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PLAYBOY: But why didn't you ask for zero tolerance to be explained?
KNIGHT: I don't know. Do you do everything that's brilliant? Sometimes you don't cover everything. But I certainly tried to find out right away.
PLAYBOY: The definition of zero tolerance as printed was: "Any verified, inappropriate physical contact with players, members of the university community or others in connection with the coach's employment at IU will be the cause for immediate termination."
KNIGHT: What is "verified"? Explain the word inappropriate to me.
PLAYBOY: You say you never understood what zero tolerance meant. Would you have accepted that answer from any of your players?
KNIGHT: That wouldn't have come up with players, because I would have explained things a lot better. You writers expect things out of the people you're writing about that you yourself never think about.
PLAYBOY: Indiana president Myles Brand said there were many instances in which you had been defiant and hostile. Did he point these out to you in private?
KNIGHT: Never! That's bullshit. Another thing Brand said was that I didn't follow the chain of command. Twenty years ago my contract was written so that I had final approval over everything to do with men's basketball at Indiana University. Now, you tell me, where's my chain of command? There is none. I don't have to ask anybody there for a single thing. And I put that in there because I was the only guy who really knew how to run basketball at Indiana, and I didn't want any interference with the scheduling, the recruiting, anything. I've had five athletic directors since I've been here and this guy [Clarence Doninger] is the only one I didn't get along with, because he's the most incompetent and the least trustworthy person I've ever met in athletics. The guy's a little man, a very small person in all respects other than size.
PLAYBOY: Was your problem with him always about basketball matters?
KNIGHT: No, it was never about anything. But it didn't make any difference, because he had no say in what we did anyhow, which he resented from the beginning. But the guy had never been in athletics -- he's a lawyer, didn't know the first thing about how people in athletics think.
PLAYBOY: Did you ever physically threaten Doninger?
KNIGHT: No. What would I physically threaten the guy for?
PLAYBOY: It was reported that you did after a game on February 19, 2000.
KNIGHT: Now you get into this bullshit.
PLAYBOY: We don't know anything more than what was reported.
KNIGHT: Then let me tell you exactly what happened. This goes to show how untrustworthy the guy is. The biggest game of the year for us last season was playing Ohio State here. I thought if we could beat them and Michigan State we could win the Big Ten championship. We get in the Ohio State game and we have it won, but we lose it in the end. I walk through the hallway and here's the athletic director, after we've gotten our asses beat, and I haven't seen him once all year. He looks at me and says, "Boy, that was a tough game." And I said, "How the hell would you know?" And I just kept on going. Then I came back and said, "I don't even understand what you're doing here." He said, "I have a right to be here." I said, "I don't care what your rights are. Nobody wants you here, nobody gives a damn about you being here under these circumstances." I didn't raise my voice, there was no threatening gesture. The next two days, at three different meetings, this athletic director told people that he knew if someone hadn't interfered with me, I would have punched him. That's what I was dealing with.
PLAYBOY: Do you ever wish you had it in you to be able to ignore the kind of stuff that really bothers you?
KNIGHT: You can't imagine how much I ignore. I go to a game and people are all over my ass, and I never say anything. I just walk on and off the floor.
PLAYBOY: Kent Harvey, the freshman who called you by your last name and was the catalyst for your being fired, was burned in effigy outside Brand's home, and fliers of him were printed with the words WANTED: DEAD. How concerned were you for him?
KNIGHT: When I addressed the fans the last time I talked to them, I told them to leave the kid alone.
PLAYBOY: Harvey and his two brothers withdrew from the university and left the state. What do you think of that?
KNIGHT: I have not followed what direction their lives have taken.
PLAYBOY: Do you feel for the kid?
KNIGHT: Not in the slightest.
PLAYBOY: Was he wrong in saying anything about you?
KNIGHT: The kid's stepfather used me. He talked about how I said "fuck this" and "fuck that" and "goddamned this" and "goddamned that." The total content of what I said was this, verbatim: "Son, I don't call people by their last names. My name to you is Coach or Mr. Knight, and you should remember that when you're dealing with elders." And I walked away. Would it piss you off?
PLAYBOY: What?
KNIGHT: Would what was said by the stepfather piss you off?
PLAYBOY: Didn't the stepfather also say he didn't think you should be fired over this incident?
