Season on the Brink
by John Feinstein
from Simon & Schuster
Why is A Season on the Brink the bestselling sports book of all time? The answer is easy: Bobby Knight. Audaciously brilliant, exasperatingly volatile, and never boring, the Indiana University basketball coach is Greek drama and comedy neatly wrapped in a red sweater. Like all high-strung people, Knight is particularly interesting when things don't go according to his playbook. John Feinstein had the good fortune to follow Knight and his Hoosiers through a difficult 1985-86 campaign; that Feinstein could watch that season attached to Knight's hip gives A Season on the Brink its sights and its sounds. That such closeness allowed entry into Knight's heart gives the book its fury. The combination is irresistible.
A Season on the Brink chronicles the basketball season that John Feinstein spent following the Indiana Hoosiers and their fiery coach, Bob Knight.
Knight granted Feinstein an unprecedented inside look at college basketball -- with complete access to every moment of the season. Feinstein saw and heard it all -- practices, team meetings, strategy sessions, and mid-game huddles -- during Knight's struggle to avoid a losing season.
A Season on the Brink not only captures the drama and pressure of big-time college basketball but paints a vivid portrait of a complex, brilliant coach walking a fine line between genius and madness.
Knight: My Story
by Bob Knight
from St. Martin's Griffin
His Indiana teams also won NCAA titles in 1980--81 and 1986--87. The 1975--76 Indiana team was the last unbeaten team in college men’s basketball. Knight’s career includes six seasons as head coach at Army, where his teams won 102 games and lost 50. He is the only coach whose teams won championships in the NCAA tournament, the National Invitation Tournament, the Olympic Games, and the Pan American Games. During all that he has been at the heart of more controversies while running a winning and squeaky-clean program than any coach of any sport anytime or anywhere.
His excitement as things start anew for him is matched here by his candor and remarkable recollection of a life he clearly has enjoyed. You’ll see why, with story after story---some delightful, some hilarious, some poignant, none of them dull: the story of Bob Knight’s life.
Same Knight, Different Channel: Basketball Legend Bob Knight at West Point and Today
by Jack Isenhour
from Potomac Books
Basketball legend Bob Knight is fond of saying that he has never gotten over West Point. In Same Knight, Different Channel, Jack Isenhour takes him at his word. A player on KnightÂ’s first West Point team, Isenhour shows how the controversial coach has changed little from his early days at the academy, temper tantrums and all. Knight made up his mind there to "win-gotta win" and follows that philosophy to this day.
KnightÂ’s sentiment was in step with the core value of "there is no substitute for victory" at West Point, where soldiers were being trained to fight and win the next war. So it came as little surprise following KnightÂ’s 18-8 record in his inaugural 1965-66 season-a season in which the twenty-five-year-old hot-headed coach berated officials, totaled chairs, and got into his first shouting match with an athletic director-that West Point chose to keep the young Coach Knight on. WhatÂ’s a tantrum or two in the name of winning? With that, "Bobby T" was born. KnightÂ’s bad-boy persona-the hair-trigger temper, the acting out, and the defiance-was codified as at least tolerable, if not acceptable, behavior.
Relying on firsthand experiences and interviews with teammates, administrators, and Knight himself, Isenhour traces the pattern of misbehavior established during KnightÂ’s inaugural year at West Point, during his last days at Indiana, and to his reemergence at Texas Tech. The result is the most even-handed portrait of Knight to date. In a narrative both lively and irreverent, Same Knight, Different Channel demonstrates who Knight is today and shows how he was shaped by his experiences at West Point, ending with a thought-provoking discussion of just what it takes to play, coach, and win in the high-pressure world of college basketball.
Bob Knight: The Unauthorized Biography
by Steve Delsohn
from Pocket
THE FULL, CANDID STORY OF
COLLEGE BASKETBALL'S MOST
CONTROVERSIAL COACH!
Detailing Bob Knight's most explosive moments on and off the court, and drawing from more than one hundred revealing new interviews with those who have worked and played alongside him, this is the most balanced and comprehensive portrait of the NCAA's infamous coach. Love him or hate him, here is
BOB KNIGHT
AS HE REALLY IS.
Hoosier Honor: Bob Knight and Academic Success at Indiana University
by Robert Paul Sulek
from Praeger Publishers
College student-athletes are often a study of failure--a failure in graduation, in setting priorities, in having dreams fulfilled. Over 65 percent of all college athletes might not graduate. Only a handful of NCAA schools combine excellent basketball with a consistent level of graduation. One aim of this book is to help current college athletes to graduate by documenting a success story--Indiana University. The volume does not focus on Indiana's "basketball" success but instead its "academic" success under the seventeen-year tenure of Coach Knight. The author first details the failure of present sports programs in low graduation levels, abuse and exploitation of athletes, and in spirit and philosophy. He then explores what is described as Coach Knight's "hard-love," and the people and processes involved in the Indiana program. This volume addresses athletic administrators, educators, athlete-students, and their fans. Written in a light and sensitive style, Hoosier Honor tells the success story of the Indiana University basketball team under Coach Bob Knight. The most winning coach in the Big Ten Conference, Knight's greatest success is his ability to graduate an extremely high percentage of his players. This volume documents that success: the success of a man who knows that defense wins games; a man with limitations who learned to compensate and trains his team to compensate; a teacher and a mentor. "Voices" of those around Coach Knight are finally heard and a psychological analysis of Knight and the Dostoyevsky-type "double" internal struggle is present in Knight's "hard-love" of the players. The IU program is a model one--philosophical approach to basketball.
Knight Fall: Bobby Knight, The Truth Behind America's Most Controversial Coach:
by Phil Berger
from Pinnacle
An Interview With Bobby Knight
A biography of the basketball coach at Indiana University, whose undefeated team won the NCAA tournament in 1976.
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