Bobby Knight Quotes

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Bobby Knight

Profession : Coach

Birth : October 25, 1940

When I first started coaching, one of the worst things that I think I heard was 'It will be O.K.' I would wonder, 'How the hell is it going to be O.K.?' The worst word in the English language is 'hope.'

Bobby Knight

I think a great idea would be involving our various military services along the border all the way from San Diego to Houston. We've got military bases all over the country. We can just move some people down there and let those cartels who are doing a lot of hurt to the youth of America, let those cartels fight against the Marine Corps.

Bobby Knight

If I came in to recruit your son, I would tell you, your wife, and your son, that I will be the most demanding coach your son can play for.

Bobby Knight

I enjoyed needling the press. If I didn't enjoy it, I wouldn't have done it. Writers have rarely played, so as a coach, you have antagonistic feelings about some guy writing up the story of the game who's never even attempted to play it.

Bobby Knight

Major League Baseball has the best idea of all. Three years before they'll take a kid out of college, then they have a minor league system that they put the kids in. I'm sure that if the NBA followed the same thing, there would be a lot of kids in a minor league system that still were not good enough to play in the major NBA.

Bobby Knight

As I've said, basketball has been, I think, a real cooperative venture. There have been a lot of people that have been involved in it: coaches, administrators - not recently - fans and nobody, nobody any more so than students over the years.

Bobby Knight

Everybody has an opportunity in America. I don't care if guys whine and complain about this or that. You know, no country affords its inhabitants the opportunities that the U.S.A. gives to its people.

Bobby Knight

I'm not sure what a conservative is. I don't know whether a conservative is a guy that goes to bed too early or maybe doesn't sleep long enough or just what the hell he might be. I don't know. Maybe he's a guy that - you know, he just wants to be real quiet.

Bobby Knight

I don't understand the NBA in that, each time they bring in a one-and-done kid, they have to release a veteran player on a roster. I don't understand why their players association condones that.

Bobby Knight

I don't know what a conservative is, you know, but I do know what good people are. And that's where I sit with Donald Trump.

Bobby Knight

If we want the best pitcher, let's get Bobby Feller. If want the best football player, let's get Jimmy Brown; the best basketball player, let's get Bill Russell. If we want the guy who can do the best job for the United States - let's get Donald Trump.

Bobby Knight

There are two real keys to winning. You've got to have good players: no coach won with bad players. You win with good players. That is number one. Number two is, when we are playing, let's say we are playing Michigan, and they had a really good press: we've got to solve that press.

Bobby Knight

A big part of teaching is being emphatic. Maybe I'm right or wrong, but part of my approach was that when I said something, the kids understood exactly what I meant and what I wanted.

Bobby Knight

I don't think that political history is full of a whole lot of tremendously honest people. I have never found any fault about that as far as Mr. Trump is concerned in my relationship with him.

Bobby Knight

I think that we as a people are always prone to think about, well, tomorrow will be a better day. Well, why will it be a better day? And I think the more that we believe in doing things better, doing the right thing rather than hoping that that's going to happen, let's make it happen.

Bobby Knight

I watched the guy that hits a home run, and he comes across the plate and he points skyward, like thanking for the help from the Almighty to hit the home run. And as he does that, I say to myself, 'God screwed the pitcher.' And I don't know how else you look at it.

Bobby Knight

I think that it's perhaps harder to learn from victory than it is from defeat. I think that we don't want defeat. We don't want defeat in sport. We don't want defeat in life. How are we going to be beaten? All right. We have to deal with those things. What's going to cause us to lose the game, whatever the game might be?

Bobby Knight

If I were involved with the NBA, I wouldn't want a 19-year-old or a 20-year-old kid to bring into all the travel and all the problems that exist in the NBA. I would want a much more mature kid. I would want a kid that maybe I've been watching on another team, and now he's 21, 22 years old instead of 18 or 19, and I might trade for that kid.

Bobby Knight

I was a history and government major at Ohio State University, and I've spent a lot of time just fiddling around with who the next president's going to be, over the years, or who would I like to see in that job, or whatever. And I've come to believe, without any reservation, in this era, the best-prepared person for this job by far is Donald Trump.

Bobby Knight