Well, I think it's pretty much established that I just didn't have any interest in coaching in the pros.
Bobby KnightI also believe that when something negative comes out about you in the media, that's only one person's opinion. These guys sometimes believe they've been ordained from on high to give the general opinion of the populace, and that just isn't the case.
Bobby KnightI tell you what really fries my ass. When somebody gets on me for the way I look. Fat. Overweight. Well, I may be overweight. But I'm sure not fat. And I guarantee you, I'm a better athlete than any f***g body writing. To this day, they don't want to play tennis with me. The don't want to play me in golf. They don't want to f***g run with me
Bobby KnightI think that it's perhaps harder to learn from victory than it is from defeat. I think that we don't want defeat. We don't want defeat in sport. We don't want defeat in life. How are we going to be beaten? All right. We have to deal with those things. What's going to cause us to lose the game, whatever the game might be?
Bobby KnightAl McGuire talked to me I don't know how many times about dealing with the press: "You've got to be a con man." I tried that for a day or so, but it never really worked for me.
Bobby KnightI always designed my practice plans the night before and then made tweaks a few hours before practice began
Bobby KnightWe should not have to push you to work hard, you should work hard because you want to be a great player.
Bobby KnightDefense is all about helping. No one can guard a good dribbler, You have to walk kids through how to help and then how to help the helper
Bobby KnightThe goal is to make practice more difficult, physically/mentally, than anything your players will face during a game.
Bobby KnightAll the years I coached, we sent a card to every professor for each kid I had, and I was able to keep track on a daily basis who cut class or who was dropping a grade average. What I did was bring that kid in at 5:00 in the morning, and he would run the stairs from the bottom to the top until I told him to quit.
Bobby KnightYou remember when you were a kid growing up, and believed in Santa Claus? There's not much difference between Santa Claus and me today, you know. We're two overweight lovable guys that kids really enjoy.
Bobby KnightDuring my 40-year coaching career at West Point, Indiana and Texas Tech, my teams reached the Final Four on five occasions, winning the national championship three times.
Bobby KnightThe red I wear is Indiana's red, not Moscow's red. Indiana was here long before communism.
Bobby KnightI have always maintained that in basketball the importance of the mental to the physical is about four to one.
Bobby KnightI think that we as a people are always prone to think about, well, tomorrow will be a better day. Well, why will it be a better day? And I think the more that we believe in doing things better, doing the right thing rather than hoping that that's going to happen, let's make it happen.
Bobby KnightFailure, to me, is not having the desire to try. Having the desire to try is in it own way success.
Bobby KnightWhy talk now when so many things have been said without ever giving me a chance to talk?
Bobby KnightI'm not sure that an athlete is prepared to be a role model. He has a lot of attention paid to him that he shouldn't have, and then the athletes tend to think of themselves as better than they are.
Bobby KnightIt has always been my thought that the most important single ingredient to success in athletics or life is discipline. I have many times felt that this word is the most ill-defined in all of our language. My definition isas follows: 1. Do what has to be done; 2. When it has to be done; 3. As well as it can be done; and 4. Do it it that way all the time.
Bobby KnightFrom the time I started teaching, when I was 21, I've always signed my name Bob Knight. My college coach called me Bobby, still does. But I have never introduced myself to anybody in my adult life in any way other than, "I'm Bob Knight."
Bobby KnightI sit and wonder why no one uses the shot fake. The shot fake, when used correctly, can eliminate a defender
Bobby KnightDo what needs to be done, when it needs to be done the best way it can be done, and do it that way every time.
Bobby KnightI think that to stop an offense, you must go to the heart of that offense. If it is a particular move, a screen, the break, an outstanding scorer, whatever it is that they like to do and rely on, you have to work in your plans on taking that completely or as much as possible away from them.
Bobby KnightYou can't imagine the number of people in professional sports who have come up to me and said, "God, you treat those assholes like I'd like to treat them." And my question is, "Then why don't you?".
Bobby KnightIf universities want to save a little money, they ought to make some cutbacks in administration and in faculty people who teach one class a week.
Bobby KnightPat has been instrumental in what we've done here so far and the most selfish thing for me is that I want to see what we've done placed in the hands of the most competent person, and that's Pat. No one would come close to being able to continue to build on what we've done here so far like he will.
Bobby KnightI'd probably be better off without trying to satisfy me, with my sense of humor. There are things that I have said that are funny to me, but they weren't to somebody in the press. So that hasn't worked to my benefit.
Bobby KnightDon't fight the rabbits. If you fight the rabbits, the elephants are going to kill you.
Bobby KnightI hate casual shooting. Every shot is preceded by working to get open and catch and shoot under game like conditions
Bobby KnightI just love the game of basketball so much. The game! I don't need the 18,000 people screaming and all the peripheral things. To me, the most enjoyable part is the practice and preparation.
Bobby KnightWhen I first started coaching, one of the worst things that I think I heard was 'It will be O.K.' I would wonder, 'How the hell is it going to be O.K.?' The worst word in the English language is 'hope.'
Bobby KnightI've never felt my job was to win basketball games - rather, that the essence of my job as a coach was to do everything I could to give my players the background necessary to succeed in life.
Bobby Knight