Coach Bob Knight Named Clair Bee Award Winner
April 01, 2002 | Men's Basketball
April 1, 2002
Lubbock - The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and Chip Hilton Sports announced Texas Tech basketball coach Bob Knight has been named the winner of 2002 Clair Bee Coach of the Year Award. The award was presented on Easter Sunday at the Hall of Fame/NABC Past President's luncheon in Atlanta at the Hilton Hotel by Hall of Famer Pete Newell.
Juan Dixon, University of Maryland Senior, whose determination and skill helped propel his team into tonight's Final Four appearance, is the winner of the 2002 Chip Hilton Player of the Year Award. The award honors a senior Division 1 men's player for demonstating outstanding character, leadership, and talent, similar to the qualities evident in the 24-book Chip Hilton sports fiction series. The books authored by Coach Clair Bee, enjoyed their first popularity from the late-1940s through the mid-1960s and were re-released to a new generation of readers beginning in 1999. The initial Chip Hilton Award winner was Tim Duncan of Wake Forest University. He has since been joined by Hassan Booker of the Naval Academy, Tim Hill of Harvard, former Big 12 standout, Eduardo Najera of Oklahoma and Shane Battier of Duke.
Created in 1997, the Clair Bee Award honors a Division 1 Men's Basketball coach who through his actions on and off the court, makes an outstanding contribution to the sport of college basketball during that season. The criteria for this award involves actions that inspire, motivate, coach and educate their teams to achieve their fullest potential.
Coach Knight's return to coaching dramatically elevated the Texas Tech program, with the team fashioning a 23-9 record, while drawing large crowds to Red Raider games (home and away)and raising the visibility of the sport in West Texas. According to STATS Inc., the Red Raiders had the largest turnaround of any Division 1 school this season, from a 9-19 team last season to an NCAA Tourney team this year.
In addition to the dramatic on-the-court turnaround, Bob Knight has immersed himself into the Lubbock/Texas Tech community and his Big 12 title-contending team was one of the biggest surprises of the college basketball season.
Coach Knight was the winner over several other strong finalists: Tom Crean of Marquette, Dennis Felton of Western Kentucky, Ben Howland of Pittsburgh, Ernie Kent of Oregon, and Kelvin Sampson of Oklahoma. Knight, who serves as a member of the elite nine-member selection committee, did not vote for the award this year. He also joins Dean Smith as the second committee member to be a finalist for the award. Members of the panel include Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, retired coaches Pete Newell, Dean Smith, and Dave Gavitt, and nationally renowned broadcasters Dick Vitale and Billy Packer, award winning sportswriter Bob Hammel, and Joe O'Brien past president of the Basketball Hall of Fame.
The Clair Bee Award was first presented by Chip Hilton Sports in 1997. The Hall of Fame joined as a presenter of the award in 1998. The variety of past winners indicates the breadth of college basketball, as it is conducted in different conferences and at different schools. Past winners have included Jim Boeheim of Syracuse, Jim O'Brien of Ohio State, Lute Olsen of Arizona, and Jim Phelan of Mount St. Mary's.
Clair Bee, the late Long Island University coach and Hall of Fame member, compiled an .826 lifetime winning percentage, still the best in major-college coaching history. By the time he left coaching in the 1950s, Bee had already begun writing the Chip Hilton Sports Series, which is considered the top sports fiction series ever written. Clair Bee, known as "the Innovator", also extended his influence on the game to strategies (1-3-1 zone defense), rules (three second rule, NBA 24 second rule), as the originator of sports camps with Camp All-America and Kutsher's Sports Academy being the most prominent, and conducting coaching clinics around the world.