PLAYBOY: We'd like you to comment on some of the incidents that are usually described in articles about you. Given your earlier reaction to a question that disturbed you, would you be willing to answer these questions? We don't want you to get angry.

KNIGHT: That doesn't guarantee that I won't. But before you get into it, you're going to go over the same incidents that have been brought up in everything that's ever been written about me, and I'm tired of talking about them. With that, go ahead.

PLAYBOY: In 1980 you fired a blank shot from a starter's pistol at Louisville Courier-Journal reporter Russ Brown. You said you did it "to keep from going nuts."

KNIGHT: I fired a starter's pistol in a press room one time in what I thought was kind of a humorous situation. I don't recall ever saying that I did it to kepp from going nuts.

PLAYBOY: But did you fire it at someone or just into the air?

KNIGHT: First of all, you don't aim a pistol that doesn't have a barrel, do you? This is simply a device that makes noise. It's a solid piece of metal.

PLAYBOY: In 1981, during the Final Four in Philadelphia, did you shove a fan into a garbage can?

KNIGHT: You know I have no interest in this whole line. Zero. Everything I have said relative to these things has been documented and redocumented and I'm not going through it all again. [A heavy silence fills the car for a few minutes. Then Knight addresses the incident in his own way.] Let me create a situation for you, and you tell me how most people would react, OK? A team is playing and prior to the game, fans obnoxiously berate the players on the other team. That day, the team that had been berated wins the game. That night, their coach is going to dinner and a fan, who is obviously under the influence, says, "Well, Coach, your team played well today." And the coach replies by saying, "Yeah, we just didn't roll over for your team, did we?" And the guy starts screaming at the top of his lungs that the coach is an asshole, in front of probably a hundred people in a crowded restaurant. How do you think the coach would react to that?

PLAYBOY: If the fan was inebriated, maybe the best thing would be to walk away.

KNIGHT: How do you avoid it when the guy's screaming at you in front of a hundred people? Do you think there are many competitive people who would avoid that?

PLAYBOY: It's obviously a difficult situation, but if you're a professional ballplayer or coach, you shouldn't get in tussles with fans. What do you think, Coach Donoher?

DONOHER: Unless you're confronted with it I don't know how you can answer it. I've never been confronted with anything like that. [Long pause.]

PLAYBOY: Let's change the subject to Bill Walton, who often bad-mouths you on camera or writes negatively about you. Why does Walton have it in for you?

KNIGHT: When some people bad-mouth you, it's really the best compliment you can get. When they agree with you, then you know you're wrong. Walton is a guy I would never want to think well of me, because then I would know I had something I should really be bothered about. Walton doesn't know me. He's never attended a practice or clinic that I've given. Walton was one of the greatest players. As a person, he leaves a lot to be desired. A guy who refuses to try to represent his country in the Olympics is a guy I'd never have any respect for whatsoever.

PLAYBOY: If you could get back into coaching, would you consider changing your coaching style?

KNIGHT: Most of what has been written about my coaching style has been written by people who have never been to practice. Have you seen anything where players who have played for me through their eligibility have ever complained about my coaching style?

PLAYBOY: You have a style that you know works, yet there is a perception that indicates some changes might be in order.

KNIGHT: And who's responsible for the perception?

PLAYBOY: Partly the media. But they're obviously reporting things they've seen.

KNIGHT: What have they seen? Give me an example.

PLAYBOY: They've seen you get angry.

KNIGHT: Have they seen other coaches get angry?

PLAYBOY: Of course.

KNIGHT: Has that been given the same attention as my getting upset?

PLAYBOY: They're not necessarily providing footage of a chair being thrown across a gym floor.

KNIGHT: I saw Rick Majerus, who's a very good coach and friend, pick up an ice cooler in a game in Hawaii where we were playing them and throw it on the floor, with ice and water going everywhere. Did you ever see a picture of it on television? No, you didn't. I saw John Cheney, one of the great people I know in coaching, tell a guy he was going to kill him. Have you ever seen that on television, replayed and replayed?

PLAYBOY: So the question comes back: Why you?

KNIGHT: You know, forget this whole thing. Do whatever the fuck you want to do with this. I don't think you understand that I don't need to go through this kind of bullshit. [Throws the tape recorder in the backseat.] I'm not trying to defend myself. I don't give a fuck what you write. You come here and bring up all the bullshit that's happened to me over all these years, and why? This whole thing has been ridiculous. You think I've enjoyed this bullshit? Going through this crap? Like I'm on trial somewhere? Like I have to defend myself? [Slight pause] Give me your two tape recorders.

