Knight Takes His Hoosiers Beyond Mere Will to Win : College basketball: Coach stresses the will to <i> prepare </i> to win in discussing his philosophy, the NCAA and the art of war.

Walk into the Indiana University bookstore these days and you quickly discover the extent of Coach Bob Knight’s influence here. His highly successful but often controversial career has spawned a regular cottage industry, complete with books (seven titles, and counting) and a videotape of Knight’s 50th birthday party roast. With Knight’s blessings, the profits from the tape sales go to the school’s library fund.

It doesn’t stop there. A couple of weeks ago, you would have thought Knight had become part of ESPN’s programming package, what with an appearance on Dick Schaap’s call-in show one night . . . the next night with Dick Vitale . . . the next night with Vitale again. And last Saturday on an ESPN “Fishin’ Hole” episode taped last July, Knight and baseball Hall-of-Famer Ted Williams were featured casting for salmon on Russia’s Umba River.

Knight has led Hoosier teams to three NCAA championships and 10 Big Ten titles. He is the league’s winningest coach, a member of the National Basketball Hall of Fame, owner of an Olympic gold medal won as coach of the 1984 U.S. team and overseer of a program whose four-year players have a 95% graduation rate.

Yet Illinois Coach Lou Henson calls him “a classic bully.” The media spar with him. Assorted university presidents and NCAA officials bristle at his many criticisms. Opposing recruiters paint him as an uncaring dictator, a control freak. Those who hear him on speaking engagements are often surprised at how crude he can be.

Knight is exacting, demanding, authoritative and crude. But he doesn’t cheat, he doesn’t lie and is totally committed to his school, his program and his players. The way Knight figures it, everybody else can go to hell.

This is his 27th season of coaching, his 21st at Indiana. Tonight, in a game between the two conference favorites, Knight’s fifth-ranked Hoosiers (11-2) will play fourth-ranked Ohio State (11-1) at Assembly Hall. As an Ohio State graduate and a member of the Buckeyes’ 1960 NCAA championship team, there are few games Knight cherishes more.

Wednesday, after an early-evening practice--school was out of session--Knight sat in his Assembly Hall locker room, called “the Cave,” and discussed everything from Sun Tzu, an ancient Chinese military philosopher, to the NCAA, to his value system.

A voracious reader, Knight has a special fondness for Sun’s “The Art of War,” which was written about 2,500 years ago and details the formula for battlefield success. Knight, who was introduced to Sun’s works in the late 1960s, has adapted many of the teachings to his own coaching methods.

Thus, the starting point of the interview:

Question: Well, we bought the book . . .

Knight: (Taking Sun’s book and thumbing through it) You can open this book--and I’m going to open it three times for you . . . I have no idea where I’m going to open it to--but I bet I can find something on a page that’s applicable to coaching.

(Reading,) It is the rule in war: If our forces are 10 to the enemy’s one, to surround him. If we’re a lot better than the other team, just pound the hell out of him. (Reading again,) If five to one, to attack him; if twice as numerous, to divide our army into two, one to meet the enemy in front, and one to fall upon his rear; if he replies to the frontal attack, he may be crushed from behind; if to the rearward attack, he may be crushed in front.

If equally matched, we can offer battle; if slightly inferior in numbers, we can avoid the enemy; if quite unequal in every way, we can flee from him.

All right, if you take everything but the last--where we’re going to flee from him--then you can do something in terms of ability with each one of those things.

All right, on the same page: The skillful leader subdues the enemy’s troops without any fighting; he captures their cities without laying siege to them; he overthrows their kingdom without lengthy operations in the field.

You can interpret that in a number of ways. You can interpret that as simplicity. The skillful leader subdues the enemy’s troops without any fighting. . . . You don’t go at them the same way they’re going to go at you; you go at it differently.

(Reading,) When the position is such that neither side will gain by making the first move, it is called temporizing ground, and the situation remains at a deadlock. In a position of this sort, even though the enemy should offer an attractive bait, it will be advisable not to stir forth, but rather to retreat, thus enticing the enemy in his turn; then, when part of his army has come out, you may deliver your attack with advantage.

You’re sparring with his team. Don’t commit yourself. Make them commit themselves a little bit and then you know where they’re coming from, so now you know where you’re going to.

With regard to narrow passes . . . OK, I know enough about the military that a narrow pass is a great advantage. So I would translate a narrow pass to the post area. With regard to narrow passes, if you can occupy them first, let them be strongly garrisoned and await the advent of the enemy. You know, if you get the post position first, you’ve got it.

