Knight ecstatic with opportunity at Texas Tech

By B.G. Brooks, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Originally published 05:25 p.m., February 11, 2008
Updated 05:25 p.m., February 11, 2008

Pat Knight has no idea how this is going to turn out.

At the moment, here’s what he does know:

-- He’s 0-2 as the men’s basketball coach at Texas Tech;

-- With eight regular-season games and the conference tournament remaining, his team admittedly is “not very good” (12-10 overall, 3-5 Big 12 Conference);

-- He’s following a curmudgeonly legend that shares his surname.

Yet all things considered, he’s ecstatic to be living and working in Lubbock, Texas, which might have been the last place he figured to launch a college career.

“I never wanted to come down here and take over for dad,” Knight said Monday on the Big 12 Conference coaches’ weekly teleconference. “But I liked Lubbock, the people, the university (and) I got the offer a couple of years ago to take over for dad.

“I started thinking, ‘Why worry about what people think, following in his shoes’ . . . I thought, what the hell, I like it here so much, why leave it?”

He didn’t, and when Bob Knight, 67, surprised the hoops world last week by stepping down, Pat Knight, 37, already was there to step up – just like Bob and Texas Tech’s administration planned.

“How many guys at 37 would love to be a Big 12 head coach?” Pat Knight asked. “I put all that in perspective (and) I just can’t turn it down. No matter what happens, I gave it a shot. I don’t think I’d have been able to live with myself had I taken a different route, a safer route, going to a smaller school or working it that way.”

Still, it will be difficult escaping the shadow his father casts in college basketball, which includes a record 902 wins over a 42-year career. And Oklahoma State coach Sean Sutton, thrust into a similar situation in 2006 when his head coach/father (Eddie) left unexpectedly, doesn’t believe Bob Knight’s timing did his son a great favor.

“Coach Knight felt it was best for Pat . . . but from where I sit, I’m not so sure,” Sean Sutton said. “He’s going to get experience . . . but he’s got a relatively young team going against a difficult schedule.”

As could be expected given their lineage, Pat Knight and Sean Sutton are close friends. Sutton has advised Knight, “You’ve got to be yourself and you can’t worry about comparisons between you and your dad. There’s only one Bob Knight, and you’ve got to understand that. His dad coached for 42 years; he’s not going to walk in on his first night and be just as good a head coach.”

Knight called Sutton “my Yoda. I’m like Luke Skywalker, he’s my Jedi master. He and I have been close; I go to him to get all my information.”

Ah, not all of it – and not even first. Pat Knight’s first calls for counsel will be to his father and former Akron coach Dan Hipshire, for whom Pat Knight once worked.

“My dad had Pete Newell . . . all those great guys as sounding boards,” Pat Knight said. “You’ve got to use them; you can’t go into this just yourself and your staff. You’ve got to be able to have people to call. Dad’s always going to be around; even if he’s out of town, I’m going to be able to contact him.”

Pat Knight doubts his father will return to coaching, noting when Bob announced his resignation, “He was tired, really tired of the whole side of basketball and everything it entails – just worn out. He looks better now than he’s looked in a long time . . . I told him he was going to look better than me in about a week.”

Still, added the younger Knight, “That’s a great mind sitting out there. Who knows in a couple of years . . . ”

Knight and Sutton are among five sons currently coaching who followed their fathers at their former schools. The others (father in parenthesis): Tony Bennett (Dick), Washington State; Keno Davis (Tom), Drake; and John Thompson III (John), Georgetown.

Lubbock Mayor David Miller proclaimed Wednesday “Pat Knight Day,” with No. 18 Kansas State in town that night to play the Red Raiders. Texas Tech visits the University of Colorado on Feb. 20.