KNIGHT: [Bangs the center of the steering wheel with his fist] Jesus Christ! This is bullshit! I'm not here for a fucking inquisition! And if that's what this is, then get the fuck out and hitchhike back home! The fucking stepfather was a fucking goddamn fucking asshole from the word goddamn go! He fucking lied and he lied and he lied! Jesus Christ! I mean, this is my fucking life we're talking about! My fucking heart was ripped out by this goddamn bullshit!
PLAYBOY: OK----
KNIGHT: OK my ass! It isn't fucking OK! Goddamn it, I don't need this shit with PLAYBOY or anybody else! I'll drop you off in fucking Dayton and you can get home.
PLAYBOY: Please, Coach----
KNIGHT: This is fucking bullshit! I don't want to hear another fucking word.
[For two minutes, we drive in silence. Knight continues to stew.]
KNIGHT: You haven't brought up one fucking positive thing I've said or done since we've been talking. I'm tired of it. We'll get to Dayton, you get this car and drive back to Bloomington.
PLAYBOY: Coach----
KNIGHT: No ifs, ands or buts about it!
PLAYBOY: One of the problems you've had to deal with is that the press has not been nice to you, or they only report certain things. There are issues that will remain in the press for the rest of your life if you don't take the opportunity to give your side.
KNIGHT: That's not true. [Calming down] I was in Puerto Rico in 1979 -- that's 21 years ago -- and to this day I have still not punched a Puerto Rican policeman or called the Brazilian women's teams "niggers" and "whores." Seated 40 feet away from me were 12 players representing the U.S. in the Pan American games. Eight of them were black and three played for me. Now, how logical would it be for "America's greatest racist" to make that comment under those circumstances? So it isn't going to change. I have been burned too many times trying to deal with somebody who I think is going to deal with things honestly. This guy you're talking about [Harvey's stepfather] asked me five different times through letters to allow him to write a book on me. I turned him down every single time. So then he became a guy on a radio talk show and never did a day go by when he didn't rip my ass about something. I think it was the kid's father, not his stepfather, who was very apologetic about what happened. The stepfather just tried to crucify me by making up one thing after another. So you asked me if I feel sorry about these kids? Hell no, I don't feel sorry for them, because their own stepfather did what was done to them. There was another coach standing about 10 feet away when this incident happened, and a player 15 feet away sitting in a car with the window down who heard the whole thing. They corroborated what I said happened. And the kid himself and his brothers eventually had to recant what they had said. You don't understand how sick and tired you get of this bullshit.
PLAYBOY: We're trying.
KNIGHT: You do the things you know are the right things to do to enable your school to have a really good basketball program. You don't succumb to any of the temptations of recruiting violations or academic fraud or anything like that, and I'm not sure what else can be asked of a guy. The petty bullshit that went on here, the guys I felt were friends that weren't, this president's idiotic accusations... another one was: Knight demeaned and insulted our alumni by not speaking at luncheons in Chicago and Indianapolis. Well, my contract called for me to make four appearances a year on behalf of the university. Over 20 years I probably averaged never less than 20 appearances per year. So this year, with the set of circumstances I was confronted with, my attorney said to me, "You just can't expose yourself to this stuff." So I spoke at six things. Now, Brand uses this as a reason why I'm being fired. How would you feel about that one? Another thing he referred to was all the public remarks that I had made criticizing the administration and the board of trustees. There isn't a day that goes by that some professor doesn't write a note in the paper about how inept this board of trustees and administration are. Are they going to fire all those professors? Am I denied freedom of speech?
PLAYBOY: Michigan State coach Tom Izzo said he smelled a rat in what happened to you. Former coach Pete Newell said he smelled a setup, a trap. How do you feel?
KNIGHT: The setup was such that I was put into an impossible situation. Anybody with any intelligence knows that zero tolerance is a prelude to failure. Nobody can operate on zero anything.
PLAYBOY: Has Brand and his administration hurt the university?
KNIGHT: That would have to be determined by somebody else. In my own case, I had a plan where I was going to leave $5 million from stuff that I would eventually do -- write a book, television stuff, whatever -- money that I don't need, for the athletic department. And a million of it would go to the football team as long as the coach remained. There's no way I would do that today. I spoke a while ago in southern Indiana and raised $60,000 for cancer research. That would have gone to the university. I told them I didn't want it to.
PLAYBOY: How do you think things will change at Indiana basketball games?
KNIGHT: We had the best fans in the world here and that will change, because they'll be allowed to yell and holler and scream and do whatever the hell they want to do with things now. I would never allow that, but that'll happen quickly now. "Bullshit bullshit" chants -- I never let that happen here.