A soldier’s spirit is keenest in the morning; by noonday it has begun to flag; and in the evening, his mind is bent only on returning to camp. A clever general, therefore, avoids an army when its spirit is keen, but attacks it when it is sluggish and inclined to return. Well, you do that with your own people. You say that your own kids are going to be at their best in the morning. What if they go to classes in the morning? You’ve got to work to make sure that you avoid what I’ve always referred to as ‘human nature’ in the evening.”

Q: The one theme through the book seems to be preparation. For example, one passage reads, “If you know the enemy and know yourself, then you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

A: I said before I ever read that book that the will to prepare to win is infinitely more important than the will to win. A team that is really willing to prepare is the team that has the best chance to win and wants to win. Everybody wants to win and everybody has the will to win, but it’s the will to prepare to win.

Q: If you couldn’t coach, if you had never been allowed to coach, do you think you would have been a historian? A military man? A fishing guide?

A: I don’t know. I’ve always taught or coached, so I really don’t know what I would have done. I would have done something that I liked and would have been interesting. But I’m not sure exactly what that might have been.”

Q: Is there a part of the way you played the game that translated into the way you coach it?

A: Not really. I saw the game really well as a player. I could see where guys were open. I knew how to play. I could see how the game was developing and knew where guys were and had a feel for who could play and who could do what and who couldn’t. I’ve always had that.

In basketball I might have been, maybe at best, an average athlete in basketball during the time I played. Baseball, I was probably a much better than average athlete. But any game I’ve ever played, I’ve understood how to play.

Perhaps from my own playing experience, that’s the one thing I’ve tried to get across to players is how to play: what to look for, how to see the game, how to react to what you see.

The absolute guts of coaching is this: What am I hired to do? I’m hired to teach. What do I teach? I teach basketball. All right, I’m a teacher of basketball, like somebody else is a teacher of history, or somebody else is a teacher of biology. So I teach basketball. And I try to teach kids to play basketball in the best way I think possible to play the game.

OK, what’s the purpose of the university? The purpose of the university is to prepare kids for the future. So, in teaching them to play basketball, my ultimate objective is to prepare them for the future, not just to teach them to play basketball. I want to prepare them to do whatever they’re going to do. That’s the whole essence of what we’re trying to do.

Q: Did you keep an eye on the NCAA convention?

A: The convention always scares me, because too many people, who really don’t know what’s best for the kids, are making decisions that oftentimes bring about rules that are the antithesis of what rules should be if, in fact, we have the best interest of kids in mind.

Q: Is it a matter of good intentions gone bad?

A: I don’t think they’ve gone bad and I’m not sure they’re good intentions. Good intentions are usually pretty good ideas. Like, we have a situation here in this league where over the next how-many-ever weeks we play the conference season--10 or 11 weeks--we have at least two weekends where we don’t play.

All right, if you want to take the best interest of kids at heart, then you’re required to play every Saturday or Sunday. Because by doing that, you’ve just eliminated the need for weekday games. So now, we should not be able, once basketball season has started, to go through a Saturday or Sunday without a game. We shouldn’t have to play both days, but it could be an either-or.

Then, across the board, we should have no game start after 7 p.m., local time. TV can adjust to that. They can have an eastern game, a western game, whatever. Every night of the week you could have college basketball. Then, everybody, including the visiting team, has a chance to get home that night, especially if they have a chartered plane or it’s a close bus trip. Also, the local student body has a chance to get a good night’s rest or get some studying done. The kids themselves can do the same thing.

I’d eliminate all the Saturday night games. I mean, what’s the absolute best night for kids on campus?

Q: Friday and Saturday night.

A: Exactly. So, Friday night is taken away from the athletes because of Saturday’s game. Let the kids enjoy Saturday night: parents, girlfriend, movie, whatever. Let them take part in Saturday night’s campus activities by playing games on Saturday afternoon.

Q: We notice you don’t have any 9:30 p.m. games this year.

A: Well, we got rid of that. But I was the only guy that for years (complained about the late starts). Now everybody thinks it’s great that you don’t have that.

But you see, athletics and sports in general, have sold their (rear) to television. Now television dictates everything.

Q: This may sound silly in a way, but would you ever consider being executive director of the NCAA?

A: No. The problem with that is . . . I would only be the director of something that I totally controlled. I control basketball here, that’s it. I don’t want to be the director of something where I have to implement things that I wouldn’t agree with.

See, I don’t disagree at all with the presidents being involved. But the presidents need three football coaches and three basketball coaches in advisory capacities. (The presidents would) call in and say, “OK, these are the things that we’re proposing and what is your reaction and what do you think the reaction of your players would be?”

See, (the presidents) think they’ve made a gigantic step by limiting the practice time to 20 hours a week. I’m not sure that in 27 years of coaching that we ever practiced more than 20 hours in a week.

