Taking the job from dad is nothing new
It reeks of nepotism, but sometimes the lingering scent is of success.
Bob Knight set up his son Pat to succeed him as coach at Texas Tech several years ago. So when he resigned Monday with 10 games left in the season, Pat was named coach.
Before you roll your eyes, think of Washington State Coach Tony Bennett, who was the Associated Press coach of the year last season after succeeding his father, Dick, in a similar arrangement. This season, the Cougars have been a fixture in top 25 polls.
Then there’s Keno Davis, who has a 21-1 Drake team ranked No. 15 after taking over this season from his father, Tom, the former Iowa coach.
And the coach on the other bench when Pat Knight coaches his first game tonight against Baylor will be Scott Drew, who got his start by replacing his father at Valparaiso and has helped a Baylor program recover from past scandal by reaching the top 25 this season.
Hiring the sons of coaches often skirts university personnel policies. It also sometimes works.
“Pat, like Tom Davis’ son and Bennett at Washington State, has a tremendous head start on everyone else,” said Eddie Sutton, the former Oklahoma State coach who came out of retirement to finish the season at San Francisco.
One of Sutton’s sons, Sean, replaced him at Oklahoma State in an arranged succession and is 10-11 in his second season as coach. Another son, Scott, is the coach of 15-5 Oral Roberts.
“They’ve been around the game all their lives,” Sutton said. “Pat’s a very nice young man. He’s a great recruiter. I think he’ll be very successful.”
Part of the curiosity about Pat Knight is whether he will be like his father.
He probably won’t win 900 games, not starting at 37. He probably won’t retire with a litany of controversies, either.
His role as his father’s assistant has often been as the calming influence who urged Knight back to the bench, or as a stand-in for news conferences and interviews who provided lighter insight into the team and his father.
“Pat is a very outgoing person, has a great personality and is easy to relate to. People are very comfortable around him,” said Sean Sutton, who considers him a close friend.
“He stays pretty relaxed, pretty calm, although that could change as a head coach. I’d say his bench demeanor is going to be a lot different than his dad’s.
“I think he’ll still run motion offense. They’ll compete and play hard. I’m sure they’ll play good defense, but maybe he’ll play zone from time to time.
“Coach Knight just wasn’t going to do that.”
Pat Knight has spent much of his career at his father’s side, playing and coaching for him at Indiana, and is in his seventh season as an assistant at Texas Tech. He has been a head coach only twice, going 19-15 as coach of the Wisconsin Blast in the International Basketball League and spending part of a season as coach of the Columbus Cagerz of the U.S. Basketball League.
His only stint in charge of Texas Tech came this season when his father left a December game at Centenary at halftime, complaining of illness. Pat Knight took over, and a 35-32 lead turned into a 70-66 loss.
Texas Tech Athletic Director Gerald Myers, himself a former coach, said he believes the younger Knight is well prepared.
“He’s smart. He knows basketball. I think he’s ready to be a head coach,” Myers said. “We put this process in place about three years ago that Pat would succeed Bob as head coach, and I think from that point on he has taken on a lot more responsibility. I think Bob turned over a lot of the recruiting, the preparation, the daily preparation for practice, even the scheduling to Pat.”
The difficult part, the younger coaches predicted, will be dealing with his father’s legacy.
“For some people, you’re just never going to live up to what your dad was,” Sean Sutton said. “You have to realize that going in. No matter how well you do, some people will never see you the way they saw your dad. That’s part of life. You can’t worry about that.
“He can’t get caught up in trying to be his dad. He needs to be Pat Knight.”
Bennett echoed that.
“He’s got to be who he is as a coach and not be any different and rally these kids,” Bennett said. “He’s in a tough league and you can’t get caught up in too much else but getting your team ready to play. As coaches, you learn, just like when you get married, you don’t have it all figured out. It’s a learning process.”
On Tuesday, Pat Knight was to appear at his first news conference as coach.
He didn’t show. School officials told reporters he was too busy preparing for the game.
Maybe the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree after all.
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