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I've never felt my job was to win basketball games - rather, that the essence of my job as a coach was to do everything I could to give my players the background necessary to succeed in life.

Bobby Knight

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Bobby Knight
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: October 25
Basketball Coach
Basketball Player
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Massillon
Ohio
Robert Montgomery Knight
Bobby Knight
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More quotes by Bobby Knight

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The red I wear is Indiana's red, not Moscow's red. Indiana was here long before communism.
Bobby Knight
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We just got our ass beat by a much better team. It happens once in a while. Does every team win every game?
Bobby Knight
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As coaches we talk about two things: offense and defense. There is a third phase we neglect, which is more important. It's conversion from offense to defense and defense to offense.
Bobby Knight
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I have always maintained that in basketball the importance of the mental to the physical is about four to one.
Bobby Knight
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People change over the years, and that changes situations, for good and for bad.
Bobby Knight
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Writing was far more of an art in the sports world than it is now.
Bobby Knight
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I think that to stop an offense, you must go to the heart of that offense. If it is a particular move, a screen, the break, an outstanding scorer, whatever it is that they like to do and rely on, you have to work in your plans on taking that completely or as much as possible away from them.
Bobby Knight
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Your biggest opponent isn't the other guy. It's human nature.
Bobby Knight
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Well, I think it's pretty much established that I just didn't have any interest in coaching in the pros.
Bobby Knight
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I'm not sure sports writing is an art.
Bobby Knight
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I would rather be thought of as a teacher than a coach.
Bobby Knight
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We should not have to push you to work hard, you should work hard because you want to be a great player.
Bobby Knight
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I just love the game of basketball so much. The game! I don't need the 18,000 people screaming and all the peripheral things. To me, the most enjoyable part is the practice and preparation.
Bobby Knight
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The biggest difficulty in getting to the top of the ladder is getting through the crowd at the bottom.
Bobby Knight
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I always designed my practice plans the night before and then made tweaks a few hours before practice began
Bobby Knight
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You can't imagine the number of people in professional sports who have come up to me and said, God, you treat those assholes like I'd like to treat them. And my question is, Then why don't you?.
Bobby Knight
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If I were in charge I'd drug test all you sons of b****es, not just the athletes.
Bobby Knight
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I recognize that I have a problem with my temper. For those times it has ever caused me to do anything that gave anyone understandable and justifiable reason to be upset, I am sincerely sorry.
Bobby Knight
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All the years I coached, we sent a card to every professor for each kid I had, and I was able to keep track on a daily basis who cut class or who was dropping a grade average. What I did was bring that kid in at 5:00 in the morning, and he would run the stairs from the bottom to the top until I told him to quit.
Bobby Knight
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Everyone wants to win, but not everyone is willing to prepare to win.
Bobby Knight