Bob Knight's fingerprints are all over Indiana high school basketball: '100% intertwined'
Dave McCollough’s first memory of Bob Knight was at a Lions Club spaghetti dinner in South Bend, early in Knight’s tenure at Indiana in the early 1970s.
McCollough would later meet Knight on a more personal level as the Noblesville High School coach when his star, Tom Coverdale, was recruited by the Hoosiers. But back then he played basketball at LaVille High School, where played for Steve Longfellow, a former Purdue teammate of Rick Mount and Billy Keller.
“We got to the spaghetti dinner and the guest speaker was a guy by the name of Bobby Knight,” McCollough said. “First of all, I’m a dumb high school kid. But that was really the first time I remember hearing of him or came across him or anything. He made an impression on me as a high school kid.”
When McCollough was hired at decade later in 1983 at North Judson, his first head coaching job, Knight’s influence on Indiana high school basketball was already well-established. McCollough retained the motion offense and man-to-man defense philosophies he had learned for two years as an assistant at North Judson from Dave Carrington, who was an assistant for Bob Donewald at South Bend St. Joseph. Donewald would go on to be an assistant for Knight at IU for three seasons, including the national championship team in 1976, then lead Illinois State, followed by Western Michigan, for the next two decades.
The direct descendants of the Knight coaching tree, most notably Duke legend Mike Krzyzewski, but also including two-time Super Bowl winner Bill Parcells and basketball coaches like current Indiana coach Mike Woodson, Steve Alford, Chris Beard, Dusty May, Keith Smart and Mike Davis, among others are easy to track. Knight’s impact on high school basketball in Indiana is not as linear but arguably more encompassing.
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“The reality is that every single high school team in the state of Indiana at some point in time could relate back to Bob Knight and Indiana,” said Brian Hahn, who was a student manager at IU from 1992-96 and went on to coach at Pendleton Heights and North Central. “How to separate the two? The truth is, there is no separation. It is 100% intertwined. (Knight) was embedded into the culture of Indiana high school basketball.”
'He was hard on (players), but they all learned from him.'
Mark James grew up in Martinsville, home of John Wooden. He played basketball for Sam Alford, Steve’s father. He is now going into his 41st year of high school coaching, his first at Triton Central, one win from 600 for his career.
“The two people who had the biggest impact on high school sports in my lifetime were Peyton Manning and Bob Knight,” James said. “Before the Colts got going, it wasn’t an event like it is now. When Peyton got to town, it all changed. Knight changed the whole state of Indiana when he came in here and ran motion offense and man-to-man defense.”
James said Purdue’s Gene Keady also deserves credit, along with Knight. But Knight cast a large shadow in the state, especially when he had success right away in his first season, 1970-71, when he was hired away from Army. The next year, IU was in the Final Four.
That early success, which culminated with a 32-0 season and national championship in 1975-76, forever tied Knight, an Ohio State graduate, to the state of Indiana. James, who graduated from Martinsville in 1973, saw it first-hand. His coaching career started at Carmel under Larry Angle, right after Indiana won the national title in ’76. James coached at Cloverdale before starting a 25-year tenure at Franklin Central.
“Back in the day on fall break, you would get out of school on Wednesday and (Knight) would have an open practice and clinic,” James said. “He would take time to talk basketball with high school coaches. He talked about the mental game being ‘4 to 1’ over physical. Almost anyone who coaches basketball can think of quotes like that he used.”
Knight was remarkably available to high school coaches, James said. It was partly the era. But Knight also seemed to truly appreciate being a mentor to high school coaches out of respect for their jobs.
“I came up in a neat time before social media when you could go to coaches and visit practices and watch film with them,” James said. “The values he taught players were really important. Being loyal, trustworthy. He was hard on (players), but they all learned from him. He had a great impact on people as a coach, if you agreed or disagreed with the way he presented some of those things.”
The ball screen offense that dominates today’s game is hardly Knight’s style. “When he was coaching at IU if you mentioned ball screens,” James said, “he would go crazy. Now that’s all the game is about.”
'He was a good friend to every coach out there.'
Jack Keefer had already started his coaching career at Oak Hill, his alma mater, when Knight arrived at IU in 1971. Keefer had no idea at time, but he would eventually come to call Knight “a true friend.”
“He treated fellow coaches better than the other part of the world,” Keefer said with a laugh. “He was a good friend to every coach out there. When he would call to talk about one of my players, he would call my wife by her first name. He was the most cordial coach to Jan there ever was. He’d get mad from time to time, but he would do anything for us as coaches. As far as the state, there wasn’t any zone played. It was man-to-man (defense) and motion offense.”
Keefer worked Knight’s summer camps, along with Keady’s at Purdue and Dean Smith’s at North Carolina. “When I first started, Coach K was the defensive coach at Knight’s camp,” Keefer said. “He’d work them so hard. He made you do stations twice a day. Years later when I saw him and was working Dean Smith’s camp he’d say, ‘What are you doing over there at the country club?’”
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Keefer, who retired last year at Lawrence North after 46 seasons at the school where the gym is named after him, got a call from Knight about an opening on his staff. He was planning to interview for the position until Jene Davis, who was going to take the job at Eastern Illinois, wound up coming back to IU before he was hired at Furman in 1982.
Keefer went on to win 865 games in 50 seasons overall to rank second in state history. Knight had an influence on Keefer’s coaching style, directly and indirectly.
