|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Knight bids farewell to Indiana
The text of Bob Knight's farewell speech to Indiana University students Tuesday night: There's really, I think, over all the years I've been here, one of the things that I've tried to keep uppermost in my mind with the basketball program is that the students are a very big part of it. Sometimes when maybe I'd slip a little bit or I don't, or I might not have that at the top of priorities, my wife, Karen, always reminds me because, I'll guarantee you, in the 12 or 13 years that she's been here, there's nobody that has been more concerned or given me more ideas on what could be done as far as basketball is concerned for you, the students, than my wife, Karen, can. Now, what she's done and what I hope all of you students will take part in is a walk-run for cancer that Karen has worked hard on that will be set up here in Bloomington on the morning of the 14th of October. And she really wants you students to participate in it because there aren't any of us anywhere that haven't touched in some way by cancer. (Kisses Mrs. Knight.) MRS. KNIGHT: I hope what he just did won't be termed inappropriate physical contact. KNIGHT: You know, I'm here talking to you as students in the year 2000. But what I think I'm really doing is talking to all students who have attended this university since 1971. How many of you students had a mom or a dad or a brother or a sister who have attended Indiana since 1971? I mean, I've been here so long as many of who had grandparents that attended Indiana. As I've said, basketball has been, I think, a real cooperative venture. There have been a lot of people that have been involved in it: coaches, administrators -- not recently -- fans and nobody, nobody any more so than students over the years. And that's why I say I feel as though I'm talking to all students since 1971. There's been tremendous support from the student body for basketball. I mean, you had parents and brothers and sisters that rooted for (Scott) May and (Kent) Benson and (Quinn) Buckner and (Jim) Crews and (Tom) Abernethy and (Mike) Woodson and (Ray) Tolbert and (Landon) Turner and (Ted) Kitchell and (Randy) Whittman and (Calbert) Cheaney and the Grahams (Pat and Greg) and Steve Eyl and everybody that we've had here. And the one thing that I have taken great pride in with the student body is how hard the students have always rooted for us. I remember games when we were trying to get back from having lost, or maybe we lost a couple of games and the students sensed that we needed something a little bit extra, and they gave it to us. There were times when we had to win two or three games in a row, and as the players rose to the occasion so, too, did the students. We have tried to maintain a seating arrangement for you that is by far the highest percentage seating for students of any university in the country that plays basketball. And those students since 1971 have helped you earn that. And they've earned it not just with their support for the team, the players, the coaches -- they've earned it with the way they've conducted themselves, the decorum in Assembly Hall. You'll see a new Assembly Hall, I'm sure, when you go there this year. There will probably be ads in it for everything from dog biscuits to Pepsi Cola, I would imagine. But we've always tried to keep it really free from commercialism. It's kind of a sacred place where students come to play and students come to cheer. And just as I've always wanted our players to be a part of the student body, so too have I always wanted our students to be a part of our team. And I think that our students have been that. Now, just as our moms and your dads and your brothers and your sisters have supported a lot of the teams and the players that I briefly mentioned -- without really being able to cover every player and every team. But I'd love to do that. I'd love to stand here and go through a lot of great memories of great players and great teams and tough games for you. But I'm not going to do that. That's all been chronicled many times. But what I to ask of you is this: The same support that our teams have had for 29 years from you students is the same support that these kids playing on this team this year should get from you students. When you go into Assembly Hall for the first game this year, I want you to remember what I said about what your moms and dads, your brothers and sisters, your aunts and uncles -- your friends -- that have been in those seats before you have meant to our basketball team. And I want you to mean the same thing to this basketball team. I have really enjoyed having had an association with students at Indiana University during the past 29 years. I said when I came here that if I had taken a year off and went around the country to find a place where I could coach, the most ideally suited place to me, I could not come up with a better place than Indiana University. People change over the years. (Helicopter flies above.) That must be the administration helicopter up there. People change over the years, and that changes situations for good and for bad. But don't let the student body, the energy, the enthusiasm that the student body has had for basketball -- please don't let that change. If you want to do something to remember me by, do that. Continue the same energy, the same enthusiasm that the students before you have given to basketball. I'll be very proud of you for doing that. I'd like to thank John Ryan and Bill Orwig, and George Pinnell, Ed Williams and Bill Armstrong for giving me a chance for helping me get started as a basketball coach at Indiana University When you run into one of these fans that was a student here since 1971, I want you to just tell him that I said thanks to them also. Thanks for them for giving me a lot of great memories here at Indiana. Don't forget this basketball team is your basketball team. There have been a lot of things that have happened here in the last four or five days. You got a kid that was a student here that I tried to show something to about courtesy. And I really believe that he got caught in a real surprise situation. I think he was a kid that was a little bit flustered, maybe a little bit more than a little bit flustered. I think he's been kind of led astray by a father -- a stepfather. That's the only penance that kid ever needs. So let him be a student and let him get on with life. This thing, believe me, had happened to me long before that situation took place. That kid is not responsible for my not coaching at Indiana. And make sure that you understand that. I want to thank -- you're about to see probably a first in my 38-year career in coaching. And that's me thanking a newspaper for anything. But I would like to thank the IDS (Indiana Daily Student) for supporting and setting up this chance for us to get together here tonight. And I might add that it was done with absolutely no cooperation from the administration. In fact -- in fact, if I were you guys -- now I'd be careful about letting anybody know that you were here tonight. Because these people in the administration are really great at one thing, and that's putting a spin on things, putting a spin on anything possible -- anything possible to work to their advantage with no attention being paid to the truth. And I'll guarantee you that nobody -- and you'll have to put a little thought into this one -- nobody is better at the spin technique than right here. Charlie McCarthy and Edgar Bergen are the very best there are at it. All right. Now, let me really turn serious for a moment. I want to wish you all the best at whatever you do. But to be the best -- and not even to be the best but to have the best opportunities -- you've got to work to be the very best student that you can. You've got to get the most out of being here. This is a great university. Trustees, administrations, faculties change, and they increase, or decrease occasionally to some extent, the worth of the university. But this university has really stood the test of time, because the really good people that care for you in the classroom and in every other way far outnumber the people that have agendas that don't involve the students first of all. Now, as I wish each of you the very best -- and I thank each of you for your support of myself, Karen and the rest of our family -- I ask something from you. I have from this Board of Trustees and this administration after 29 years not even received a wish of any kind for good fortune in the future. What I'd like you to do, to do one thing for myself and my family -- because I haven't retired. I don't intend to retire. As of the other day, I was looking for a new coaching opportunity. I had great kids and a great experience at West Point before I came here. I had great kids and a great experience at Indiana while I've been here. I hope to have great kids and a great experience where I go from here to coach. And as I leave here, I'd like each of you to take a minute, a full minute, to bow your heads, and in whatever way you do, wish myself and my family the very best, as I wish you the very best.
| ||||||||||||||||||||
