into good men or women. Every year, Knight seems to win 20 games, make the Tournament and most importantly of all: churn out college graduates. That should be one of the main jobs of a college coach, but in DI is often falls by the wayside. By in large, Knight has produced some great players, but many more great men (excepting of course Isiah Thomas).

Last night Coach Knight won his 900th career game as a coach. What began in the mid 60's and spanned jobs at Army, Indiana and Texas Tech ended up in a game in Lubbock that pitted Knight's Red Raiders against the #10 Aggies of Texas A&M. Even though they were underdogs on their home floor, Knight's team won the game and gave win #900 to their coach. He is now 21 wins clear of Dean Smith, and shows no sign of slowing down.

In his career Knight won national titles in '76, '81 and '87 (and damn near won another in '75 if Scott May hadn't broken his arm) and he also won a Gold at the '84 Olympics. He coached big names like Thomas and Keith Smart but may be best known for helping to launch the coaching careers of Mike Krzyzewski (who played for him at Army) and Steve Alford (who played at IU). But, today he stands alone as the only person to win 900 games in the NCAAs top tier. Congratulations Coach, that's good work out of you.

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