A Dallas Morning News writer who took a class from Bobby Knight at Indiana University says he was a demanding teacher who wouldn't tolerate absence or tardiness.
Dawn Reiss took a basketball coaching class from Knight in the fall of 1999. That was his last full season at Indiana. He was fired last fall after grabbing a student who addressed him as "Hey, Knight."
Texas Tech hired him on Friday as the head basketball coach at Texas Tech.
"The first day of class, 80-some students sat in the basketball press room hungry for coach Knight's knowledge. The class lasted for almost two hours, twice a week, for eight weeks. If you missed once, you received a C; if you missed twice, you failed; and if you were late, it was considered an absence," she wrote in Monday's editions.
Grades were based upon attendance and a notebook containing charts diagramming basketball plays and topics discussed in class, she said.
"Coach Knight spoke in parables of his life, using each story to reach a specific point. He asked how many of us did not like a coach at one point in our life," Reiss wrote.
Almost everyone in the class raised a hand, she said.
"As a senior in high school, I had a basketball coach that I hated," Knight told the class. "I learned as much from him as anyone else. I learned what to do as well as what not to do."
She said Knight told the class his four keys to victory were:
taking good shots,
not throwing the ball away,
moving without the ball, and
helping each other to get open.
"He told us you have to make a team rather than recruit one, and not to worry about the size of the player, but the player's ability and heart," she wrote.
"The first ingredient to winning is to eliminate the reasons to lose," Knight told the students. "The will to prepare is more important than the will to win."
Knight recommended that the class read a book a week, specifically suggesting "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu and "Go for the Gold" by Mia Hamm.
"The worst coaches are tolerant people. The best coaches are intolerant, because people that work for you are satisfied with whatever you tolerate," Knight told the class. "Telling people what they want to hear is fatal in basketball and in life."
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