Final Four

Bobby Knight’s Story of Success and Controversy

Bill Thompson

The march toward March Madness begins today. The NCAA men’s basketball season is getting underway.

For many seasons, one of the nations most dominant basketball programs could be found at Indiana University, the team coached by the legendary Bobby knight.

Eleven times his teams won the big 10 championship. Three of his teams won the national championship, and one captured the NIT.

After he was fired by Indiana in 2000, Knight took over as head coach at Texas Tech in 2001, taking his team to the postseason in each of his first Four years there.

But night was also a volatile personality. And a 1986 bestselling book by writer John Feinstein helped cement Knight’s reputation as something of a hot head.

I met Bobby Knight in the spring of 2002, as his first year at Texas Tech was drawing to a close. We talked about his autobiography, a book called Knight: My Story.

So here now from 2002, Bobby Knight.

Bobby Knight died last week. He was 83.

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Mike Krzyzewski

Dean Smith

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Mike Krzyzewski

Bill Thompson

The men’s NCAA college basketball season opens tomorrow. And it will be the final season for one of the game’s winningest and most successful coaches ever.

Mike Krzyzewski, also known as Coach K, has been head coach at Duke University since 1980. He announced last June that he would be retiring after this season.

Under his leadership, the Blue Devils have made it to the Final Four 12 times, and have won five national championships, second only to John Wooden’s ten.

I met Coach K 21 years ago, when he wrote a book on leadership called Leading with the Heart.

So here now, from 2000, Mike Krzyzewski

Mike Krzyzewski is 74 now, and we’ll leave the game as one of its all-time greatest

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Dean Smith Dick Vitale

Dean Smith

Bill Thompson

If not for the coronavirus, this would have been Final Four weekend.

So, for you basketball-starved fans, let me share with you an intrerview I did some 20 years ago with the coach who took his team to the Final Four eleven times during his 36 seasons with the University of North Carolina.

Dean Smith was one of the winningest coaches in college basketball history, including:
.. 22 seasons with at least 25 wins
.. 35 consecutive seasons with a 50% or better record.[3]
.. and two national championships.

Smith was also Michael Jordan’s college coach.

Here now, from 1999, my interview with Dean Smith:

Dean Smith died in 2015, just days before his 84th birthday.