Bobby Knight, the basketball coach who prevented Spain from winning gold, dies

2023-11-02 11:16:09

In 1984, the Spanish basketball team won its first Olympic medal. The silver. The gold stayed in the United States, which had young Michael Jordan, Pat Ewing and Chris Mullin, led by the legendary Bobby Knight. The American coach He died this Wednesday at the age of 83. at his home in Bloomington, Indiana University said in a statement. One of the most successful coaches in North American university basketball, not without controversy due to his irascible character and poor treatment of players and referees.

Bobby Knight managed three NCAA titles, the university league, at the helm of the Indiana Hoosiers, and went on to win 902 games between the three teams he coached – Army, Indiana and Texas Tech -, which makes him the sixth coach with the most victories in the history of college basketball. . When he left the bench, in 2008, those 902 wins in 42 seasons placed him at the top of the ranking.

After a short playing career, at age 24 he became the youngest coach to debut in the NCAA, coaching the military academy team. He was already consecrated in the Indiana Hoosiers, achieving a feat in 1976 that has not yet been surpassed. The Hoosiers took the title without losing a single game (32-0).

Excesses and controversies

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A member of the Basketball Hall of Fame since 1991 and of the NCAA since 2006, Knight was the protagonist of numerous excesses and controversies due to his authoritarian and irascible character. Rivals, referees and players from his own team were victims of his outbursts. Precisely after numerous violent actions, such as grabbing one of his pupils by the neck, in 2000 Indiana ended up firing him. Despite that, Texas Tech would decide to hire him, until in 2008 he decided to leave the bench.

In Los Angeles, the Spanish team Antonio Díaz-Miguel – whom Knight considered the best non-American coach – changed the history of Spanish basketball. That team, with figures like Epi, Solozábal, Fernando Martín and Iturriaga, managed to knock down Yugoslavia in the semifinals. It couldn’t be against Knight’s United States, but that generation and its silver marked a before and after and ended up being a precursor to the countless successes that Spanish basketball has achieved.