End Of The Line

It looks like the end of the line has finally come for the always colorful, always volatile, always in-your-face Head Coach of the Indiana University Basketball team. Bobby Knight, 59, was fired yesterday from his job after 29 seasons at the helm of a team that had won three NCAA Men’s Championships in 1976, 1981 and 1987. Knight was also the only coach to win an NCAA title, an NIT title and an Olympic Gold Medal for his efforts with the 1984 team in Los Angeles. With just over six weeks until the start of the season, they will be scrambling for a quality replacement. As for Knight, he is in a very interesting position indeed. Will another Division 1 School want him with all the baggage he brings with his spectacular success on the court? Stay tuned.

In the end, however, his temper caught up with him. For a long time, I had been a staunch defender of Knight as he was one of the few coaches that was able to keep his players out of trouble or some other assorted scandal. Other schools had scandals, but not Indiana. To me, the credit for that went to Knight as he told the school’s boosters to stay away from his players. Knight also demanded that his athletes actually be students, as he knew that there was life beyond basketball, and that not all of them made it into the ranks of the NBA. The real truth was far from it. For most college athletes, basketball – or any other team sports for that matter, were a means to an end, the end being a quality college education that would last them the remainder of their life.

Many was the time I felt that the media was making a mountain out of a molehill when it came to their coverage of Knight. However, that all changed when I saw the videotape on CNN/SI which showed Knight choking former player Neil Reed in a 1997 coaching practice. To me, that crossed the line. In an effort to save his job, Knight and Indiana University President Myles Brand set up a ‘no tolerance’ policy that was to serve as a guide for Knight’s future behavior. That was back in May, and Knight clearly showed in the ensuing 17 weeks that he was unable to live up to his end of the arrangement. As such, the University had no choice but to fire him, and to that end, I applaud them for taking what is both a courageous, yet risky step.

I say that because Bob Knight is an incredibly popular figure in Indiana, where basketball is the state’s alternate religion, especially from November through March Madness. There were protests today by students at the main campus in Bloomington, and police in riot gear were there to keep the peace. I am willing to bet that eventually that the students will move on to the next topic of interest, and Coach Knight will eventually become a part of the University’s past.

While Coach Knight was effective in raising the standard of play on the court of his players, he had a long and extensive track record of verbally abusing people, whether they were staffers, the athletic director, secretaries or even referees. Who can ever forget the episode where Knight threw a chair across the court in a game against Purdue? I certainly won’t. Such action was not only irresponsible, but also childish in a man who clearly has no emotional control or stability whatsoever.

I firmly believe that the University was right to fire Coach Knight and that such action should have been done long ago. By doing this, they have shown themselves that it’s not too late to stand up to the schoolyard bully that Knight was, and have reinforced that winning doesn’t mean as much if people are abused or emotionally or psychologically destroyed in the process.

As for the Coach himself: I’m not sure that even HE knows what the future holds. Perhaps he needs a good twelve-step program like Emotions Anonymous or a really good therapist to get his head sorted out. At age 59, it is by no means too late to change his life for the better. I sincerely hope that he lands on his feet in another Division 1 School that will have both the courage and the ability to keep him on a short leash until he deals with what seems to be some major anger issues. Should he decide to do that, he will probably find that his future players will perform far better than he could have ever imagined.

I wish him good luck and all the best and can only hope that losing his job in this instance will allow him to learn from this experience and use it to better himself as both a coach and a gentleman.

It can happen none too soon.

You can e-mail your comments to Timothy at trollins@idirect.com.

Copyright © 2000 by Timothy Rollins.
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-Published with permission