Lamar's Pat Knight Rips Team Lamar coach Pat Knight rips seniors following loss to Stephen F. Austin.
Lamar's Pat Knight echoes dad in rant
BEAUMONT, Texas -- Lamar coach Pat Knight has torn into his players in a way that might remind some of his father.
On Wednesday night, after his team lost 62-52 to Stephen F. Austin, the younger and usually more subdued Knight pulled no punches in an extended rant that prompted comparisons to Bob Knight, his dad and a legendary coach known for his fiery temper.
"We've got the worst group of seniors right now that I've ever been associated with," Pat Knight said. "Their mentality is awful. Their attitude is awful. It's been their (custom) for the last three years. To come out in a game like this, with no emotion and flat, it's terrible."
Knight is in his first year at Lamar, a Southland Conference team, after being let go by Texas Tech. The Cardinals are 17-11 with three league games remaining. He said several times during Wednesday's postgame news conference that he's at the school to "clean things up" and that next year things will be different when the current seniors are gone.
"These guys are stealing money by being on scholarship with their approach to things," he said.
He said no one has stepped up to help lead the team in a better direction and says there's an "infestation" of players who are difficult to coach.
"When I played, if you acted the way some of these guys did, you got shoved in a locker with a forearm up against your neck and told: 'You don't do that. That's not how we do things at Indiana,' and that's what we need," Knight said while not specifying who did that when he was playing for the Hoosiers under his father.
After he calling his seniors "the worst," he went down the box score and read off several players' statistics and said they have an "attitude problem."
After that he got much more personal.
"We've had problems with these guys off the court, on the court, classroom, drugs ...," Knight said. "If you act this way in the real world, you're going to be homeless, without a job."
Knight's rant began when senior Mike James was at the podium beginning to answer a question. The coach stalked up to the podium while telling James to leave.
"All right, let's go, I'm next," Knight said. "Because you don't have a clue what it takes to win."
Messages left with a Lamar spokesman seeking comment on Knight's rant weren't immediately returned Friday afternoon.
The Cardinals clinched a spot in the Southland Conference tournament for the first time since the 2007-08 season on Feb. 15. But Knight believes they've been slacking off since then, and is upset in the way they've lost their last two games.
"You just can't do all that BS and then expect to be a good team and win games," he said. "And if people have a problem with me being so harsh about it, I don't care. I've come here to clean something up, and that's the bottom line. We've got to get a better personality on this team, a better mindset, and that's where recruiting comes into place."
He feels like they're content to simply make the tournament and said that being their "monumental achievement" is sad.
"If they show up the way they did tonight, there's no way we'll win another game," Knight said.
Lamar faces Sam Houston State on Saturday night.
Knight's father, now an ESPN analyst, was fired at Indiana in 2000 for what school officials there called a "pattern of unacceptable behavior." Always known for his temper there, his biggest blowups came when he threw a chair across the court and was later accused of wrapping his hands around a player's neck.
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Today is
The Son Becomes The Father, With Equally As Flawed Character Traits
I Hate A Bully Of Any Kind, and I Hate People Who Have A Bully Personality Type.
Pat Knight, goes off about the players on the team that he is the "Coach" of, which he took over starting this year, and with a record of 17-11, which isn't a bad season record, Pat Knight goes on about the players attitude, drugs and other individual mal's that contribute to their lack of being quality human beings.
However, Pat Knight doesn't talk about his "Allowing" these players to be on his team from day one of his take over. Pat doesn't mention that it's his decision, as to who stays on the team and who leaves, nor does Pat mention that he selected everyone of these players this year, and it's under his guidance as coach, that this team has a 17-11 record.
As Coach, to have chosen each team member, and, at the end of the year, you go off about the players flaws..., essentially displays the mal characteristics of the "Coach", in that, the players reflect the disposition of its leader, at all levels of athletics. To State that the players have bad attitudes Pat Knight, why don't you click on your picture to the right, and view your own attitude, which is atrocious.
Pat Knight's comments, are no better than the types of comments that his daddy made, a daddy that was run out of Indiana after numerous instances of verbal and physical attacks on the players.
Any grown man who verbally assaults, verbally attacks, or verbally demeans another person..., is a Bully. Any Coach that uses degrading and attacking insults of his player, is a Bully Coach, and I can see no reason or excuse, to ever verbally attack as a coach, under no circumstances.
Amateur Athletics is what college sports represent, which suggests that the players are non-professionals, which means that they are still learning, which suggests the coach is "Teaching", not destroying a player's person.
Bob Knight was a horribly bullying coach and now his son is taking on his daddy's mal traits.
Bully Style Coaching is a stain on the profession, and the coach verbal attacks doesn't build or cement strength, it just provides bad examples for players to follow and some day repeat.
I don't appreciate the verbal description of the players by Pat Knight, I don't think it's cute, I don't think his representation of his players is commendable, and I personally think that Pat Knight ought to be removed as soon as possible.
If my son were a rising star in high school, and Pat Knight sent my son a letter of interest, I wouldn't let Pat Knight in my home and I would write a letter to the AD of Lamar, explaining why I would not allow my son play for a coach who thinks verbal assault of players is a good coaching style. Absolutely Not.
In My Opinion
ASMFMB
2/25/2012
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