When hearing the news that Bob Knight had resigned from Texas Tech, essentially ending his coaching career, the first thought that crossed my mind was exactly what Knight had said earlier: He was doing this to give his son, Pat, a chance to become a head coach.

The second thought was this: My career will end without being kicked, punched or hit by a chair thrown by Bob Knight.

Not that I didn't give him the opportunity.

In covering college basketball for more than 30 years, I found myself many times in the line of fire with the combustible basketball legend who became the winningest coach in men's Division I history. Usually, it meant just being in the same room.

The first time came in 1978. It was my first NCAA tournament as a reporter and came two years after Knight had coached Indiana to a perfect season for the first of his three national championships in 29 seasons in Bloomington.

Knight, who had refused to talk with reporters during the regular season, spent a good 10 minutes of the pre-game news conference, maybe more, talking about the energy crisis, about how he rode a bicycle around the Bloomington campus rather than driving a car.

It was Knight's way to use up the allotted time and give reporters absolutely nothing for their next day's stories.

When Knight was done talking about the environment - how could we have known that he, not Al Gore, was at the forefront of this issue? - a young reporter from the New York Post decided to test Knight's sincerity, not to mention his patience. A few days before, there had been an outbreak of violence in the Middle East.

"Can you talk about the crisis in the Mideast, not the one in Dayton [site of the NCAA's Mideast Regional]?" I asked, knees visibly shaking.

Knight was momentarily speechless.

"Next question," he snarled.

Had I known Knight would assault a policeman in Puerto Rico during the Pan American Games, toss a fan into a garbage can at the Final Four, throw a chair onto the court at Assembly Hall, kick at his own son, then a player, during a game and put his hands on the neck of Hoosiers guard Neil Reed at a practice, I might have asked him about Villanova's defense.

Six years later, Knight and I were in the same room twice, again for news conferences. The first came the day after Indiana had upset a North Carolina team that featured Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins in the Sweet 16 in Atlanta. Knight was absolutely charming that day, respectful of Dean Smith, the man he would eventually pass on the all-time wins list, and I came away thinking that maybe he had changed.

Knight proved a few months later that he hadn't.

It was after the United States' gold-medal win over Spain at the Forum in Los Angeles. Knight, after his team's 30-point lead had been whittled to about 20, decided to put Jordan back in the game even though the former Tar Heel who was headed to the Chicago Bulls had rolled his ankle earlier and had to be helped off the court.

After a few questions about the game, I asked Knight whether he had any concerns for Jordan's future by putting him back in what was already a blowout. Jordan had, after all, sprained his ankle. On the podium, Jordan smiled and later thanked me for asking what he had wanted to ask the coach himself.

"Are you a doctor?" Knight answered, shooting a laser in my direction. "Next question."

There were other instances of being at the same tournament site as Knight, when I was sure the guy was bipolar, talking with reverence about one of his coaching mentors, Clair Bee, one moment and raging at reporters, fans and NCAA tournament officials the next.

Knight thought he was the smartest and funniest man in the room, and he sometimes was, but more often he was just a rude, insensitive bully who couldn't even handle one of his former players, Mike Krzyzewski, becoming as successful and respected as he was. Couldn't even shake Krzyzewski's hand after Duke beat Indiana in the 1992 Final Four.

When Knight was fired at Indiana in fall 2000, for verbally accosting an Indiana student who flippantly asked the coach, "Hey, Knight, what's up?" you figured that, if given another chance to coach elsewhere, he would change. Of course, he didn't.

There was the incident at the salad bar in Lubbock in 2004 for which he was reprimanded and then the one last year when he went after someone during a hunting trip. I always thought Knight would go out like one of his heroes, Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes, by hitting a player or, better yet, a reporter.

Not that I didn't give him a chance.

don.markus@baltsun.com