Texas Tech Men’s Basketball Coach Bob Knight, love him or hate him, is a man who doesn’t mince words via his great quotes. Many great quotes made by Bob Knight are very memorable indeed, if not enlightening or controversial. With this in mind, here are some of my favorite Bob Knight great quotes that he’s made on tv, radio, or attributed to him in various media. None of the following sayings have a litany of cuss words in them either!
“People want national championship banners. People want to talk aboutIndianabeing competitive. How do we get there? We don’t get there with milk and cookies.”
–Quoted in BloomingtonHerald-Times, March 1994
“I fortunately have never worried about irritating people.”
–Quoted in the IndianapolisMonthly, December 1982
Since Bob Knight has taken over at Texas Tech, he’s not been in the news as much with great quotes as he was while coaching basketball at Indiana, but en route to becoming the winningest men’s NCAA Division I college basketball coach of all time, he said this on December 23, 2006, when he tied Dean’s Smith’s record of 879 victories:
“I’d like to have hit 62 home runs. Then I think I would’ve accomplished something.”
And here’s a few great quotes from the best-selling book about Coach Knight, A Season on the Brink, which came out some 20 college basketball seasons ago, the 1986-87 season, the same year that Bob Knight won his last National Championship.
“Steve, God is not going to provide any leadership on this basketball team. He couldn’t care less if we win or not. He is not going to parachute in through the roof of this building and score when we need points…..let me ask you this. Do you really think that God is going to help a team that I’m coaching?” –Coach Bob Knight quotes to basketball player Steve Alford before a basketball practice.
“Daryl, get in the game or get out! Do you know you haven’t scored a basket inside since Jesus Christ was lecturing inOmaha? –Coach Bob Knight quotes to basketball player Daryl Thomas during practice.
“…Well, now we’re playing Purdue, and I’m up, and I keep hearing this voice…..’Bob, Bob’. So I looked at her and I said, ‘Ma’am, can I help you?’ And she said, ‘Now Bob, if you aren’t going to sit on your chair the way you didn’t sit on it the other night, these bleachers over here are very hard and I’d really like to use that chair’. Now, how can anyone get on me just because I threw that chair over there so she could sit on it?” –Coach Bob Knight quotes why he threw the chair in the February 23, 1985, basketball loss to Purdue.
Now, here’s some of Coach Knight’s lesser known great quotes via words of wisdom and humor:
“Well, I caught Jaws once. I was fishing offMontauk Pointonce with red worms for blue gill, and I caught Jaws. –From The Bob Knight Talk Show, December 14, 1992, quotes jokingly to a caller’s question as to what the biggest fish he ever caught was as well as the location of the catch. Bob Knight is an avid fisherman.
“I’m not inclined to think much about nicknames. I’ve usually referred to people by their given name or, in some cases, by phrases that could never be mistaken for nicknames.” –From The Bob Knight Talk Show, February 15, 1993, when asked what he thought of the nickname attributed to him; that is, “The General”.
“I don’t think that you have time to teach a variety of things and teach them well. I think you’ve got to teach a few things about the game of basketball to your players and teach them as well as you possibly can.” –From a Bobby Knight, Clinic One (basketball coaching video).
“It’s always been my contention that you can do a lot more to develop mental quickness than you can physical quickness. Physical quickness, for the most part, is something that you either have or don’t have.” -From Bobby Knight,Clinic One (basketball coaching video).
