Another View Of Coach Bob Knight

Coach Bob Knight is a lightning rod. Like Andrew Jackson—a polarizing figure—Knight is either admired or vilified. There is no middle ground. A twenty-year-old interview with Coach Knight appeared—in of all places—the OAH Magazine of History. At the time, the seat of the Organization of American Historians was Indiana University and Coach Knight was accessible. I will wager any amount of money that Coach Knight is the only college coach who has appeared in a scholarly publication. Hate him if you must, Coach Bob Knight is a polarizing figure. However, he has the best grasp of the meaning of education among his peers. If this is (fair & balanced) contrarianism, so be it.

[x OAH Magazine of History]
A Conversation with Coach Bob Knight

The following comments are excerpts from a conversation Coach Bob Knight had with a staff member of the Organization of American Historians in the fall of 1984. Bob Knight is the coach of the Indiana University men's basketball team and coached the 1984 Olympic basketball team of the United States.

I have been involved with the process of American education for more than 20 years. My first job, in 1962, was as a teacher of civics and economics. I taught a course called "Problems in Democracy." I then coached and taught at West Point for eight years, and for the last 14 years I have been at Indiana University. I have observed many changes in education over the past 23 years.

I believe that the role of the school in our society is to provide a spectrum of possibilities for students to realize their personal potentials. The public school is important in our children's experience because it functions as a microcosm of a larger society. In school, children encounter a variety of people with different attitudes, principles, and values, and, many times, from different cultures; just as they will in their adult lives. However, I think the system is failing our children because the demands it is putting on them have been decreasing for many years. Students need to be challenged.

What we are doing is diluting the quality of American education. We need to rethink the emphasis our high schools put on college education. We need to respect individual students' goals and potentials. Not all students want or are capable of attending college, so we need to develop trade and vocational school systems to prepare them for their adult careers. I believe that part of the problem has to do with the number of students we are trying to teach. We have to respect the diversity of personalities and abilities in our schools and begin to educate individuals.

A major problem is that we are not paying our teachers enough. The position I had in 1962 paid $4,600. We've obviously come a long way since then, but we certainly have a long way yet to go. I've always believed that our society should reward its educators more than anyone else, because they have such an awesome responsibility. I'm appalled at the amount of money our country spends on foreign aid. Foreign aid should begin at home; we could take a good portion of that budget and put it into education nationwide. Then we could develop better teachers and have more qualified people involved in the process of education. There are many very good teachers now in our schools, but we are making a big mistake if we don't begin to reward them adequately -and soon. Education is dismally underpaid at the secondary level. Students, also, have changed over the past 20 years: they are far more worldly and certainly better equipped in some ways to handle things than we were, because they are exposed to so much more. Television alone offers our children unbelievable exposure. They are, for example, more success-oriented than when I first started teaching. But I question how much they know about achieving their personal goals today, simply because we aren't challenging them sufficiently. We are not putting enough demands on them.

One of the more identifiable changes in students that I have observed is in the attitude of female students toward education. Education has become a priority for women and has replaced marriage and having a family as a primary goal. Women have become much more aggressive about getting the education they want.

I teach a course at Indiana University every fall. Without fail, the women in the class are the best students. They are the most organized, thoughtful, reflective, and conscientious students, and they work the hardest. This has been true now for a number of years. In fact, if I were hiring people for a large corporation I would probably hire a large percentage of women. They can be witty, bright, and more at ease with people. And, from what I have observed, as women have become more aggressive educationally, men have become less aggressive. Women see education as an avenue, just as a poor kid sees major league baseball as an avenue. Women are in the major league now, and they see themseves as major league players. This wasn't the case, generally speaking, 20 years ago.

What role does athletics play in education? Used properly, athletics is a tremendous learning tool, but only for a very small percentage of people. We have 31,000 students at Indiana University, but only 14 of them play basketball on the men's team. For these 14 students, playing basketball is an excellent educational experience. Or, at least, it is if I'm doing my job well.

For the other thousands of students interested in the team, our men's basketball program is a wonderful outlet. Recreational involvement should be a part of everyone's life. Our basketball team is for the students. They go to a game, enjoy it, and return to their studying refreshed and enthused.

But if we were to do away with the athletic department tomorrow, it wouldn't affect Indiana University. If we were to do away with the medical school, however, it would affect not only IU but also the whole state of Indiana; maybe even the whole country. Affordable athletics is very worthwhile, but only if it is affordable. If a school doesn't have a language lab, it shouldn't have an athletics program. If athletic funding interferes with the process of education, then athletics should suffer.

I see myself as a teacher much more than a coach. And my involvement with the education of my players begins after they've been recruited before they are even on campus. We have a guidance section here in the athletics department. Several years ago I directed (this section) to send recruited (players) selections from fictional and nonfictional sources along with a set of questions. I do this to see how welI these students can read and write.

I require alI of my players to take public speaking. Indeed, I think public speaking should be required of alI our students. As I telI my players, to be able to play basketball welI you have to be able to communicate, and to read, and to write. Let's make sure that they can.

All of us as adults are the parents and teachers of our children. We have a responsibility to prepare them for their adult lives because they will become the parents and the teachers of tomorrow. Our failure is ultimately their failure; just as our success is their success. The educational system of this country is its main resource. Let's not only preserve it but strengthen it.

The study of history is an important facet of the whole process of education, because it provides us alI with a sense of origin. That's important to our understanding of ourselves. It's important, for example, that we in Indiana know that many of our forebears came here from Appalachia, and that they were a family-oriented people. All around us we see the impact of these people and their beliefs, and knowing about them can help us to know about ourselves.

Not everyone, though, would agree with me about history. To some, it is merely a memorization of things that have happened already; things that have little relevance to their everyday lives. The teaching of history, however, presents a special challenge. Educators should make the past come alive for students. It can't be taught as a series of dates or a succession of battles or the names of commanders. Rather, it should be taught to answer the question, "Why?" Why was the Civil War fought? How does it affect us today?

To be taught properly, history has to encompass much more than what we usually think of as history.

Copyright © 1985 Organization of American Historians