Former IU basketball great Steve Alford announced on Thursday the 2026-27 season will be his last as a head coach.
During a press conference to discuss his retirement, Alford shared some thoughts on playing for Bob Knight at Indiana.
“I learned so much under Coach Knight about preparation and the will to prepare,” Alford said. “Our guys have notebooks today because that is what I had. I had to carry a notebook, which was unheard of at the time, and probably very few coaches in the country are giving out notebooks now.
“To me, it is a class, and it was a class to Coach Knight. I learned from him that it is just another class on campus. You have to be on time. You have to sit in the front row, be attentive, and get better every day. Take notes; you are going to learn more if you write it down and see it. That was the idea behind the notebook. That was Coach Knight and all of his preparation.”
Alford said he also learned a new definition of being on time while playing for Knight. He shared a funny story of a time while on his first coaching job at Manchester when he tried to replicate Knight’s approach to timeliness and it backfired.
“If Coach Knight said six, you better be on the bus at 5:50. If he gets on at 5:55, he is leaving you,” Alford said.
“I can remember at Manchester, we had two vans; we didn’t have a bus yet. We drove two vans, and I thought I would be Coach Knight Jr. I told the guys, ‘Hey, the vans are leaving at 3:00.’ I got in at 2:55, and we ended up leaving our best player behind. I learned that is a bad thing to do.
“Don’t don’t leave your best player. Especially at Manchester when we we weren’t to the point where we had a lot of good players. So I learned that lesson. I told my staff, ‘Don’t ever let me get on the bus again until everybody else is on the bus.'”
You can watch below as Alford met with the media to discuss his decision to retire from coaching.
Video via Nevada Sports Net on YouTube.
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