Pat Knight thought he was done coaching college basketball.
The now 53-year-old had spent seven years as a Division I head coach at Texas Tech and Lamar. He previously worked for another eleven as an assistant, mainly under his legendary father, Bob. Before that, Pat had played at Indiana.
He left coaching in 2014 and spent the last decade in the Indiana Pacers’ front office, primarily as a scout on the West Coast. He and his wife Amanda settled in Las Vegas.
The Pacers are one of the best organizations in professional sports. The team is winning. A contract extension was offered. The work was good. The future looked bright.
However, in recent years, Pat had traveled to Indiana repeatedly to care for his father. Bob Knight battled Alzheimer’s disease before passing away last November at the age of 83.
It was there that Pat sorted through letters, fielded phone calls and welcomed guests who came to visit with his father – mostly former players, but even rival coaches, administrators and sometimes fans from Bob’s 42 years as a coaching icon.
Whether it was watching Bob laugh with Isiah Thomas at the kitchen table or reading a card from a kid on the 1963 Cuyahoga Falls (Ohio) varsity team, his father’s influence was evident.
“Guys came to swap stories – the good times and the bad,” Pat said Thursday. “There were stacks and stacks of letters coming in. Everything. It was really beautiful to see the impact he had on people, the real ways he helped people, the real connections he made.
The general was brutally demanding, sometimes controversial and often brilliant – a complicated man who won three national titles and had an outsized influence on America’s culture. Not all of his former players loved him, but those who did loved him as much as anyone ever loved their coach. Once the practice shouting was over, the bond was often unbreakable.
“I started thinking, ‘I don’t really have that,'” Pat said. “I wasn’t in one place long enough. I miss those relationships; having players call you to talk to them and help them in life. You don’t understand that as an NBA scout, general manager or even as a professional coach.
“The only way is to coach in college or high school, when you’re on a team all the time, for three or four years.”
Suddenly, Pat Knight wanted to coach again. Just not at the Division I level, where life has become transactional and the demands are endless. He had done that. There was virtually no stability. Instead, he wanted a small college team, the chance to work with real student-athletes who happened to love the game.
He wanted to be a coach in every sense of the word.
And there was Pat Knight earlier this month, introduced as the new head coach of Marian University, a 2,500-student Catholic school on the northwest side of Indianapolis. Six months after Bob’s death, a Knight is once again coaching college ball in Indiana; this time at the NAIA level.
“It gives me a chance to honor my father and everything he taught his players, both about basketball and about life,” Pat said.
Pat had first discussed the concept of a small college track when Marian athletic director Steve Downing, who had been a member of some of Bob Knight’s early IU Final Four teams, came to visit Bob. When Marian coach Scott Heady left unexpectedly after nine seasons to take the helm at Division II University of Indianapolis, the whole plan came together.
“One of the first things they asked me during the interview was, ‘Why would you want to leave the NBA?’ and, ‘This isn’t Division I, why would you want to come here?’” Pat said.
What Marian isn’t is actually what Knight wanted. Basketball is serious; it has great fan support for that level and offers scholarships. It’s also about education and competition, a perspective you can’t find in big college hoops. It was the perfect balance.
For example, NAIA teams are allowed to practice all summer, but Pat had to organize the schedule around student internships and summer jobs. The roster is ideally filled with players who want to build winning teams, get a good education and, if they stand out, move up to Division II or even Division I.
“I want to help guys get to where they want to be, whatever that is,” Pat said.
He has watched three to five college games a week for a decade, not to mention participating in countless high-level training sessions to improve on his previous experiences. This level is as much about culture as anything else.
“I want gym rats, guys with a high basketball IQ, and you can never have enough shooters,” Pat said, promising to run many of his father’s famous motion offenses, if only because modern teams are inexperienced in defending it.
Of course, he now finds himself in the state perhaps most famous for that.
But most of all, he wants that feeling of running a program: of teaching the game, getting the best out of young people and helping them throughout their lives. NBA life was incredible, but nothing beats a team.
And there’s nothing like being their coach.
