Bob Knight on John Wooden
- Thread starter DiehardPanther
- Start date
UCLA under Wooden may have been the cheatingest program in the country. And if not THE cheatingest, certainly near the top of the list.
I didn't read it and don't have to. You don't do what he did and do it legally. He wasn't a god.
He did what everybody did. Just did it better. Knight is your typical “get off my lawn” bitter old a$$hole.
Yeah, he's old and bitter. But he did win 3 NC's without cheating while many other name programs were.
Who says he didn't cheat? John Wooden had 2 dominant players at UCLA. Alcindor and Walton. He won 5 championships with those two. His talent level minus those 2 was on a par with many other schools while winning 5 other titles in his time. I'm not naive to say they didn't have a sugar daddy. They did. But those who say he couldn't coach are insane.
I know them very well. Each team had some great players. A lot of teams did. Wooden was a great coach. Knight has no business demeaning him.
He didn't say he wasn't a good coach. He literally said he respected him as a coach. You obviously didn't read it.
Wooden wouldn't have been close to as successful without the rampant cheating.
Without talent no coach is ever going to win championships . There’s no better example in sports than John Belichick .
John Wooden was well aware of what was going on he just didn’t get involved with the execution .
The rewards are too great in college athletics not to expect some cheating .
What’s 100k when the HC is being paid 6 million to coach college ( amateur ) ball ?
Without great coaching talent alone won’t win championships . Perfect example Paul Evans .
There are some principled HC out there , like him or not Billy Knight was one of them .
Why did Dr Roy Chipman retire with the most talented roster ever assembled at Pitt ? Hint Golden P......!
Who was one of his assistants ? Hint John C.....!
Memo to Pitt ...without talent you will never compete in the ACC , all you need is two kids who are special to get the ball rolling. Call in some markers before your fan base completely dissolves .
Wooden was willing to turn a blind eye to it, probably rationalizing that practically everyone else was doing it.
I doubt that Knight ever cheated, but he had a few faults of his own, though. It doesn't matter to me one way or another if he wants to share his opinion of Wooden.
I doubt that Knight ever cheated, but he had a few faults of his own, though. It doesn't matter to me one way or another if he wants to share his opinion of Wooden.
Nice gesture by him to be sure, but it’s not a question whether or not he cheated, it’s been a known fact for many years.
Ah, what skeletons are there in Mr. Knight's closet? Is that closet located in a glass house?
I know there's no chair in that closet. He done whipped it across the court in one of his "character building" tirades.
Jerry Norman is one of the most underrated coaches in NCAA history. He landed a lot of the best recruits while Wooden had no interest in recruiting. He also was responsible for implementing the zone press and the 1-4 offense.
Seth Davis' book does a good job talking about all this pretty fairly. Norman was paid so poorly that he quit UCLA and made more money in sales or something.
Yes, of course UCLA players had a godfather figure giving many of them what they wanted financially. But they did perform well academically and few had any legal troubles. They were mostly "good kids", and a lot of them very interesting and thoughtful guys like Willie Nauls (first African American big four sports captain which also helped recruiting like Jackie Robinson did), Goodrich, Abdul-Jabbar, and Walton. The type of cheating they did was quaint compared to the crimes going on today.
Seth Davis' book does a good job talking about all this pretty fairly. Norman was paid so poorly that he quit UCLA and made more money in sales or something.
Yes, of course UCLA players had a godfather figure giving many of them what they wanted financially. But they did perform well academically and few had any legal troubles. They were mostly "good kids", and a lot of them very interesting and thoughtful guys like Willie Nauls (first African American big four sports captain which also helped recruiting like Jackie Robinson did), Goodrich, Abdul-Jabbar, and Walton. The type of cheating they did was quaint compared to the crimes going on today.
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Yes little known , but the brains of the operation !Is that Bill's less successful brother?
It also takes a big man to wait years after death to criticize someone.
Actually the types of cheating that they were doing back then are exactly the same as the types that are going on today. The difference is, as with everything else, the cost of doing business in 2017 is a little different than the cost of doing business in the 1960s.
bobby Knight, lecturing on John wooden is like Saddam Hussain lecturing Abraham Lincoln. you have got to be kidding me ! Bobby, go choke another one of your players and throw another chair across the gym !
