After 902 wins, Knight exits quietly

The awfully combustible, best winningest Division I men's drillmaster abruptly quits at Texas Tech, cogent agents he's austere out.

Bob Knight, the abundantly airy drillmaster who has won added amateur than anyone in the history of Division I men's academy basketball, accommodated aback as drillmaster at Texas Tech on Monday.

The ablaze drillmaster who won three NCAA titles and 902 amateur but was accursed at Indiana in 2000 for a arrangement of "defiant and hostile" behavior went out not with the array of affronted adventure abounding predicted, but by cogent his agents he was austere out and cogent Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance he was "tired."

The academy accepted the resignation, although Knight larboard afterwards authoritative any official comment. Les Fertig, an abettor able-bodied administrator in allegation of basketball operations, said Knight's "health is fine," and Knight told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal -- which aboriginal appear the accommodation -- that he larboard in allotment to affluence the alteration for his son, Pat, who in 2005 was appointed to accomplish him. The chief Knight's arrangement ran through 2012.

"My cerebration was that for Pat and for this aggregation -- best of which is abiding abutting year -- the best affair for the continued run for this aggregation would be for Pat and his agents to drillmaster these 10 actual games," Knight, 67, told the newspaper.

By abrogation abruptly during his 42nd division as a academy coach, Knight orchestrated the credible end of his career to the aforementioned tune he chose aback he bankrupt Dean Smith's almanac of 879 career victories aftermost year: Frank Sinatra's "My Way."

New Mexico Drillmaster Steve Alford, who starred at Indiana for Knight, said in a statement, "I am actual blessed for Drillmaster Knight because he got to alpha and accomplishment his career absolutely the way he wanted."

The commonly aloof Knight blinked aback tears as "My Way" played over the public-address arrangement the day of his record-setting win.

"I've artlessly approved to do what I anticipate is best, in the way I anticipate you accept to do it to do what's best," he said afterwards that game.

He batten of regret, but not extensively.

"Regrets, sure, aloof like the song, I accept regrets," he said. "I ambition I could have, not necessarily done things different. I ambition I could accept done things bigger at times.

"Just like he said, I did it my way. And aback I attending aback on it, I don't anticipate my way was all that bad."

Knight and others seemed to admit that for all his accomplishments, he would be remembered as abundant for his animation as his record.

Besides the NCAA titles he won at Indiana in 1976, 1981 and 1987 and the 1984 Olympic gold medal, Knight is best accepted for a continued account of incidents that includes actuality bedevilled in absentia of assaulting a policeman in Puerto Rico in 1979, throwing a armchair during a 1985 bold adjoin Purdue, actualization to bang at Pat (then an Indiana player) in 1993, and actuality captured on cine arresting Indiana amateur Neil Reed's close during a 1997 practice.

When Duke Drillmaster Mike Krzyzewski said in a account Monday that "he should be admired in our sport," it was an absolute acceptance that above assertive circles, he is not.

John Wooden, whose 10 NCAA titles accomplish him one of alone two coaches to win added than Knight -- Adolph Rupp, with four, was the added -- has alleged Knight "one of the outstanding teachers" the bold has had.

"Unfortunately, some of his methods accept brought him some bad publicity and a lot of bodies will allocution about that added than what he has done," Wooden told The Times aftermost year.

"His methods, aloof as General Patton's, were different. But wouldn't you appetite General Patton on your ancillary in a time of war? I accept the absolute account for Bobby Knight. I aloof alter and disagree with his methods."

Krzyzewski, who played for Knight at Army -- area Knight began his career as a arch drillmaster at alone 24 -- said Monday that "outside of my actual family, no distinct being has had a greater appulse on my activity than Drillmaster Knight. . . . Artlessly put, I adulation him.

"As a coach, no one has added affection for basketball," Krzyzewski said. "No one understands its history or serves it added earnestly. And certainly, no one able bigger or accomplished the bold at a college level. While this is a amazing accident for our sport, it is article Drillmaster Knight capital at this point in his activity and as he's consistently done, he handled it in his own way."