PLAYBOY: How much mail did you receive after you were fired?
KNIGHT: See that truck in front of us? That probably carried it. I've tried to read and answer everything that's been worthwhile. And I don't think there's been a negative thing sent.
PLAYBOY: Did three ex-presidents send you letters of encouragement after your firing?
KNIGHT: I heard from two. But that's nobody's business. I've heard from owners or coaches from 14 NFL franchises. I got a really nice letter from the governor of Wisconsin, telling me how much he appreciated what I had contributed to the Big Ten over the years. I never once heard from Indiana's governor.
[When we arrive in Dayton, Don Donoher is waiting. Knight asks me to jump into the backseat. Donoher tells Knight he'll drive. Knight apologizes for being late, having missed a turn on the highway because "he got me so pissed off about an hour ago with these fucking questions that I was yelling and screaming at him and missed the fucking turnoff."]
DONOHER: You just missed the turnoff and you're blaming Larry.
KNIGHT: I was goddamn up near Middletown before I realized we passed 70. I was so pissed off. It took me goddamn near the Ohio line before I started answering his fucking questions again.
DONOHER: What are you two collaborating on?
KNIGHT: I'm not really sure. There is a question remaining whether he will live long enough for this article to see the fucking light of day. You know that movie A Bridge Too Far? That's what happened with Larry this morning, but it was A Question Too Far. I think to a small degree I may have overreacted.
[After the two coaches talk sports, legal matters and bakeries for a while, the interview continues.]
PLAYBOY: Did you once lose a putter up a tree while golfing?
KNIGHT: I one time threw a Ping putter into a tree and I came out the next day to look for it. It was a huge tree, and I climbed it and sat there while about five groups went through underneath me, and I never did find the goddamn putter. It was interesting trying to keep anyone from seeing me up in that tree.
PLAYBOY: How good a golfer are you?
KNIGHT: The last two times I played golf I bogied the last two holes to shoot 80. The six times before that I shot 76 four times, 77 once and 82. But what keeps me from being good is I'm not very flexible. I play a screwy game. I have an 11 and a nine wood because I don't hit irons well.
PLAYBOY: Is Tiger Woods on his way to becoming the world's greatest athlete?
KNIGHT: No, I don't think you can equate golf with athletics. An athlete can play anything, that's the difference. There have been some really good golfers, like Ben Hogan, who couldn't play anything else. Sam Snead was a good athlete. But Hogan, Byron Nelson -- these guys weren't athletes.
PLAYBOY: Do you consider golf a sport?
KNIGHT: Yeah. You need athletic ability, hand-eye coordination, flexibility -- there's never been a good golfer who didn't have good flexibility. J.C. Snead may be the best athlete playing golf -- he played baseball good enough to sign a pro contract; he was a good basketball player. Jack Nicklaus was a good high school basketball player and a catcher in baseball. Until Woods has been able to play for 20 years at the level he plays at now, Nicklaus will always be the best player, because he played well longer than anybody else.
PLAYBOY: But isn't someone who plays a sport an athlete?
KNIGHT: You think a boxer is an athlete? What else can a boxer do but box? Sports are very individual in many cases, but a great athlete can play anything. You take a really good home run hitter -- I'm not sure about McGwire, because I think he's a pretty good athlete -- but really, what the hell else could Babe Ruth have played? He wasn't going to play football or basketball. He was just a baseball player.
PLAYBOY: You have a high standard for the word athlete.
KNIGHT: I have a very high standard. Because that's not the same thing as a player. A great player in any given sport might not necessarily be a great athlete.
PLAYBOY: How did ESPN change the nature of college sports?
KNIGHT: Television has had far too much control. That's also a result of colleges' search for the dollar. So now time-outs are two minutes, to get in as much commercial time as possible. That means more dollars. There aren't as many really good, smart basketball players today as there once were. And yet, overall, the quality of the player is much better. If you watch an ESPN show like SportsCenter, let's say there are 12 things showing. What will 10 of them be? Dunks. ESPN never shows a back cut and a bounce pass that leads to a layup -- that's way too generic, but that's the guts of the game. They don't show a guy drawing a charge. They show a dunk. So kids have a much different idea of what the game is all about today than they had when I played. When I played, there was a much better understanding of how to play.
PLAYBOY: Do you think players today play better or are at a different level from players in the past?