Taking a day off (another requirement under the new rules) . . . well, what is a kid going to do in taking a day off? Are we so naive as to believe that a kid is going to study the entire day? I’m not saying it’s good or bad, but the intent of it is ridiculous. That’s not what kids are going to use the day off for.

Usually, in a given week, we’ve given our kids a day off. On occasion, you can’t take a day off because of the way you’ve got to play.

What the presidents don’t understand is--and they really didn’t understand it in taking three games away from the kids--the kids want to play.

Q: What about the danger of missing classes?

A: Here’s another thing that you do: You require play at Thanksgiving vacation so you start the season without missing class. Then, everybody should have to submit its schedule to the NCAA for approval. Approval would be on the weekend games, the times of the games and the fact that you must play X number of games during break or holiday periods.

We’ve played a (13-game) schedule so far and the only reason we missed any class was because of that Hall of Fame game with UCLA. We should be able to play 29 games this year and miss only five days of class and we may not miss that many.

You could develop legislation that would enable everybody to do that.

Q: Wasn’t there NCAA legislation that would have reduced the number of games from 28 to 27?

A: Well, they’ve rescinded the three and are back to 27 games, which is still all the more ridiculous. At this level, that probably costs us $300,000 and we’re trying to fund, whatever it is . . . 25 sports. And we’ve only got two revenue-producing sports to fund the whole athletic program. Well, who suffers? Well, it isn’t going to be basketball . . . it’s going to be a women’s team or a non-revenue sport, and that’s where this thing is all out of kilter.

Kids want to play more games, not fewer games.

Q: What about exhibitions? (The NCAA now allows two home exhibitions to be played on campus against foreign or club teams.)

A: We used to do a thing and we can’t do it any more. We used to go to Ft. Wayne, for example, and we’d play . . . an intrasquad game. We’d do this two or three times a year around the state. It was a sellout . . . 10,000 people. We’d give 50% of the net to local Ft. Wayne charities, like the (YMCA) or the Boys and Girls Club, or kids’ groups, like Little League, or whatever. Then, the other 50% we’d give to the Indiana library.

We would probably net somewhere in the vicinity of $50,000. So here we’re spreading $25,000 around the community to help kids and also helping our entire student body to the tune of $25,000. Well, by the time we’d play two or three games, Ft. Wayne being the largest crowd we’d have, we’ll take in somewhere around $45,000, $50,000 to give to our library. For all of these people who bitch and complain about an athletic department, what other department in a university can do that?

The (Presidents’ Commission) took that away from us by eliminating preseason practice games away from campus.

Q: There also has been talk about reducing coaching staffs.

A: From a coach’s standpoint they talk about reductions, limitations and the size of coaching staff. When Truman was president, I think his entire staff was 12 people. That’s 1950. All right, 40 years later, what would you imagine the White House staff is? Seven hundred . . . 800? Probably. The last figure I got was over 600, I think, and that was some time ago.

I was at a meeting and there were several (university) presidents there and I brought this issue up. I said, “Now we’re talking about the size of a coaching staff. When I was in college in 1960 as a sophomore, we had a freshman coach, an assistant coach, a varsity coach and a couple of grad assistants. We had about five guys that were involved in basketball in either a full- or part-time basis. Now here we are, 32 years later, and I still have five guys involved in basketball: me, two assistants, a part-time coach and a volunteer coach. Only the nomenclature hasn’t changed.”

So we haven’t changed the size of the coaching staff. Then I went into the responsibilities of the coach--the fund raising, the grades, all the things that have increased enormously that fall on a coach’s shoulders. Then I said, “Which one of you presidents still has the same size staff as your predecessor had in 1960?”

See, those staffs have probably quadrupled, at least. I would bet that if a university president had five people on his staff in 1960, he has 30 today.

Q: Any response from the presidents?

A: No, they didn’t say a word.

The athletic director . . . For every person the athletic director had on his staff in 1960, he probably has four today. As coaches, we’re not talking about (getting) more people, we’re just talking about giving us what the hell we have and leave it go at that, leave us alone. They’ve quadrupled their staffs, just leave us with what the hell we’ve got.

Q: One last thing: Al McGuire (the former Marquette coach who won an NCAA championship), recently said that the most important thing to him--more important than any championship rings or watches, which, he says, he’s given away--is being called “Coach,” of making a difference in someone’s life. Do you feel the same way?

A: I would far rather be thought of as a teacher than a coach. I’ve always felt that the absolute best thing that anybody could ever do for me is to tell me, “I ran into one of your players the other day and he told me that you were the best teacher he ever had.”

Now I can’t think of anything that’s more rewarding to me than that.