PLAYBOY: No, Coach. I'm not going to do that.

KNIGHT: Give me the tape recorders!

PLAYBOY: I can't.

KNIGHT: Stop the car, Don. [He turns around, his knees on the seat, his head now inches from mine, as he grabs my wrists, trying to get my bag with the tape recorders in it. "Pull over!" he orders Donoher, who keeps on driving. "I want him out of here. And I want those goddamn tapes!"

"You don't want to do this," I say.

"Calm down, Bob," Donoher says, still concentrating on the road. "Sit down."

We drive on in tense silence for a while. Then Donoher says, "We have a bad situation here. I don't think it's a good idea for the two of you to be in the car together when I leave. I can drive Larry back or I can drive Coach back and you can drive his car back."

When we arrive at Donoher's car we all get out. Donoher asks me what I want to do. I say I'll do whatever coach Knight wants me to do. I'm willing to get a taxi rather than force Donoher to drive the 200 miles back to Bloomington. But Knight grumbles, "Get in the car, I'll drive you." And Donoher says, "Stay in the back, don't sit in the front." I get back in the car and Knight gets behind the wheel and says a gruff goodbye to Donoher. As soon as Donoher leaves, Knight says, "I'll take you back, but I'll be goddamned if I'll be your chauffeur. Get in the front."

I leave my bag with the tape recorders in the back and get in the front seat. But before we start to drive I look at Knight and stick out my hand. "Shake my hand, Coach," I say, wanting to break the tension. He looks at me for a moment, then shakes my hand. For the next two hours, as we drive back to Bloomington, he pours out his heart.

"You don't understand," he says. "You can't understand. How would you like to have had your whole world taken from you for no good reason? Today was the first time in 38 years where I attended a practice without having a team. For 29 years I did things for Indiana, I raised $5 million for the library, I established two professional chairs, and when I left there was no thanks. Not a word. I'm selling my house, moving to Phoenix. I don't know if I'll ever get another coaching job. I never made more than $230,000 at Indiana, and when they hire some new coach it will cost them between $600,000 and a million." He begins laying out his woes. How someone at the Mexican restaurant where we had eaten the night before had goaded him to court, and it took nine days before the judge threw out the case. How the university lied and spun stories about him. He never threw a vase at the athletic director's secretary; she wasn't even in the room when it happened. And he didn't call her a fucking bitch, but he said he didn't like her acting like a bitch. And about Neil Reed: Did I know that Knight asked his players whether they wanted Reed on the team and they voted him off, eight to zero, with one abstention? And Reed went to another program and the coach there said he didn't belong? Did I know any of that? How come we never hear about these things, only about him?

"I don't think anyone you've ever interviewed has been more forthright or straightforward as I have with the questions you've asked," he says.

"That's why I didn't want to let you destroy the tapes," I say.

"You can put the machines back on. I won't do that."

PLAYBOY: Twenty-five years ago in Newsweek you said that most of your coaching is negative, that you concentrate on ways you could lose. Has it always been like that for you?

KNIGHT: That's exactly right. To win you have to eliminate losing. You figure all the reasons why you can lose -- sloppy ball handling, poor shot selection, no block out, no help on defense. Those things don't guarantee you're going to win, but they will all guarantee, if they're not handled properly, that you're going to lose.

I can remember my mom saying time and time and frigging time again, "Just remember, somebody has to lose." And my rejoinder has always been, "Why should it be me?" My dislike for losing was far more of a motivating factor than my wanting to win.

PLAYBOY: Let's talk about your parents.

KNIGHT: My dad was an incredibly disciplined person. From 1937 until he died in 1970, my dad owned just three cars. He never had a credit card, never paid for anything over time. If he hadn't saved the money to buy something he just didn't buy it. He was a lifelong railroader, he never made more than $8000 a year. Yet, we never went hungry, we lived comfortably. My dad told me only two or three things. One was to never gamble. And I never have.

PLAYBOY: What are the other two?

KNIGHT: They're not any of your business.

PLAYBOY: Was he strict?

KNIGHT: Not really.

PLAYBOY: Did you have any heart-to-heart talks with him?

KNIGHT: We talked about the important things. I wouldn't say they were long conversations. He died at 72. He had a really tough time. He had contracted acute leukemia, which is basically a children's disease. They tried to convert it to chronic leukemia, and had they been successful it might have given him another eight or 10 years to live.

PLAYBOY: And your mom?