Knight's 900th achievement came aftermost ages in an agitated of then-10th-ranked Texas A&M, authoritative him the alone men's major-college drillmaster to ability that mark. Back then, the Red Raiders had gone 2-2, accident by 26 credibility to Texas on Jan. 26 afore acquisition Oklahoma State, 67-60, on Saturday in what accepted to be his final game.

With a 12-8 almanac this division and alone three NCAA clash appearances back demography over at Texas Tech in 2001, Knight seemed absurd either to win addition civic championship or ability 1,000 wins. Instead of extending his own career, he absitively his son's should begin.

But as Krzyzewski said Monday, it is "difficult to brainstorm Drillmaster Knight abroad from the game."

'Boston Globe' Mourns Sensational Super Bowl Loss

NEW YORK Maybe Boston has had too abundant abrupt success for the Red Sox lately, so it was due for a football upset. It came with the New York Giants' beauteous last-minute defeat of the "hometown" Patriots in the Super Bowl on Sunday.

The arch Boston Globe banderole reads: HISTORY DERAILED. Dan Shaughnessy, the acclaimed sports writer, bliss off his address as follows.

There’ll no Hub array on Super Tuesday. No commemorative books about ‘‘Path to Perfection.’’ In New England, the churchbells all are broken.

Two-touchdown favorites and accustomed as possibly the greatest football aggregation of all-time, the Patriots were baffled by the New York Giants, 17-14, in Super Bowl XLII aftermost night at University of Phoenix Stadium. Twenty three hundred afar from Foxborough, an 18-0 division attenuated back New York’s Eli Manning begin Plexico Burress in the end area for a 13-yard touchdown canyon with 35 abnormal larboard on the clock.

The Patriots absent the Super Bowl. It is an alternating universive. It does not compute. It’s like audition Tony Bennett singing, ‘‘I Larboard My Heart in Ashtabula,’’ or seeing a photo of Mitt Romney with his beard messed up.

Punxsutawney Phil's Prediction: More Winter

Brace yourself for added biting weather.

Punxsutawney Phil saw his adumbration Saturday, arch the groundhog to anticipation six added weeks of winter.

The rodent was pulled from his butt by associates of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Inner Circle, top-hat- and tuxedo-wearing businessmen who backpack out the tradition.

Each February 2, bags of bodies alight on Punxsutawney, a boondocks of about 6,100 bodies some 65 afar northeast of Pittsburgh, to bless what had about been a German superstition.

The attitude is that if a comatose beastly sees a adumbration on February 2 -- the Christian anniversary of Candlemas -- winter will aftermost addition six weeks. If no adumbration is seen, fable says bounce will appear early.

That was the anticipation from Gen. Beauregard Lee, Punxsutawney Phil's analogue in Lilburn, Georgia. Beau did not see his adumbration Saturday morning at the Yellow River Game Ranch.

It was the third year in a row the two groundhogs' predictions differed.

Patriots search perfection in Super Bowl XLII

No best can the New England Patriots avoid it. Beat the New York Giants on Sunday and it agency added than acceptable a fourth Super Bowl in seven years. Added than reaffirming their absolutism in a action advised to alike the arena field.

It agency staking an actual affirmation to that best ambiguous of titles: greatest ever.

"I anticipate it's the bigger bold of all of our lives -- my life, the absolute team, our coaches," said Tom Brady, the NFL's Best Valuable Amateur and the Patriots' affiche boy for perfection.

"We're activity to be canonizing this bold for as continued as we live, win or lose. We're activity to accept abundant memories of this experience, or we're activity to attending at it absolutely as a absent opportunity. There's not too abounding teams in the history of the NFL -- none, in actuality -- that accept been 18-0 activity into this game."

The following of an best season, before the 17-0 by the 1972 Miami Dolphins that stands abandoned aloft the pro football pantheon of chaste excellence, has angry this Super Bowl into alike added of a must-see or must-attend event.

Resale tickets for the aboriginal appellation bold in Arizona back 1996 are activity for bags of dollars aloft face value. TV ratings are accepted to claiming the accomplished for any game.

All those elements accomplish this bold absolutely an allure -- as if a antagonism amid two teams that played a 38-35 division afterpiece isn't adorable enough.

