Quitter: Knight violates own principles
If he had a clue, The General would be ashamed of himself
February 6, 2008
BY JAY MARIOTTI Sun-Times Columnist
He didn't resign. He didn't retire. Let it be known forever that Bob Knight QUIT on his Texas Tech players, fled with March approaching and his basketball team on the NCAA bubble, ran in a way that would violate his very moral fiber if one of his kids had done the same. As a user of crude, lewd language, he would classify such a quitter as a five-letter term for the female anatomy.
So, what does that make Knight today?
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Bobby Knight, the winningest coach in Division I men's college basketball, quit Monday.
(Sun-Times file)
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How typical -- how sad -- that this would be the exit strategy for the old ogre, a hypocrite who doesn't expect the same qualities from himself that he demands from others. He has been a walking, shouting, cursing contradiction for more than four decades, unable and unwilling to control his ire when he required complete poise and focus from his players. Now, Knight walks away almost as if he fears failure, knowing Tech is ranked 60th in the latest Ratings Percentage Index and needs a strong finish to reach the 64-team tournament. If he was consistent with his own principles, Knight would have viewed the next few weeks as the ultimate challenge. Instead, he imparts one final bad lesson in a maddening career, one that would have gone down among the shiniest in coaching history -- in any sport -- if he didn't harm his legacy with so many tantrums, slurs and stunts.
Tuesday night, Knight appeared on ESPN with analyst Jay Bilas and referenced the q-word in describing his departure. He had no idea he was indicting himself. ``A lot of coaches quit on someone else's thing,'' he said, referring to a firing. ``You're fortunate when you can quit on your own.'' But if he does realize he's quitting, he is too thick-headed to understand how wimpy and weak it makes him look.
Later, he referenced a lyric from his favorite Sinatra song, ``My Way,'' admitting he does have a few regrets. But was it wrapping his hands around the neck of Neil Reed, which led to tensions that prompted his long-overdue dismissal at Indiana? Was it assaulting the police officer in Puerto Rico, throwing the infamous chair, head-butting and shoving and grabbing his players? Was it his comment to Connie Chung about a rape victim -- ``I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it'' -- in the context of a chat about referees costing his team? Was it humiliating a referee, stuffing a fan in a hotel trash can? No, Knight's biggest disappointment involved players who -- ready? -- quit his program.
``Do I have regrets? Sure, I have regrets. I regret we had a kid that quit and went somewhere else because he wasn't getting to play or didn't think we were treating him fairly,'' he said. ``You're going to have successes and failures in terms or playing for you.''
Let me get this straight: He regrets that kids quit his program and didn't stick through their problems, yet Knight stops fighting in the 15th round of his career. He also suggests he might coach in the future, which makes his decision more baffling -- and please don't say DePaul or Northwestern should hire him.
Consider it final confirmation that he always has been his own worst enemy. Instead of lauding him as the brilliant teacher and strategist who never broke an NCAA rule, graduated most of his players and gained accolades from virtually all the coaching masters, history will remember him as the counterproductive bully and blowhard who thrust himself into perpetual controversy. ``I don't think there ever has been a better teacher of basketball than Bob,'' said John Wooden, the gold standard of all college coaches. Yet, in the same breath, Wooden makes it clear he didn't always approve of Knight's ``methods.''
If he was beginning his career now, I don't think he would have lasted long in a politically correct world. But Knight could thrive as a tyrant in the latter 20th century in the state of Indiana, where fans wore his trademark red sweater and blindly defended his every misstep and transgression. Millions of Hoosiers served to enable Robert Montgomery Knight, allowing The General to be The General when he was a maddeningly polarizing figure across America. At some point, someone should have attempted to stop the runaway train on an official level. When president Myles Brand tried at Indiana in 2000, with a zero-tolerance edict after the Reed incident, Knight heeded it for all of four months. A student named Kent Harvey yelled ``Hey, Knight, what's up'' on campus, and Knight's response was to twist Harvey's arm and curse at him for not addressing him with more respect.
That's how he left Indiana. Eight years later, he leaves Texas Tech by quitting on a school that was so quick to give him a parachute and new scenery when he generally was shamed in the profession. And don't believe the pap about wanting to give his son, longtime assistant Pat, a chance to be head coach. Does anyone really think Tech has a better chance of making the NCAA tournament with Pat Knight than Bob Knight? Why now?
Because The General couldn't take it anymore. ``I was kind of tired,'' he said. ``This was a tough season in a lot of ways. The time has come here, for me. We had a pretty good run here, not great.'' I wonder how many players have felt ``tired'' after a grueling Knight practice, or in a ``tough'' Knight season, and wanted to quit. Make no mistake, he quit for Bob Knight, not to give Pat a chance. He wasn't joking Tuesday when he took one last swipe at the officiating profession, who can rejoice in the knowledge that referees helped drive him from the game.
``Well, I won't have to see any more bad calls, that'll be one thing," Knight told his longtime confidante, Minneapolis sports columnist Sid Hartman. ``I mean, we had some horrendous officiating in games this year. This year, it just seemed to bother me more than at any other time.''
So he takes his scowl and his bully pulpit and his smart-ass wit and goes home, just before Tech embarks on a difficult stretch that includes a game at much-improved Baylor and another against Kansas-slayer Kansas State. He leaves with 902 wins, an Olympic gold medal and three national titles, but the last one came 21 years ago. He certainly carried himself as a mammoth presence and knew the impact he was making on Americana, yet, in the end, Knight tries to paint himself as merely another guy making a living.
``I'm just a basketball coach,'' he said. ``I didn't work on curing heart disease or work on a cure for cancer or lead a division into a military endeavor that was a tremendous benefit to the United States. I've been a basketball coach.''
Of course, he was much more than that. And with apologies to Sinatra, so much of it was filled with regrets, far more than a few.
