Knight, Bobby (1940– )

US basketball coach. He played on the Ohio State 1960 National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) champion team, then became assistant coach (1963–65) and head coach (1965–70) at West Point. Knight became coach at Indiana University in 1971 and led his team to three NCAA championships (1976, 1981, and 1987); his Indiana teams never had a losing season. He coached the US team that won the Olympic gold medal in basketball in 1984 and the US team that won the gold medal in the 1979 Pan American Games.

Knight was born in Massillon, Ohio. As a basketball coach, he emphasized discipline and defence on the court. His passion for winning, however, occasionally got him into trouble: in 1979, as coach of the US team at the Pan-American Games in San Juan, Puerto Rico, he was charged with aggravated assault against a police officer in the gymnasium; at the 1981 NCAA ‘final four’, he put a bothersome Louisiana State University supporter in a trash can.