The Strangely Subdued End of Bobby Knight’s Coaching Career

I always expected the last days of Bobby Knight to be, well, like the last days. There would be fire and brimstone, certainly. Probably beasts and flying chairs and most likely Bill Parcells. It would not be quiet. It couldn’t be. Of course, it was. Knight retired (quit) abruptly yesterday, putting his son Pat at the helm of Texas Tech. But perhaps the oddest part of the abrupt retirement is that the only reason for it appears to be that Bobby Knight doesn’t want to coach anymore. Not some sort of controversy-fueled force-out, Bobby Knight is just done coaching.

“He’s ready,” successor and son Pat Knight said during his weekly radio show. “He’s tired.”

“I think Bob is through with coaching. I think he got to the point where it wasn’t fun for him,” [Texas Tech Chancellor Kent] Hance said. “He thought about it Sunday all day and talked to his wife and decided ‘This is something I want to do.”‘

I never thought I’d hear that. I’ve expected Bobby Knight to get sick of all the things that go along with coaching, but the coaching itself seemed like the one thing Bobby Knight was comfortable doing. He never existed well as anything but a teacher of basketball. It seemed like he was putting up with all the other shit (and not putting up with it particularly healthily or well) so that he could coach. He won’t be doing that anymore. Maybe that’ll give him a chance to mellow out.