Knight Fall: Bobby Knight, The Truth Behind America's Most Controversial Coach:

Rating:
Summary: An Interesting Story Beset by a Biased Storyteller...
Review: I read this book from the unbiased perspective of a college basketball fan looking to learn a little more about Bobby Knight, but Berger clearly didn't write it from an unbiased point-of-view.

There were parts that were informative, and it was an interesting read, but Berger's anti-Knight bias came through on every page, sometimes in obvious ways, and sometimes subtley, like using the word "claimed" instead of "said" when quoting Knight.

There were quite a few typos, misspelled words and grammatical errors, and they detracted from the book.

If you're only going to read one book on Knight, read Feinstein's A Season on the Brink. But if you have a little more time on your hands, Berger's is still worth the read, typos, biases, and all.

Rating:
Summary: I had a hard time putting it down-easy reading and unbiased.
Review: I saw this book on the bottom shelf at a popular supermarket about two weeks ago. I had not done much free reading of late and thought it looked like a good book to get me back into a good habit and hobby. It reveals the good and the bad about coach Knight and covered a great deal of ground without getting into too much details about the incidents of Knight. Since I grew up on the Kentucky-Indiana border, I was able to watch more than a handful of Indiana's games on the Indiana basketball network and found Phil Berger's coverage of Knight's best and worst years exciting. The end of the book even has a glossary of all the IU players that made it through all four years without transferring(and tells what they are doing now). It even goes back to Knight's formative years as an assistant coach at Army and discusses Knight's shortcoming as a player at Ohio State(defense) lead him to stress defense and team-play the most as a head coach. Ex-player Landon Turner (who was paralyzed in a car wreck that cut his playing career short) praises Knight for benching him while his mind was more on having a good time off the court than being successful on the court. As far as the statements by ex-players that lead to the demise of Knight at Indiana, Mr. Burger just reports the facts and does not lash out any judgments against Knight. In summary, this is a very enjoyable book to read and will not bore the reader with too much details. Go ahead and buy it(you may finish it in one day).

Rating:
Summary: An Interesting Story Beset by a Biased Storyteller...
Review: I've read just about every book on Knight. As an IU alum who graduated one of the years that the Hoosiers won a national championship, most of the student body (myself included) - viewed RMK as a demi-God. Certainly he was blessed with one of the finest basketball minds in history.

Berger's book follows in the footsteps of three major works on RMK: Feinstein's _Season on the Brink_ (the success of which every subsequent effort attempts to duplicate); Mellen's _Bob Knight: His Own Man_ and Alford's _Playing for Knight_. All three are worth reading (especially _Season_) for the serious "Knight-o-phile".

Berger's book is definitely tabloid in appearance. Each page seems to have 30 lines of large text on it. Therefore the book appears as though it could have been printed on 75 pages in a conventional book format. The sparse text maps directly to the quality of content. It is sketchy at best.

IMO, Berger's heavy reliance upon previously published histories and newspaper articles dooms this work from the outset. The only area I found remotely interesting was Knight's childhood and schoolboy athletic career.

The remainder is a rehash of mostly negative Knight incidents. Certainly RMK deserves criticism for his histrionics and outrageous behavior that erupts from time to time. However, Berger mostly omits the litany of his positive and charitable achievements. More importantly, he never mentions what is certainly one of RMK's most engaging aspects: his incredible sense of humor. Knight, when he wants to be, is among the most humorous and quotable characters on the public landscape today.

Thumbs down for this vapid attempt to capitalize on the "Knight effect". Berger certainly can do better than this. Instead - read any of the three books mentioned earlier - they're far better uses of your time.

Rating:
Summary: Weak - maybe worthy of a magazine article... maybe...
Review: I've read just about every book on Knight. As an IU alum who graduated one of the years that the Hoosiers won a national championship, most of the student body (myself included) - viewed RMK as a demi-God. Certainly he was blessed with one of the finest basketball minds in history.

Berger's book follows in the footsteps of three major works on RMK: Feinstein's _Season on the Brink_ (the success of which every subsequent effort attempts to duplicate); Mellen's _Bob Knight: His Own Man_ and Alford's _Playing for Knight_. All three are worth reading (especially _Season_) for the serious "Knight-o-phile".

Berger's book is definitely tabloid in appearance. Each page seems to have 30 lines of large text on it. Therefore the book appears as though it could have been printed on 75 pages in a conventional book format. The sparse text maps directly to the quality of content. It is sketchy at best.

IMO, Berger's heavy reliance upon previously published histories and newspaper articles dooms this work from the outset. The only area I found remotely interesting was Knight's childhood and schoolboy athletic career.

The remainder is a rehash of mostly negative Knight incidents. Certainly RMK deserves criticism for his histrionics and outrageous behavior that erupts from time to time. However, Berger mostly omits the litany of his positive and charitable achievements. More importantly, he never mentions what is certainly one of RMK's most engaging aspects: his incredible sense of humor. Knight, when he wants to be, is among the most humorous and quotable characters on the public landscape today.

Thumbs down for this vapid attempt to capitalize on the "Knight effect". Berger certainly can do better than this. Instead - read any of the three books mentioned earlier - they're far better uses of your time.

Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time or money!
Review: Wow...The WORST example of not doing your homework I have ever seen. This book is the biggest load of crap I have ever seen. Let me say that not only does the guy not have ANY of his facts straight concerning Coach Knight, he does not care to get them straight. Example concerning non-incident between Coach Knight and student Kent Harvey "Knight grabbing the kid and screaming profanities at him"...Did Phil not take the time to read the police report before writing this LIE into his book? The police dismissed the Harvey charge, the report says there were NO MARKS on the kids arm and 4 INDEPENDENT WITNESSES said Knight never raised his voice at the kid! Pathetic journalism....Does Phil write for the ENQUIRER in his spare time? He must since he acknowledges the local hack paper, the Star..... DONT BUY THIS CRAP.