During his six years coaching at West Point and the following 29 years at Indiana, Knight's teams won 763 games and lost 290, putting him just 116 games behind North Carolina's Dean Smith for most games. His teams appeared in 24 NCAA tournaments, made the Final Four five times and won three championships -- in 1976, 1981 and 1987. His 1976 team was the last college team to go undefeated. In the 1984 Olympics, Knight coached the U.S. basketball team to a gold medal. He was named coach of the year four times and was voted into the National Basketball Hall of Fame in 1991.

But on that day in September, after years of controversy, Bob Knight's job as coach was terminated. The sportswriters whom Knight had antagonized over the years had a field day reporting his demise. The incidents that had made Knight such a media attraction were recounted, chapter and verse, from the incident in 1979 when he allegedly assaulted a policeman in Puerto Rico during the Pan American games and was arrested and convicted in absentia to the final straw when he overreacted to a freshman's greeting of "Hey, Knight, what's up?" by grabbing and reprimanding the student for not addressing him with proper respect. In between, the Knight highlight reel of controversial incidents would include: firing a starter's pistol at a reporter in 1980, shoving a belligerent fan into a garbage can in 1981, tossing a chair across the court during a game with Purdue in 1985, pulling his team off the floor during the second half of a game against the Soviet National Team in 1987, kicking at his son Patrick during a game in 1993, head-butting a player on the bench in 1994, grabbing player Neil Reed by the throat during a practice in 1997 and allegedly attacking his assistant Ron Felling for criticizing the program in 1999. He's been accused of intimidation and verbal abuse, and some of his motivational tactics -- such as putting a tampon in a player's locker or holding up soiled toilet paper during a halftime to indicate what he thought of his team's effort -- have come into question.

The beginning of the end came last spring when a three-year-old videotape surfaced, showing Knight with his hands around Neil Reed's throat. The university's administration and board of trustees insisted that Knight agree to a "zero tolerance" policy -- if he did anything that could be deemed irresponsible or demeaning to the university or its basketball team, he would be fired. It was only a matter of time, most observers predicted, before Knight's temper would get the best of him and force the university's hand. How odd, then, for his end to come from his response to a student's greeting.

When it happened, posters of the freshman, Kent Harvey, were printed with the words WANTED: DEAD under his picture. Knight spoke at a rally to calm the crowd's anger and to ask them to say a prayer for him. A lawsuit against the school was filed by some of Knight's supporters who claimed his firing violated the state's open meeting law. Soon after, the presidents of the other Big Ten universities backed Brand's decision in an ad in the Chicago Tribune.

One of Knight's critics, former NBA star Bill Walton, wrote in Time that Knight "psychologically terrorizes his players," and compared him with Walton's UCLA coach John Wooden, who "fostered hope," while "Knight represents the death of hope, the stifling control freak." Wooden, in his recent book of reflections, wrote: "There are coaches who have won championships with a dictator approach, among them Vince Lombardi and Bobby Knight."

But Knight is as revered as he is vilified. Former Indiana star and now Ohio State coach Steve Alford has called Knight a genius. Indiana Pacers coach Isiah Thomas has expressed love for his former coach and has said he is interested in having Knight work with the Pacers. The Detroit Pistons' Grant Hill has said, "People think of coach Knight as some crazy wild man. But I've learned in my short career in basketball that every coach is a crazy and wild man. Especially the great ones." Soon after he was let go, Knight went to see a St. Louis Cardinals game and Mark McGwire gave him a bear hug and asked how he was doing. Former presidents Gerald Ford and George Bush wrote him letters of support. University of Akron basketball coach Dan Hipsher has welcomed his input at practices. General Norman Schwarzkopf and the king of Spain have gone hunting with him. Dick Enberg wanted him as a color commentator during the NCAA tournament on CBS. And one New York publisher has advanced him $1.25 million for his memoirs.

If it weren't for his occasionally uncontrollable temper, Knight would qualify as one of the most admired coaches in the history of college sports. More than three quarters of his players have graduated. Thirteen have been all-Americans and 14 have been first-round NBA draft selections. He's come to the aid of injured athletes, helped numerous former players find jobs and was one of the first to support young hemophiliac Ryan White in his battle with AIDS. He has raised millions of dollars for the university library and for cancer research, has helped fund two professorial chairs and offered the women's basketball team $ 10,000 out of his own pocket for electronic equipment (an offer the athletic director turned down).

To find out how this legendary coach has handled recent events, PLAYBOY sent Contributing Editor Lawrence Grobel to Bloomington, Indiana for PLAYBOY's second interview with Knight (the first appeared in the August 1984 issue). Grobel reports:

"Knight wasn't home when I arrived at his house in Ellettsville. His wife, Karen, excused whatever mess there was, explaining that they were in the process of selling the house and moving to Phoenix for the winter. When Knight returned from five hours of grouse hunting, he sat down in front of his big-screen TV to watch the Northwestern-Michigan football game. With under two minutes to go, a Northwestern player alone in the end zone dropped an easy pass. 'Jesus Christ! That kid's got to live with that forever,' Knight exclaimed. 'God, I hate that. That's just terrible. Oh, the poor kid. The kid forever will have dropped the pass that would have beaten Michigan. Oh my. My oh my oh my. God, what a shame.' I asked whether Knight would have bawled the kid out or consoled him, had he been the coach. 'That's not when you get on the kid's ass,' Knight answered. 'You get on his ass because he missed a block, not if he misses the play, if he drops the ball or misses a free throw. That's when you put your arm around the kid. That's the only thing to do.'

"The next day I accompanied Knight to Akron where his son was working a basketball practice. It was a long six-hour ride from Bloomington and an opportunity to spend a lot of time with the coach. It also meant I would be in close proximity to his legendary temper. Little did I know that I was in for the ride of my life.