It was reported last night that The General, Robert Montgomery Knight, was finally hanging it up after 42 years as a Division I men's basketball coach. I would be remiss if I didn't say the news struck me as a little sad. I grew up going to Indiana Basketball games and as many kids in Indiana do, dreamed of playing for Knight while shooting hoops in my backyard. While that obviously didn't happen, I always enjoyed going to games and watching Coach Knight in action. It was extremely disappointing when Coach Knight was fired during my Junior year at IU. I watched in awe as the campus turned out to protest the dismissal and was front and center when he said his goodbye to IU in Dunn Meadow. As much as I've loved Indiana basketball, it hasn't quite felt the same since he left but at least it seems like the program's doing better now than in recent years.
All I can say is I wish Coach Knight and his son Pat, who will take over as coach of Texas Tech, the best of luck. Despite what his critics might say, Coach Knight became the winningest coach in Division I men's history and he did it with the utmost integrity. He never broke the rules and made sure his players knew that they were students first and athletes second. In closing, I'll leave you with the following song because if ever there was a coach who did things his way, it was Bobby Knight.
