Local author releases unauthorized biography on Bob Knight

THE GENERAL-Hall of Fame basketball coach Bob Knight captured three national championships while at Indiana University and has won 869 games in his coaching career, ranking third all-time behind Dean Smith (879) and Adolph Rupp (876). In Bob Knight: The Unauthorized Biography, co-authors Steve Delsohn and Mark Heisler supply an in-depth look at one of the most controversial figures in the history of American sports. Photo courtesy of Simon & Schuster Tyrant. Genius. Bully. Winner.

Former Indiana University and current Texas Tech head basketball coach Bob Knight has been called a lot of things, some favorable, and some less kind.

Steve Delsohn, a Thousand Oaks resident and co-author of Bob Knight: The Unauthorized Biography, describes the coach as a "complicated character."

Delsohn should know.

The 48-year-old journalist spent the past two years interviewing people who've been in and around Knight's inner circle for decades. For a self-professed basketball fanatic from Chicago who grew up watching Big Ten hoops, researching the story of men's college basketball's third-winningest coach was both a painstaking and rewarding process.

"I've always found Knight to be extremely fascinating," Delsohn said. "Everything's extreme with him. There's no middle ground with his behavior. There's no middle ground with how people react to him."

Delsohn said one of the primary reasons for writing his latest book, which is co-authored by Los Angeles Times NBA columnist Mark Heisler, was because no one had written a comprehensive biography on the polarizing coach.

"There's been one good book on Knight, I think, ever," Delsohn said. "That was A Season on the Brink (written by John Feinstein), but it was 20 years ago, and it was one season.

"This is the first truly comprehensive biography of Knight," he said.

In the early stages of the bookmaking process, Delsohn requested an interview with Knight but was denied.

"Like all great coaches he's a control freak, and he'd have no control over this book," Delsohn said. "Even if he did an interview with us, we wouldn't show him the book beforehand. He would have no control over it."

In 2002, two years after being fired from Indiana, the coach released his biography, Knight: My Story. According to Delsohn, Knight said since he'd recently published his biography, there'd be no need for another book.

"I didn't say this, but I was thinking, 'But this is going to be nonfiction,'" Delsohn said. "Because he glossed over a lot of things (in his book)."

"The answer was no, which is what we'd expected," Delsohn said. "But we owed it to him to give him an opportunity to talk."

Without the coach's blessing, Delsohn continued his quest to discover the true Bob Knight. Delsohn estimates that only one in 10 people he interviewed were willing to go on the record when discussing Knight.

"The guy still generates fear, that's one of the ways he succeeds as a coach-fear," Delsohn said. "He can be a very vindictive guy, and a lot of the people we interviewed or asked to interview are still coaching, maybe, or they're ex-players that want to get into coaching.

"Knight's an extremely powerful figure. If they said something to us that angered him, he could conceivably hurt their careers. Some people didn't talk to us out of loyalty to Knight," he said.

Heisler was able to use his contacts in the NBA as source material for the book. He interviewed Larry Bird and Isiah Thomas, and they were willing to discuss Knight. One of Knight's disciples, Quinn Buckner, was less responsive to Heisler's questions.

"(Buckner) almost backpedaled out of the arena when I brought it up," Heisler said with a laugh.

Based on the on-court talent Knight's had during his career, Heisler said Knight is the greatest college basketball coach of all-time.

"There is nobody like this guy," Heisler said. "There were guys who were better at some things in coaching. There were certainly people who won more and who had better players. In my mind, pound-for-pound, if you take a look at the talent he had, he is the greatest coach that ever lived."

Delsohn and Heisler also talked to Knight's friends, numerous ex-players and coaches who worked for and coached against him, university officials and others in the know.

"We were completely fine with a lot of different perspectives on Knight," Delsohn said. "We didn't want to bury the guy, and we didn't want to write a valentine to him."

"The important thing was the people we talked to were all intimately involved with Knight," he said. "These are not people that met him once. These are people that played for him, people that coached with him. These are people that grew up with him."

All told, 135 people were interviewed for the book, Delsohn said, and only one quote went unattributed.

Delsohn, who currently works as a features reporter for ESPN's Outside The Lines and has written more than 10 books during his career, said he launched the Bob Knight book project and sold the rights to Simon & Schuster by himself. But with his work at ESPN taking up much of his time, Delsohn asked Heisler to join him in co-authoring the book.

Heisler said Delsohn had previously served as his book agent, and the two had a history of working together.

"I did almost all the reporting and wrote a rough draft on about half the book and gave that to (Heisler)," Delsohn said. "Then he rewrote that. He wrote the last six chapters and then we both tore it apart and rewrote the whole thing together."

"There was a lot of give and take," Delsohn said. "Ultimately, it was a reflection of both our sensibilities. The book is well written and it's extremely concrete."

On Saturday, Delsohn and Heisler will be at Barnes & Noble in Westlake at 4 p.m. for a book signing and discussion. The event is free to attend.