“I wouldn’t know a coach he didn’t treat properly,” Keefer said. “He spoke at so many state conventions and was very congenial with coaches. We all learned a lot from him. Just look at what all the coaches were running on offense and defense.”
'... what a great teacher of the game.'
Steve Witty graduated from Franklin College in 1969 and starting his coaching career right around the time Knight go to IU two years later. He first met Knight at his annual fall clinic.
“He was just so impressive,” said Witty, who went on to win a pair of state championships at Ben Davis in the 1990s. “Being a young coach trying to start a career and establish myself, the thing that always impressed me about coach Knight was not only was he a great coach, he was a great teacher. Even watching his Sunday morning show with Chuck Marlowe, you never failed to learn something. He had it to a science teaching man-to-man defense.”
Witty still has Knight’s book on teaching man-to-man defense, which included drills to use at practice. When notes of Knight’s practice plans from the 1970s was recently posted recently on social media, a high school coach from Iowa reached out to Witty to ask him about one of the drills.
“There was a lot of good, some bad and some ugly sometimes (with Knight),” Witty said. “But what a great teacher of the game. There are a lot of great coaches out there who have had success, but not as many great teachers.”
Witty was always impressed with how willing Knight was to share his time. One October, Witty confirmed with Knight he was planning to come down and watch practice with former Lebanon coach Jim Rosenstihl. Knight called back and asked them to bring former Crispus Attucks coach Ray Crowe, who ended up having to cancel at the last minute.
Witty and Rosenstihl went to practice, ate lunch with Knight at the Kroger deli in Bloomington and ended up coming back to campus.
“We’re sitting there at the scorer’s bench at Assembly Hall,” Witty said, “and we find out it’s his birthday. And he spent about eight hours with us. He really respected coaches, especially the older ones who had been through some battles. I think it was interesting to him to talk to those coaches.”
Witty’s first coaching job was as the freshman coach at Manual, where Tom and Dick Van Arsdale starred and shared Mr. Basketball honors in 1961. Their mother, Hilda Van Arsdale, worked in the office at Manual. Her husband, Raymond Van Arsdale, died in December of 1973.
“I didn’t see (Hilda) for about a week,” Witty said. “When she got back to school, she told me a story that the first person on her porch the Sunday morning after it was announced (Raymond died) was Bob Knight. She didn’t know him. But he introduced himself and they ended up becoming great friends. She sat next to Knight’s wife behind the bench at games for a lot of years.”
Though Knight did not return to Indiana until 2019, almost two decades after his last game at IU, Witty believes reconciliation was important.
“He made such an impact,” Witty said. “Not just any player could play for coach Knight. But if you were mentally tough enough to focus on what he was telling you, not the way he was telling you, you could learn something. We really enjoyed going to practices and watching him teach. That was more interesting to me than the games.”
'He was always willing to teach if you were willing to listen.'
Bill Springer left Jennings County and took over as Bloomington South’s coach in 1975, the same season Knight led IU to a national championship. Knight and Springer struck up a friendship.
“We had a lot of interaction,” said Springer, 88, who went on to lead Southport to the state finals in 1990. “I went over many times to watch film with him. Even when I was at Southport, I would call him and he’d say, ‘Come on over and watch practice.’”
Springer kept up with Knight until the past few years, when Knight’s health took a turn. But those film studies and practices helped shape Springer as a coach.
“I probably had a better relationship with him than a lot of guys did,” Springer said. “He was always willing to teach if you were willing to listen. His practices were very competitive and if they weren’t, he had a way of making them so they would be.”
Occasionally, Knight would ask Springer to step out of practice. “I don’t know what was said,” Springer said with a laugh. “But I can imagine.”
'He was an iconic figure in our country, let alone basketball in the state of Indiana.'
Brian Hahn saw first-hand during his time as a student manager how much Knight enjoyed teaching and learning the game. In a group text with fellow student managers of that era this week, that theme kept coming to the forefront, along with Knight’s attention to detail.
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“(Knight) had an unyielding commitment to winning,” Hahn said. “I know everybody feels they are committed to winning. He really was. The next step is the preparation and detail that comes with that commitment. As a young man looking to get into coaching, I thought I was committed. I wasn’t. Seeing that from that level, for me, was most profound. I loved it. I loved every minute of it. His personality and approach fit me perfectly.”
Other coaches, like Jim Shannon, did not have a direct connection to Knight. But when Shannon started his career as an assistant at Anderson in the early 1980s, Knight’s influence was widespread in Indiana high school basketball. In fact, when Shannon was hired at South Dearborn as a 27-year-old in 1987, the Aurora Journal-Press compared Shannon’s disciplined style to Knight. Shannon diffused that comparison from a personality standpoint.
But Shannon was similar to many coaches from that era.
“Oh my goodness, a lot of guys looked up to him,” said Shannon, who stepped down last season after 25 years at New Albany. “I’d leave there after watching his practice and I could not wait to get back to our practice. Those of us in coaching came up at a great time to be around him, listen to him speak, read his books, even go to his practices. He was an iconic figure in our country, let alone basketball in the state of Indiana.”
For high school coaches, Knight’s coaching was the standard. The motion offense. Man-to-man defense. Discipline. Team play. More than two decades after Knight coached his last game at IU, his fingerprints remain on high school basketball.
“You watched the way they shared the ball, played unselfish and guarded people,” McCollough said, “and thought, ‘That’s fun basketball.’ Those are staples we all tried to emulate for years.”
Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Bob Knight long-lasting influence on Indiana high school basketball
