OPINION

By Mike DeCourcy

updated 6:13 p.m. ET Oct. 2, 2008

Mike DeCourcy

BRISTOL, Ind. - Bob Knight was pleased to be doing something on behalf of the military on the night he sat down with Sporting News. Knight was attending the fundraising barbecue for Camouflage Kids, an organization that offers entertainment for the children of deployed servicemen and women at college athletic events, and before he gave a 20-minute talk to those in attendance, he sat down to talk about his present, his future and the state of college basketball:

SN: You've had eight months now since you decided to retire. Is it suiting you?

KNIGHT: If I've gone from one thing to another during my lifetime, I've never really worried about whether it suits me or does not. I've tried to make the best out of it and enjoy what was available to me. And I've done that. When I started at Army, it was the same thing. When I came over here [to Indiana] and then when I went to [Texas] Tech, it was the same. [I asked myself] "What's here? What can I do to help make it better? And what is there that I can enjoy?"

SN: So what you have enjoyed?

KNIGHT: Well, nothing new. I've spent a little more time fishing. I've spent a little more time hunting. I spend more time with my wife, which I thoroughly enjoy.

I think the easiest or the best way I could put it is, I'd always liked to coach. I mean, I enjoyed coaching. I enjoyed the competitiveness of it. If somebody wanted me to coach a game tomorrow, I'd spend between now and tomorrow getting ready to coach that game.

But there are other things that I've enjoyed, too. So it isn't something like, "Well, I miss this place." Or, "I miss doing this or doing that." I've just tried to focus on what's there, what can I do, and let's go.

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SN: One thing that you have done that's new is the television thing.

KNIGHT: Off and on over the years, I've always done some stuff. One year, at least one year, I did the stuff for Jim Host on the NCAA finals -- I did the radio broadcast with Cawood Ledford. Then, I did some halftime stuff with Brent Musburger two or three times.

I've been in and around it, had a little bit of an idea what it was all about. And it was just one of those things. I was coaching until the first part of February, and then I'm not coaching, and here's something that comes up. I said, "I might enjoy that. I might try that." That's always been what I've done when it's something new that I've gone into.

SN: Obviously, with your ability, you'd have had the opportunity to do that on a full-year basis. But you didn't sign on for something like that, or didn't pursue it. Are you not ready to do something like that?

KNIGHT: I will probably do something this coming winter. What it is, I don't know. If I don't, then I'll just look up some places to go fishing. That's been the great thing about what I've liked to do: You can do it somewhere in the world all year long.

SN: Obviously, your son [who is now coaching Texas Tech] couldn't have a better resource than you. Is there a feeling like you have to wait for him to come to you?

KNIGHT: I won't interfere. If he asks me something, whether it's about basketball or scheduling or whatever, I just tell him what I think. And then I don't worry about whether he does what I suggest or not. That's up to him. But if he wants to know something, he knows I'm there.

He called me the other day to ask about scheduling and gave me some opportunities that they had, and what did I think? So I just told him. And I would always say, "You're asking me, so here's what I'd do." So I take the schedule opportunities that he gave me and discount some of them, say this would be a good one or whatever. And if it has to do with attacking a zone or whatever, I'd do the same thing. Whatever he asks me, I'd be happy to try and do.

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SN: Are you happy with where college basketball is generally?

KNIGHT: No, not really. Because there's too much bullcrap in it. By that I mean the summer teams. The high school coach, by virtue of summer basketball, has almost been eliminated as a factor in recruiting. And there's no one that has a better concept of what this kid can do, of what your son can do, than his high school coach.

I learned that the first year I coached out of college. I worked for a great coach in Cuyahoga Falls, which is a suburb of Akron. And his name was Harold Andreas. And Andy is one of the five best coaches I've ever known. We had three kids on that team that were capable of playing in college. And Andy brought them in and sat them down and said, "Here are two or three schools that you should think about, because this is where you can play." If you ask me about your son, and I saw him play or I looked at film of him, I'd tell you where he ought to play, what level should he play.

I don't think that kids get that kind of a thing today because these summer coaches, so many of them, are almost married to different college programs and they're channeling a kid there. Who knows what they're getting for it? I think that is a tremendous blight on college basketball right now -- all the stuff that goes on between a college staff and a summer staff to get a kid there to a particular school.

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