Bob Knight, here to do color commentary on tonight's Purdue-Gophers basketball game on ESPN2, might have become the Gophers' basketball coach had Tubby Smith not been available.
Not much was known at the time about the pressure being put on University of Minnesota President Robert Bruininks by some prominent alumni and top contributors to the basketball program that the university hire Knight to be the Gophers coach.
Big Ten Commissioner Jim Delany has never been a big Knight fan and he certainly wouldn't have encouraged the hiring of Knight, but if Bruininks could have been convinced, athletic director Joel Maturi would have gone along. However, when Smith became available, the pressure to hire Knight disappeared.
Knight still has a desire to coach after turning the Texas Tech job over to his son, Pat. If the right job was offered at a school where he has a chance to win, he'd be interested.
"Well, I like to coach," Knight said. "I like the part about getting ready to play, seeing if what we'd done is the right thing. I think I'd like to coach, but it would have to be something that was good. I mean, it'd have to be something that I like.
"I'll probably always miss coaching because I like the mechanics of basketball. I always liked to prepare -- if our defense could stop your offense, and if our offense could score against your defense -- that was really always enjoyable to me."
Believe me, he is a coaches' coach. Knowing him as well as I do, I know how other coaches worship this man and what a great coach and person he really is.
Like anybody else, he has made some mistakes. But we go back forever, and I could write a book about his good deeds.