BK's comments assume that UCLA had far more resources to cheat, which they didn't. the place was a dump when he got there and built it up. he said he never recruited outside of LA unless the kid initiated it, including alcindor. few schools have that wealth of talent with really no in town competition. that helped him.
fun trivia: he was going to be minnesota's head coach if they offered. he had to give UCLA his decision on a certain date. he waited until the last minute for minny to offer. they did call but there was a storm and didn't get through. accepted with UCLA the next day. minny tried to get him to decommit but he didn't want to go back on his word.
wonder if minny fans ever get over that one.
fun trivia: he was going to be minnesota's head coach if they offered. he had to give UCLA his decision on a certain date. he waited until the last minute for minny to offer. they did call but there was a storm and didn't get through. accepted with UCLA the next day. minny tried to get him to decommit but he didn't want to go back on his word.
wonder if minny fans ever get over that one.
that story reminds me of how george mikan lost out on getting Kareem in the ABA. he was commissioner and was authorized to give him a million dollars cash plus a contract to an ABA team of his choice. Kareem first went to the NBA (Bucks won the coin flip that rolled across the floor.) He then got his NBA offer and went to Mikan. Mikan offered the ABA contract but held off on handing him the million dollars up front because he wanted to have an ace in the hole.
Kareem them accepted the NBA offer because he thought a bidding war was unbecoming for him as a man and Mikan was left having to explain to the ABA owners that he never offered the million dollars they gave him to the maybe the best basketball player of all time.
Kareem them accepted the NBA offer because he thought a bidding war was unbecoming for him as a man and Mikan was left having to explain to the ABA owners that he never offered the million dollars they gave him to the maybe the best basketball player of all time.
If that story is true, that's one more evidence of Wooden's influence on his players.
Nothing about UCLA’s facilities had anything to do with anything. They were as corrupt as Louisville is now. Sam Gilbert paid literally all their players, everyone knows this it is not disputed.
Wooden (outside the child molestation) literally was Paterno. Both ran crooked programs and both knew all about it.
well you may be right. i don't know anything about it. so please enlighten me. i'm not being facetious here. i don't know.
BUT, he wasn't the only guy cheating. same as pitino and the others now. wooden, like joepa, did build up a program from barely scraping the barrel to strong. those guys do that w/out help. they built it to the point that someone wants to fund them. no one is funding programs who don't win and have zero future. wooden was a great coach. hate paterno but he was a great coach. did both get help? i know joe did, as much as he argued against. like i said, i just don't know the UCLA story. please share.
I would prefer a program that paid players to the ones out there letting them take fake classes and cover up their off the court crimes. UCLA players had high expectations from Wooden on academics and discipline.
Wooden was no saint and we know that now. He looked the other way and was very protective of his image to the point of lying about his own easily verifiable win/loss record. But I'd take his life lessons over a violent, sexist, abusive clown like Bobby Knight any day.
Wooden was no saint and we know that now. He looked the other way and was very protective of his image to the point of lying about his own easily verifiable win/loss record. But I'd take his life lessons over a violent, sexist, abusive clown like Bobby Knight any day.
I think the underlying point is that Wooden gets 0 hate and all the love in the basketball community. He is treated as a god who did no wrong and that is my problem.
His demeanor and general nice disposition lends people to look at him in this light, but he was a shady dude. Not to mention about 25 teams or so made the tournament then and his "recruiting" landed him Walton/Alcindor in an era where they played 3 FULL seasons EACH.
Pitino will go down as a scumbag for this final fiasco because of the modern media coverage and how he is as a person, but he is a far superior coach to John Wooden, and did a lot for two programs.
No, they certainly were not the only program cheating. They were just doing it more and better than everyone else. Which program today is the cheatingest program in the country (don't worry, it's a rhetorical question, there are too many to chose from now)? That was UCLA. And yet somehow they managed to maintain an image of a clean program run by a saint of the game.
That’s correct. And Wooden was a dirty ass cheater, that’s a well known fact. F him.
Knight is an asshole, but he was straight and honest to and I respect him. No respect for Wooden or any other cheaters.
