s appeared in 24 NCAA tournaments and won three of them. Knights 1975-76 squad remains the only team in mens college basketball history to venture through the regular season and the NCAA tournament, finishing the season with an overall record of 32-0. Knight, the leading coach in Big Ten history as far as wins are concerned, has 763 career victories behind him which leaves him 116 wins short of former North Carolina coach Dean Smiths college record 879 wins as head coach. He has guided two U.S. National Teams to international gold, once in the Pan-Am games in 1979 and once in the Olympics in 1980. Coach Knight has obviously earned the respect of many fans and other coaches, but the fact of the matter is that Knight had several problems on and off the court that were overlooked for so long that some people think that he deserved to keep his job.Knights downfall in my mind was his uncontrollable temper and the fact that he could never admit that he was wrong about anything. Most serious competitors in sports are expected to have an aggressive attitude towards winning, but coach Knights aggression goes beyond wanting to win. Before 1979 there were really no reasons for anyone to be concerned about coach Knights temper. Sure, he had always yelled frantically at the referees and screamed at his players during games, but most coaches have a tendency to do this. But in the year 1979 while coaching the gold winning U.S. team in the Pan Am games Knights uncontrollable aggression was first introduced as a problem to the public. During this event coach Knight was charged with hitting a Puerto Rican police officer and later convicted and sentenced to six months in jail in absentia. Although Knight never actually served the time and Puerto Rico dropped efforts to extradite him eight years later, Knight was now under the public spotlight due to his uncontrollable temper. After only one year later Knight fired a blank from a starter pistol ...
