American basketball player who later became a coach at Indiana University. In college basketball, his name is synonymous with greatness and winning, and many feel he is the finest basketball coach in America.
Growing up in northern Ohio, his father told him, “Never gamble and don’t hang out with queers.” Knight says his father was brutally tough, but never raised his voice in anger. As a junior high student, he helped his coach scout other teams, and as a known practical joker, Knight was always the main suspect whenever anything unusual occurred. He went on to attend Ohio State where, as a Buckeye, he was on the teams that won Big Ten titles from 1960-62. He graduated with a degree in history and government, and became an assistant coach at Cuyahoga Falls High School in Ohio, prior to entering the U.S. Army. There he was assigned as an assistant to coach Tates Locke at West Point; Locke went on to become head coach at Miami University in 1965, and Knight moved into the coaching position as a result.
Among his greatest achievements are multiple NCAA and NIT championships, but he has had international success as well. In 1979, he took the U.S. Pan American team to a gold medal in Puerto Rico. Knight is known for an almost uncanny ability to extract the full potential from his players, and he is proud of their high graduation rate. He is his own man, with high principles, expectations and demands. Not afraid of controversy, he often uses profanity to make his point and exercises an impressive temper. He has a great ability to teach young men both the game of basketball and the game of life, and in May 1991, he was inducted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame.
Knight and his wife Karen were married in 1988, and have two sons, Tim and Pat. Pat played for his father at Indiana University from 1991-95, and is now an assistant coach there. During his spare time, he enjoys telling stories about his life, and every year he goes hunting and fishing in the wilderness of the Northwest U.S. and Canada.
Link to Wikipedia biography