Knight and day

Basketball coaches embrace longevity like no other sport

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The look on Bob Knight's face said it all.

Hollis Price's driving, twisting, last-second floater had just sailed through the net Monday night when the camera panned to Texas Tech's coach. Having leaned out of his chair in anticipation during the final sequence, his head fell back, just for a second, in exasperation, but not for too long. It's not like that was the first time it's ever happened to him.

Fortunately for Knight, there have been many, many, many occasions where the result went more favorably. So many, in fact, that as soon as next week the sweatered icon will achieve his 800th career victory.

Ponder that number for a second: 800. Eight hundred!

"I don't even know if I'm going to coach in 800 games," said Kansas' Roy Williams, "much less have the possibility of winning 800."

It's a sacred number in college basketball because only four men have ever achieved it, and because it's the last major milestone before Dean Smith's landmark 879.

It's been a season filled with such moments, from Knight pursuing 800 to Stanford's Mike Montgomery reaching 500 and Kansas' Williams getting 400 to Oklahoma State's Eddie Sutton nearing his 1,000th game.

While such rampant longevity has largely vanished from other major sports, there are now 22 Division I head coaches in at least their 25th season and 11 more have docked 20 years at the same school. Legends like Knight, Lute Olson, Mike Krzyzewski and John Chaney have become as synonymous with their sport as the black lines on the ball.

Major college football, by comparison, has just two figures boasting such tenures, Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden. This weekend's Super Bowl features two coaches in their first years on the job.

Seeing as it's probably only a matter of time before basketball succumbs to the same trend, today's fans are literally watching history in the making.

Take Knight, for example. In order to win 798 games he's also had to survive the frustration of 301 losses, not to mention injuries, suspensions, road trips and recruiting wars. No one would have blamed the 62-year-old coach if, following his controversial exit at Indiana, he'd spent the rest of his winters fishing instead of sitting in hostile gyms like Oklahoma's, watching players like Price stick daggers in his heart.

But then he would have missed the challenge of molding a previously underachieving team like the Red Raiders into one that's gone 34-12 since his arrival.

"When I first started playing basketball ... the game just fascinated me, and it still does," Knight, in his 37th season as a head coach, said this week. "As long as it does, I don't see any reason not to be involved with it."

Gene Keady faced his own challenge entering this, his 23rd season at Purdue. Following two substandard seasons, critics wondered whether the 66-year-old could still connect with today's youngsters.

Rather than stepping down, though, the six-time Big Ten champ stepped it up -- in recruiting, in teaching, in every area -- and now has the Boilermakers contending for a seventh title.

"It's about teaching, about working hard -- that's the joy of our job," said Keady. "If you're only rewarded by wins, you're in the wrong profession."

While Knight and Keady are still thriving, though, others are reaching their limits.

In the past month, the game's two longest-lasting coaches, Mount St. Mary's Jim Phelan (49 seasons) and Georgia State's Lefty Driesell (41) have announced their retirements.

Of the top 20 all-time winningest coaches, seven have bowed out since 1997, including Smith, Jerry Tarkanian and Denny Crum.

Nine of the top 40 still remain active, but several of them -- Knight, New Mexico State's Lou Henson, Oklahoma State's Eddie Sutton, Temple's John Chaney -- can't be that far behind, which begs the question: Will the game's next generation -- Williams, Tom Izzo, Tubby Smith -- last anywhere near as long?

"I'm sure I'd have Alzheimer's before I got near 800 wins," said Oklahoma's Kelvin Sampson, 47, owner of 375 victories. "I'd have to coach by satellite from a senior citizen's home. I just can't imagine that."

Several factors are working against today's coaches in their quest for longevity. For one, most got their first head-coaching jobs much later than Knight, who was still in his 20s upon taking over Army.

But it goes deeper than that. Even the best coaches aren't given nearly as much leeway these days from athletic directors who need to keep arenas filled and donations flowing. One down year can doom a career that may very well have been headed toward immortality.

"You can almost bet your money that in most cases they won't [last as long]," said the 71-year-old Henson, now in his 39th season. "Let's face the facts. There's more pressure to win than ever before. Look at the salaries of coaches. Look, look at the [news] coverage. There's tremendous pressure to win. Therefore, you're not going to have coaches stay as long as they used to."

Of the remaining active coaches, those with the best chance of joining Knight in the 800 club would be Sutton (717), Olson (675) and Krzyzewski (649), who at 55 would seem to have enough years ahead to one day eclipse his mentor.

But then, he'd have to accept Knight's victory total as being 798.

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