Bob Knight, the men’s basketball coach whom Indiana University fired in 2000 after a series of disciplinary problems, will have to pay his own legal costs as well as court-ordered damages stemming from a 1999 confrontation with one of his assistants at Indiana, a state judge ruled today. According to The Indianapolis Star, the judge said that Mr. Knight’s insurance company cannot be considered liable for those costs since the confrontation was “nothing less than an obviously deliberate and angry physical contact” by Mr. Knight, and his insurance policy did not cover “expected or intended” violence. Mr. Knight settled with the assistant in 2002, but since then he has tried to recover his costs by suing the insurer and the university. The latter case is still pending.

Just last week, Mr. Knight’s supporters lost a lawsuit that sought to have him reinstated, even though he is now a successful coach at Texas Tech University (The Chronicle, June 5).