KNIGHT: She was a schoolteacher -- second and third grade. Very smart. I had her as a second grade teacher. She was very strict. At my mom's funeral there were three ladies in their 80s that I had as teachers in the fourth and sixth grades. I told them, "Would anybody imagine today that I was absolutely scared to death of the three of you?"

PLAYBOY: Your grandmother was an important in your life, wasn't she?

KNIGHT: My grandmother lived with us until she passed away when I was 19. She always used the public library. I was one of the few boys who had a library card, which I had from the time I was old enough to read. My grandmother used to go into the country to buy vegetables or visit her sister in Pennsylvania or go to the movies, and I'd always go with her. In 1960, when she was 83, I came home from college and found her where she had passed away after going for a walk, sitting in the living room with her coat and hat on. My mom passed away 27 years later in the same room in a chair facing the one where my grandmother died. She was working a crossword puzzle when she passed away. She was almost the same age as my grandmother.

PLAYBOY: Who are your heroes?

KNIGHT: I have interesting heroes. Ted Williams, who helped thousands of people without anyone knowing what he had done. Harry Truman, who had the courage to drop the atomic bomb and live with consequences. Probably the most devastating decision ever made in world history. Ulysses S. Grant. John Wood, my favorite military hero. He was commander general of the Fourth Armored Division that spearheaded Patton's march across France. A guy like George Steinbrenner, who does things with millions of dollars to help people. People who have been willing to take a chance and do things are heroes of mine.

PLAYBOY: It's past midnight, Coach, and it's been a long day. Let me throw some offbeat questions at you. If you could have witnessed any moment in history, what would you choose?

KNIGHT: I would have really enjoyed seeing five loaves and seven fishes feed 5000 goddamn people.

PLAYBOY: In what period of time would you have liked to live?

KNIGHT: I would have enjoyed living in the West from 1875 until the 1890s, when your disagreements were settled by whoever had the fastest draw. And I would have worked awfully hard at it.

PLAYBOY: If you could have been any person?

KNIGHT: I'm satisfied with me.

PLAYBOY: Fought in any war?

KNIGHT: The American Revolution. It was a decided underdog taking on the world's most powerful country and winning on sheer determination.

PLAYBOY: Composed any music?

KNIGHT: God Bless America.

PLAYBOY: If you were to be successful in another profession?

KNIGHT: If I could have done any one thing other than coach, I would want to be in charge of America's antidrug program with the authority to handle it any way I'd want. I would send the military to take out any drug-producing plant wherever in the world it was.

PLAYBOY: Most terrifying moment of your life?

KNIGHT: Two or three times when I've been very close to being involved in major automobile accidents, and in one case I could have been the cause of serious injury or death to others.

PLAYBOY: What quotation would you like to have authored?

KNIGHT: "Nuts." You know where that comes from? It's what Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe said when the Germans demanded that he surrender Bastogne. The 101st Airborne division was surrounded, and the Germans sent a demand for surrender and McAuliffe answered with one word. They told Patton what McAuliffe had said and Patton said they had to get going because a man that eloquent had to be saved.

PLAYBOY: If you could change one thing about your childhood?

KNIGHT: I would like to have had brothers and sisters.

PLAYBOY: If you could ensure that your son shared one experience that you've had?

KNIGHT: To have had parents that taught him as much as mine taught me.

PLAYBOY: Live the life of any fictional character?

KNIGHT: Robin Hood.

PLAYBOY: Take revenge on any one person?

KNIGHT: Right now it would be absolutely impossible for me to devote all the ideas I have to just one person.

PLAYBOY: If you could be forgiven for one thing?

KNIGHT: For those times when my lack of patience or understanding unjustly hurt somebody.

PLAYBOY: Choose how you'll die?

KNIGHT: Really late in life.

PLAYBOY: Be reincarnated as an animal?

KNIGHT: A mountain lion.

PLAYBOY: Return to one year in your life, knowing what you know now?

KNIGHT: Five years ago. Had I done that, I'd have been coaching someplace else the last five years.

PLAYBOY: What do you think of Al McGuire's remark, that you remind him of Alexander the Great, "who conquered the world and then sat down and cried because there was nothing left to conquer"?

KNIGHT: Basketball has always had a great fascination for me. I haven't yet conquered the game, so maybe that's what I'm trying to do.

PLAYBOY: So retirement's out of the question. You really do want to coach again?

KNIGHT: Yeah, I'd really like to coach again. I would like to wind up my coaching career working for people I really like and respect and who feel the same way about me. I want better final memories than I have right now.