Knight’s wife provides perspective for Texas Tech coach
Lubbock, Texas ? When Bob Knight coaches in the round of 16 for the first time in more than a decade tonight, one of his most trusted advisers won’t be on the Texas Tech bench.
Knight brings a seasoned staff, 39 years of coaching, 854 victories and 27 NCAA Tournament appearances into the game against West Virginia. He also relies on his wife, Karen Knight, a former top high school coach — but her sharp perspective comes from the stands.
“It’s a different set of eyes with a really good mind, is what we’re talking about,” Knight said. “It’s been great for me to have somebody right there all the time.”
Karen Knight made a rare public appearance — and offered a glimpse of her Hall of Fame husband’s softer side — after Tech knocked off Gonzaga on Saturday. The coach brought her down from the stands, and she hugged him throughout a nationally televised interview, tears streaming down her face.
But Karen Knight offers much more than emotional support. In fact, the Oklahoma Girls’ Basketball Hall of Fame member has been a key part of the brain trust that has helped turn around the Tech program.
Karen Knight, who has been married to Bob Knight since 1988, is the coach’s hoops sounding board. Her husband says she’s the better coach of the two Knights, and she suggests defensive strategy and helps players with technique during practice.
“The first time I ever talked to her about (basketball), I understood how much she knew,” Bob Knight said. “I knew that immediately.”
The marriage is Knight’s second. He has two sons — Tech associate basketball coach Pat Knight and Tim Knight, the school’s assistant athletic director for men’s basketball special projects — from his first marriage.
Knight declined to talk about how he and Karen Knight met. Karen Knight does not do media interviews.
Texas Tech men's basketball coach Bob Knight, left, walks off the court with his wife, Karen, after the Red Raiders beat Gonzaga, 71-69, on Saturday in Tucson, Ariz. Knight praises his wife and says they are happy living and working at Texas Tech in Lubbock, Texas.
“She’s been really good,” Bob Knight said. “And not the least of it is her understanding about the whole thing, about how difficult this is, and how hard losing is. She has experienced all that.”
She also has known the good and bad times during Bob Knight’s career.
He won three national championships and 662 games at Indiana, but things turned sour when school officials said the coach known for his temper violated a zero-tolerance behavior policy.
Even before then, the Hoosiers had struggled on the court. Indiana made it to the round of 16 in 1994 but struggled afterward, losing in the first round four times. In those final years, Karen Knight knew her husband was unhappy.
“And she had to live with that, and I don’t think that was easy for her, my disposition toward the whole thing,” Bob Knight said.
Even now, bad feelings remain. In a national radio interview after the Gonzaga win, he was critical in response to a question about his replacement there, Mike Davis. He said he was planning to fire Davis if he stayed at Indiana.
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“There’s no way I would have kept the guy any longer than that,” Bob Knight said. “That’s their problem.”
The problems have been few and far between in Lubbock, where fans have embraced Bob Knight since his arrival in 2001.
He has taken a team coming off four straight losing seasons and produced four consecutive seasons of 20-plus wins. Tech is in the round of 16 appearance for the first time since 1996.
“I really think that she probably was hoping that we could do something in coaching in a situation that we would enjoy, that she would like and that I would like,” Bob Knight said. “And that’s really basically what we’ve had here.”