Bobby Knight

Robert Montgomery Knight was born on October 25, 1940, in the small Ohio town of Orrville. His father was a railroad man (who died when Bobby was 29) and his mother taught elementary school across the street from his boyhood home. It was a small railroad town, but not isolated, with little more than 5,000 people. Knight grew up closest to his maternal grandmother, who lived with the family. She paid attention to him and, since his parents did not care about basketball, his grandmother was the one who listened and the one for whom he developed a great fondness.

Bobby Knight

In high school Knight was not a standout on the court or on the field, but nonetheless, he still participated in basketball, football and baseball. It has been said that he never would have become the winning coach he became if he had been a stellar athlete; he would have concentrated on his technique rather than focusing on improving the basketball games of others.

Knight had always wanted to coach. According to Frank DeFord of Sports Illustrated (and DeFord, it might be noted, has been an admirer of Bobby Knight for years), Knight "officially" expressed his desire to coach "in an autobiography he wrote when he was in junior high school." He soon developed a close relationship with his high school basketball coach, Bill Shunkwiler. "When other kids were hanging out [and] chasing girls," DeFord writes, "Bobby would come by Shunkwiler's house, and the two of them would sit and have milk and cookies and talk coach talk."

Knight graduated from high school and decided to attend Ohio State University, where he participated in the team's 1960 National Championship victory. Knight, however, was the 6th man on the team, and started only two games in his three years on the team. "He didn't amount to a hill of beans as a player," De-Ford writes. But in spite of Knight's inability to perform on the court, he still hassled the coach Fred Taylor, for playing time. Taylor in turn labeled Knight "the Brat from Orrville."