Day after he was fired by IU, Bob Knight revealed the words he wanted on his tombstone
The day after Bob Knight was fired by Indiana University, local sports anchor Mark Patrick somehow got the ousted coach to allow him to come to his home for an interview. A two-hour interview. Two hours of airtime, with Knight doing most of the talking.
Even in 2000 when television sports was a much bigger production than it is today, that was an unheard-of amount of time to devote to one sports story. But this was Knight and everyone wanted to hear what the newly dismissed coach had to say.
When Patrick called to ask Knight for the interview hours after he was fired, he was upfront. This wouldn't be some fluffy piece of journalism.
"I said, 'Well, you know I'm going to have to ask you about what happened. We're not going to just sit around and reminisce,'" Patrick told Knight. "'I think it's the opportunity for you to get the time to get your story out. Your side. At least what you believe has happened.'"
Patrick, who was doing the piece for then WTTV Channel 4, is sure that was the appeal for Knight, why he agreed to sit down with him. It was well known that Knight didn't like the press. But this wouldn't be a quick sound bite from a 5-minute interview.
When Patrick showed up to Knight's Bloomington home the next day, he wasn't nervous. He had covered the contentious coach for years, but he was a bit surprised when he arrived with his television crew.
"When I got to his house, it was not at all what I expected," said Patrick. "There were friends there, including former IU players like Isiah Thomas, and (Knight's) wife, Karen."
The minute he pulled in the driveway, Knight walked outside and greeted Patrick. He showed him around the property, took him inside and showed him his Olympic memorabilia from coaching the gold medal-winning team from 1984. He showed Patrick relics from his time serving in the Army.
"It was like talking to a long-lost friend I hadn't seen in years," Patrick said. Then the two sat down in the front yard, and Knight was mic'd up.
Much of that interview is a blur to Patrick now, 23 years later, but there is one thing Knight said to him that he will never forget. And now, with Knight's death at the age of 83 this week, it's a bit chilling.
"You have a chance to write the line that would be on your gravestone," Patrick said to him. "What would it say under Bob Knight?"
Knight paused for a moment, looking down.
"I think it would simply say, 'He was honest. He did what he thought was right and he really didn't kiss anybody's ass.'" Knight said. "I'd be happy with that. And I might put just a little P.S. on that epitaph that would read like this, 'And every once in a while, he did think that he was wrong.'"
Patrick remembers sitting there in awe. "I think he realized that he had kind of nailed it. It was a really reflective Bob Knight," Patrick said.
"There was no way I asked any kind of question after that. That was the end of the interview."
Expecting an 'edgier' conversation that day
In all his years of covering sports, Patrick said that sit-down with Knight is still probably No. 1 for him. And those words Knight revealed about his tombstone were some of the most poignant he's ever gotten from an interview.
"Time has been so good to it. The significance of it with his passing, that question now having 20 years to simmer and his answer," said Patrick. "I mean, really, if you think about it, you could put that on his gravestone and people would say that kind of captures him."
Patrick said he was expecting an "edgier" conversation with Knight that day. Instead, he got a somber, deep-thinking man.
"He was well aware he was at the crossroads of his life. He was at a very difficult age (one month away from his 60th birthday) where it was going to be maybe impossible coming off what he was coming off of to work again," Patrick said. "And he did love coaching."
Knight landed a job coaching Texas Tech after leaving IU and stayed there until he retired in 2008.
Through the years, Patrick was one of the reporters Knight truly respected.
"When the Neil Reed stuff came along, he would call and ask my opinion. 'Should I talk about this? Should I not talk about this?'" said Patrick, who was sports anchor for WISH-TV Channel 8 at the time. "Those calls would always lead to me saying, 'Well you've got a venue here at Channel 8.'"
Many times, Knight took Patrick up on that.
"I know there were competitors that felt like they weren't getting a shot for whatever reason to talk to him," Patrick said. "But I didn't ever come out of an interview with Knight thinking, 'Oh boy, I just let him walk all over me.'"
In fact, there were times when Knight would leave an interview, swallow his pride and ask Patrick to come back. Patrick said he never knew what he would get when he traveled to Bloomington for interviews with Knight.
"Sometimes, he would come out and give you everything you needed," he said. "And sometimes, he wasn't in the mood to do it."
On those days, Patrick would turn to his photographer Dennis Goins, an Indiana Basketball Hall of Famer from Rushville, and say, "Well, Dennis, I guess we aren't going to get anything today. Let's go."
Knight would take off his microphone and as the two walked away, sometimes, Patrick would hear: "OK. Hang on guys. Come back here."
"Those were the best interviews we ever got," Patrick said. Except that one in September 2000, the day after Knight was fired from IU.
"I knew I had to go down there and, for my own integrity, ask him difficult questions," Patrick said. "But he answered them well. Very well."
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via e-mail: dbenbow@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Bob Knight: After IU firing, he revealed words he wanted on tombstone
