When veteran sportscaster Bob Costas reflected on Bob Knight's softer side in emotional interview

Bob Knight is regarded as one of the finest coaches in college basketball history. The iconic late coach won three national titles at Indiana, sandwiched between his stints at Army and Texas Tech.

Knight passed away on Nov. 1, 2023, and a day after his death, veteran sportscaster Bob Costas recalled a memorable incident, which showed him the softer side of the late coach.

"This comes to mind, I interviewed Bob Knight in 2019," Costas said on CNN (1:43). "I interviewed him many times, but the clip of him at Assembly Hall, my critics can kiss my hind quarters, right? That came from that piece. And in that piece, I don't even know if it made the cut. Hank Iba was a legendary coach in the 40s and 50s.

"The game had passed him by, and he was the coach of the '72 Olympic team that was robbed of the gold medal in some kind of crazy series of events against the Soviet Union in '72, and had Iba coached a different strategy, they would have won the game."

Costas added:

"He [Knight] brought Hank Iba to be an assistant in 1984 on the Olympic team in Los Angeles. Mo Iba, Hank's son, told me that it extended his dad's life by five or six years, because it gave him a purpose. Okay, so I bring this up to Bob Knight. He almost wept. I could see the tears in his eyes, and he was choking back the emotion. That mattered to him.

"You know, he lived in his own world. It was kind of a 1950s world. He didn't understand political correctness, and he thought that his coarseness and his hard-driving approach would make better men out of those in his charge. It wouldn't fly today. He was a very complicated person, and you could not, you could not excuse or even rationalize his excesses. But he had many, many admirable traits."

Costas worked as a sportscaster at NBC Sports from 1980 through 2019. He was also the prime-time host of 12 Olympic Games from 1988 until 2016.

Costas has won 29 Emmy awards throughout his career. He is currently signed with Warner Bros. Discovery, where he provides play-by-play commentary and handles studio work for MLB on TBS, while also managing commentary for CNN.

A glimpse into Bob Knight's coaching career

Former Indiana HC Bob Knight - Source: Getty

Bob Knight began his coaching career as an assistant at Cuyahoga Falls High School in 1962. After one year, he joined Army as an assistant coach and was promoted to head coach in 1965.

Knight coached the Black Knights for six years and posted a 102-50 record. He then took up the coaching job at Indiana in 1971, and led the Hoosiers to the championships in 1976, 1981 and 1987.

In 2000, Knight was fired by Indiana after failing to comply with the warnings about his pattern of behavior with the students. He finished with a 662–239 record during his 29 years with the Hoosiers.

Knight took a year off from coaching before accepting the coaching job at Texas Tech in 2001. He led the Red Raiders to a 138–82 record before announcing his retirement on Feb. 4, 2008.

Knight compiled a 902–371 coaching record at the collegiate level.