The coaching legacy Knight leaves behind
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Jeff Borzello, ESPN Staff Writer
Bob Knight, who died Wednesday at age 83, had one of the most storied careers in college basketball history.
He won four national championships — one as a player at Ohio State and three as the head coach at Indiana. He coached in five Final Fours and led the Hoosiers to 11 Big Ten championships.
Knight won gold medals and multiple coach of the year awards, and was inducted into both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.
When discussing Knight’s achievements, however, high up on the list is the number of future coaches who passed through West Point or Bloomington or Lubbock, either on his staff or as a player.
A full list of his coaching tree could go on for pages and pages. There are dozens of former assistant coaches, from Dave Bliss and Don DeVoe at Army to Bob Donewald Sr., Jim Crews, Royce Waltman and Bob Weltlich at Indiana.
He has a slew of former managers who have gone on to achieve success in the coaching field, highlighted by Lawrence Frank, currently the president of basketball operations for the LA Clippers.
And then there are his former players, including his son Pat. Isiah Thomas, Randy Wittman, Glen Grunwald, Dane Fife, Keith Smart and Dan Dakich are all among the former players to make an impact in the basketball profession as coaches or front office executives.
Even now, more than 15 years after Knight finished coaching, eight active Division I head coaches can trace their careers back to him. Here’s a look at the ones currently coaching — along with the biggest name on his coaching tree, and perhaps his most interesting coaching connection.
The most successful
Mike Krzyzewski
The only coach on the tree to surpass Knight’s legacy is Krzyzewski, one of the greatest basketball coaches in the history of the sport. Knight coached Krzyzewski at Army from 1966 to ’69 and then gave him a job as an assistant at Indiana in 1974. Krzyzewski went on to win five national championships with Duke, making 13 Final Four appearances, while also winning three consecutive Olympic gold medals as head coach in 2008, 2012 and 2016.
Current head coaches
Chris Beard, Ole Miss Rebels
Beard spent seven seasons on Knight’s staff at Texas Tech from 2001 to ’08, and remained when Pat Knight took over. He has since led three different programs to the NCAA tournament, including guiding Tech to the national championship game in 2019.
Dusty May, Florida Atlantic Owls
May was a student manager at Indiana under Knight from 1996 to 2000. After five stops as an assistant coach, May just wrapped up his fifth season as the head coach of the Owls with a run to the Final Four.
“I have a thousand favorite Coach Knight stories,” May said at the Final Four. “But the impact that he had on me as a teacher is something as a head coach I refer back to daily. The way he cared for people, especially after they went through the program, is something that I try to do as well.
Mike Woodson, Indiana Hoosiers
Woodson is hoping to return Indiana basketball to its glory days under Knight. He played for Knight in the late 1970s before making his home in the NBA — as a player for 11 years and then as a coach for 25. When the Hoosiers were looking for a new head coach in 2021, they turned to Woodson, who has guided Indiana to the NCAA tournament in both seasons since he took over.
Steve Alford, Nevada Wolf Pack
Alford helped bring Knight some of his biggest successes as head coach: playing on the national championship team of 1987 and the gold-medal team of the 1984 Summer Olympics. Alford has since been the head coach of six colleges, most recently leading Nevada to the 2022 NCAA tournament.
Joe Pasternack, UC Santa Barbara Gauchos
Like May, Pasternack was a former student manager under Knight in the late 1990s. He was a longtime Pac-12 assistant at California and Arizona but has been the head coach at UC Santa Barbara the past six seasons, going to two NCAA tournaments in the past three.
Mike Davis, Detroit Mercy Titans
Davis was tabbed to follow the legend after Knight’s dismissal in September 2000, first as interim head coach and then with the full-time job several months later. Davis, who spent three seasons as an assistant under Knight, led the Hoosiers to the national championship game in 2002 but resigned after six seasons.
“I wasn’t prepared,” he told the Big Ten Network in 2017. “I knew I wasn’t prepared.” Davis has since gone to five NCAA tournaments with UAB and Texas Southern and has been the head coach of Detroit for the past five seasons.
Michael Lewis, Ball State Cardinals
Lewis played under Knight from 1996 to 2000 and began his coaching career as a graduate assistant under Knight at Texas Tech in 2002. He went on to serve as an assistant coach at five different Division I programs before getting his first head coaching job in the spring of 2022 at Ball State.
Marty Simmons, Eastern Illinois Panthers
Simmons played two seasons under Knight before transferring to Evansville for his final two. He has been the head coach at SIU Edwardsville, Evansville and now Eastern Illinois.
The wild card
Bill Parcells
You read that right. When Parcells was on the football staff at Army in 1966-67, he was also a part-time assistant coach for the basketball team under Knight. So he’s part of the tree.
“He’s a great coach and I don’t use that term often,” Knight told the New York Post in 2000 about Parcells. “It doesn’t matter what sport it is. He could coach anything.”
ESPN’s Rece Davis sat down with the two Hall of Famers in 2008.