KNIGHT: There isn't anybody playing basketball today that's any better than Jerry West or Oscar Robertson or Willis Reed or Havlicek or Bill Russell. Chamberlain. In golf nobody's playing any better than Nicklaus or Snead or Hogan or Nelson. But what's happened is, as we become more and more sports oriented as a country, there are more teams and more good players. But the great players now aren't any better than those of the past.
PLAYBOY: Who's the best basketball player of them all?
KNIGHT: Russell was the most valuable player ever. They won 11 championships in 13 years. Jordan is the best player, but Russell was the most valuable. And I really admired and liked Chamberlain. He was a dignified and gracious man. He gave and accomplished so much, and yet more was always expected from him. His records are phenomenal. I was a great admirer of Jerry West. Willis Reed -- I started his basketball camp for him when I was a coach at Army.
PLAYBOY: What about Kareem?
KNIGHT: Jabbar was very good, but he wasn't Chamberlain or Russell.
PLAYBOY: What did you think when Chamberlain revealed that he had slept with more than 20,000 women?
KNIGHT: Dick Schaap told me a story of how he was at a sports banquet in New York where he had taken a picture with Chamberlain and Roger Staubach. And Schaap said, "Roger, you know the three of us have had sex with 20,002 women." And Chamberlain said, "Dick, that book's two years old." That's one of the greatest lines I've ever heard.
PLAYBOY: How does a coach deal with someone like Shaquille O'Neal and his inability to sink free throws?
KNIGHT: Maybe he's a bad free throw shooter. There's no panacea for bad free throw shooting. Chamberlain may have been the greatest athlete who ever lived, he couldn't shoot free throws. Maybe O'Neal won't be able to shoot free throws, maybe there's a mental block there. It seems to me that Phil Jackson got O'Neal playing better and more consistently than anybody ever has, so whether or not he shoots free throws well is incidental to what Jackson has done in one year with him.
PLAYBOY: What do you think of a professional athlete like Allen Iverson releasing a hip-hop song with lines such as "Man enough to pull a gun/ Be man enough to squeeze it." And: "Come to me with faggot tendencies/ You be sleeping where the maggots be."
KNIGHT: If I were the owner of that team, upon hearing that one time, the guy would be traded.
PLAYBOY: What things upset you most about a player?
KNIGHT: That he doesn't develop a work ethic. That he doesn't pay attention to what's happening, doesn't see the game as it's developing. The difference between a lot of mediocre players and a lot of good players is the ability to see the game. Everybody looks, but very few see. The kid who learns to see has an advantage over the all the kids who don't see. And perhaps what upsets me most is when a kid simply doesn't take advantage of the ability he has. In the end he ends up cheating himself, but in the process also cheats his teammates.
PLAYBOY: What's the best advice you've ever received as a player?
KNIGHT: Having been told that any play in which you're involved in may ultimately be a play that can be pointed to as having decided the game, so make sure your level of recognition and your intensity is as great as it can be as long as you're in the game. The players who can most closely develop that kind of approach are always the players who wind up being involved in a game that goes down to the wire.
[We arrive in Akron and watch the team practice for two hours, then go out for dinner. At eight Donoher gets back behind the wheel of Knight's Lincoln, and Knight sits beside him with one tape recorder between them. I'm in the back with a second recorder.]
PLAYBOY: We haven't asked you about your two passions other than coaching: hunting and fishing. What is it about hunting that attracts you?
KNIGHT: As you get older, if you're going to compete, you damn near have to play golf or tennis. But there's a competetiveness in hunting; the bird gets up, are you quick enough to get on it? Can you hit it? There's also stamina in hunting. Yesterday I walked in the woods for five hours -- up steep hills and down. I was hunting for grouse, didn't see any, didn't get a shot.
PLAYBOY: Is that considered a wasted day?
KNIGHT: No. Karen roots for the birds when she goes with me. Fishing I really like -- you're more challenged with the fish than the birds. But I don't care for deep-sea fishing, where the boat fishes. The bell rings and you just grab the rod and try to reel it in. That's not fishing, that's catching.
PLAYBOY: Steve Alford said he understood why people called you a genius -- there was a method to your madness. Can coaches be geniuses?
KNIGHT: Basketball is not nuclear physics or cancer research. I don't know how applicable the word genius is. Obviously some coaches are a hell of a lot smarter than others. But let's take another word you just used: madness. What response does that elicit? That borders on some form of insanity. So how accurate is the term madness in that phrase? Rasputin was mad. What does that imply?
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