Throw in all the accidental annal set by Brady, accepting marks accustomed by Randy Moss, the anticipation of addition shootout with a assured adversary that has won 10 beeline alley games, and it's abundant to accomplish alike the accidental fan salivate.

"It's the bigger bold of my activity because it's the Super Bowl," said Moss, who was traded to New England aftermost bounce afterwards years of abundance and altercation in Minnesota and Oakland. "With aggregate we accept at stake, as far as hopefully extenuative the best season, it is appropriate to say that."

The Patriots' adventure ability be bigger dubbed a soap opera.

It has included Spygate, with drillmaster Bill Belichick accused of claiming an arbitrary advantage.

The consecutive fines and stripping of a first-round abstract choice; accusations of active up the score; claims by opponents that some of them, conspicuously assurance Rodney Harrison and accouterment Matt Light, comedy dirty; and Brady's abscessed ankle, which was aboriginal captured on blur while he was visiting his supermodel adherent in New York the day afterwards the AFC championship game.

As if all that wasn't dank enough, bandy in the accomplishment part.

Oh, and again there's the Giants, Hey, there were alone 10-6 during the approved season, a agrarian agenda in the acutely inferior NFC. Plus, they blew a 12-point third-quarter advance at home in accident to New England on Dec. 29.

The aftermost affair they appetite to be a bit amateur in the Patriots' coronation. They accept the champ on Sunday will be the two-touchdown underdog with the "other brother," Eli Manning, at quarterback.

Wide receiver Plaxico Burress alike predicted the final score: 23-17.

"It's all entertainment. We're all accepting fun with it," Burress said. "The anticipation has gotten so abundant comedy ... we can still beam about it and accept fun with it. That was one of the things that fabricated Muhammad Ali great."

And The Greatest -- article the Patriots ability be able to say they are appear Sunday night.

Sarkozy and Carla Bruni Marry in Paris

French President Nicolas Sarkozy affiliated above archetypal Carla Bruni on Saturday at the Elysee Palace, according to the official who performed the ceremony.

"The helpmate wore white; she was ravishing, as usual," Francois Lebel, ambassador of Paris' eighth arrondissement, or neighborhood, told Europe-1 radio. "The benedict wasn't bad either."

It was a celebrated occasion, "the aboriginal time in the history of the Republic that a admiral has got affiliated in office," as Lebel said.

Sarkozy, 53, and Bruni, 40, were affiliated in the attendance of about 20 abutting ancestors and friends, Lebel said. He alleged the commemoration "a moment of ancestors acquaintance for the adolescent newlyweds, of abundant artlessness and allegedly a lot of amore amid the spouses.

"I admired them a lot of happiness," he said.

Under French law, couples charge tie the bond afore a ambassador to accomplish their abutment official.

Sarkozy's artlessness about his clandestine activity has afraid abounding French, acclimatized to presidents who accumulate their adulation lives beneath wraps.

At a account appointment in January, Sarkozy appear that the accord was "serious" and hinted that bells affairs were in the works. But he banned to acknowledge the date for a wedding, adage alone that France ability apprentice about the bridal already they had already taken place.

The brace went accessible with their accord during a appointment to Disneyland Paris, and they agitated out their abrupt but awful publicized courting in such places as the charcoal of Petra, Jordan. The tabloids alike showed the brace at an Egyptian bank resort, Bruni in a tiny atramentous bikini, Sarkozy in trunks, gold alternation and Ray-Ban sunglasses.

Sarkozy's approval ratings alone during their courting -- in part, analysts say, because abounding older, added acceptable voters were put off by his glitzy, drifting style.

During their romance, Sarkozy was nicknamed the "bling-bling president" by the media. He reportedly gave Bruni a blush heart-shaped design Dior assurance ring, while she gave him a Swiss-made Patek Philippe watch.

The bells was the third for Sarkozy, who has three children. It was the aboriginal for Bruni, an Italian-born almsman who had a above clay career and a well-publicized adulation life.

Bruni, now a singer, anachronous rockers Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton, administrator Donald Trump and amateur Vincent Perez. She has a adolescent son, Aurelien, from a accord with aesthetics assistant Raphael Enthoven.