It's been 2 decades since Bob Knight coached IU. What do current students know about him?

When Indiana University fired Bob Knight in Sept. 2000, the student body had mixed feelings.

Some students agreed with the decision, believing his aggressive approach to coaching was unfit for the 21st century, and that his alleged physical altercation with then-student Kent Harvey should be the final straw.

Some students were in disagreement. These students believed Knight was in his right to be a demanding coach because it molded his players into respectable adults. Some of these students — despite being no more than a fan of the men’s basketball team — came to IU because of Knight.

It’s been over two decades since Knight — who died at the age of 83 on Wednesday — last coached a game in Bloomington.

The average undergraduate student at IU today wasn’t alive for Knight’s last game as head coach at the school. Sixth-year guard Xavier Johnson — who Indiana coach Mike Woodson called an “old man” in September — hadn’t celebrated his first birthday when Knight left IU.

What does the current student body think of the legendary yet vitriolic coach?

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Several students don’t know who Knight was at all. A few are still unaware of who he was, even after the news of his death. Many who know of Knight didn’t know much about his coaching career.

“I’ll be honest, I don’t know a ton about his legacy outside of surface-level stuff,” sophomore Adam Erdman told IndyStar in July. Erdman, a marketing student from Bethesda, Md., claims he didn’t know who Knight was before coming to IU.

The one moment each student that IndyStar spoke to knew of Knight mentioned almost immediately was his infamous chair-throwing incident against Purdue in Feb. 1985.

“I heard he was a little bit of a crazy coach, like I heard the story of him throwing the chair on the basketball court,” sophomore Ella DePase said. “Seems like he was a little bit intense, but again, I didn’t really know much about him.”

“I always think of the picture of him throwing that chair,” junior Lodi Castillo said.

When approached for comment on Thursday, Castillo had the newest physical copy of the Indiana Daily Student, which had its obituary for Knight on the front page. Castillo — a Fishers native whose mother is an IU alum — picked up a copy for her uncle, who attended IU during Knight’s 29-year tenure.

The physical copy of the paper displayed the story that sparked discussion throughout X (formerly known as Twitter) on Wednesday night. When the official IDS account posted the obituary with a post that read, “BREAKING: Bob Knight, controversial Indiana basketball coaching legend, dies at 83. Knight passed away on Nov. 1, 2023,” many passionate fans were upset with the post and article.

Matt Press and Will Foley are media students at IU who wrote the IDS obituary. The two juniors who cover the Indiana men’s basketball team stand by their decision to include Knight’s bad moments in their story.

“We ultimately came to the decision that you can’t summarize his legacy without detailing some of those things,” Press said. “It would just be journalistic malpractice if we didn’t detail him in that way.”

Press and Foley began working on the obituary after Woodson urged people to pray for Knight during Hoosier Hysteria on Oct. 20. It has become common for Knight’s obituary to be updated by the IDS sports department every time someone leaves the organization or graduates, so it was up to them to craft the new one.

Throughout the process of writing the obituary, Press, Foley and IDS management grappled with whether they should include the 1988 comment when Knight said, “I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” After many deliberations, the students included the remark in their piece.

“I think it’s important — whether or not people like it — that you have to tell the full story of Bob Knight,” Foley said. “That’s also why we stood by the headline. It’s unfortunate, but I think it’s necessary that you have to include all the details.”

Non-media students at IU don’t seem to have strong feelings about Knight. John Heath — a senior from Zionsville — said he knows Knight used “different methods that coaches might not use today. I just know that he was successful in his ways. It might be debatable by some whether it was justified or not.”

Heath went on to say, “I think like five years down the road, people are gonna know (Knight) as a basketball coach. … I feel like it’s better to focus on the successes over the downfalls.”

“I think (the campus should) remember the good things like the national championships and how he, in a way, put Indiana basketball on the map. … I think he helped make it into what it is today,” Erdman said.

Erdman added he wasn’t sure if Knight deserved his own statue like the bronze figure of Herman B. Wells on the west end of campus, but he felt it was worth it to pay homage to what Knight did.

“We should remember him for how he impacted the basketball program here. … Since he’s gone, especially, we should remember him for what he’s done for our basketball program and how he’s such a legendary coach,” DePase said.

When asked how Knight should be remembered, Castillo understood both sides of the coin.

“I know a lot of people have a lot of respect for him,” Castillo said. “So I think if you have that respect for him, you can commemorate him in the way you want to.

“But I think a lot of people don’t agree with the way his coaching techniques were, how angry he was. … So I don’t know how he should be commemorated. I guess people’s own way of how they want to remember him would be my own opinion.”

Indiana University is far removed from the days when people enrolled at the school because of Bob Knight. The iconic coaching figure doesn’t resonate with the current student body. It’s a different time — a time when Knight is still respected and remembered on IU’s campus, but a time when he is no longer revered or condemned by current students.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Bob Knight dies: What do current Indiana students know about coach