It's not often I share the spotlight of this column with anybody else in the media. You see, there's just a simple rule about the plasticity of an ego, and in 20 inches or so, I'm stretched about as tight as Rick Majerus in a pair of 32 regulars.
But yesterday I met the world's most endangered species-a Bob Knight apologist sportswriter.
Now if you don't know, Bob Knight and the media get along like a bulldog and a porkchop, and just in case you're wondering, it's the bulldog that throws the chairs.
Having a member of the media step up to bat for Bob Knight is like renaming the Nobel Peace Prize after Hitler or having an SAE lead a conference on date-rape prevention.
It just ain't the way the world works.
And you wanna talk about being completely alone? You've probably got to be a black lesbian pro-choice advocate at the Republican National Convention or an Alan Keyes campaign contributor to understand what it's like to be a sportswriter and a Bob Knight apologist.
But I'll swear on a stack of red sweaters and tacky plaid sportscoats, a Knight apologist walks among us.
Now I would've opened the floor to debate about whether or not Bob Knight should've been fired, but the way I see it there are much more important, less obvious things to debate, like just which direction the sun is going to rise from. Sure, the east has got a great track record, but I gotta think the west is due sometime soon. And maybe next I'll tell you the shocking news that all the kids tooling around campus in BMWs aren't paying their own tuition. Just a thought.
I might have actually thought about supporting Knight in his little tryst, but a funny thing happened on the way to absolute and complete stupidity-my brain got in the way.
C'mon, the man makes storm troopers look warm and cuddly.
And sure, while it was fun guessing just which mid-major patsy would drop Knight's Hoosiers in the first round of the NCAA tournament like the fat kid in grade school dodgeball, I'd like to join the rest of the common-sense-having world and say, "What up, Knight? See-ya Knight. Don't let the door hit you where the good Lord split you."
Of course, people protested the decision (just none in the media, save our misplaced friend), but you'll win that argument when Knight himself wins Miss Congeniality.
Yeah fine, Knight was the "in" coach from 1971 to 1992 or so, but you know what else was in? Tighty basketball shorts and box haircuts. We all make mistakes. Look, I retired my stonewashed Bugle Boys and nobody ever wants to see again just how much of a man Bobby Hurley really is. It's called the 21st century. Look into it.
And that may be Bob Knight's real problem. In 29 years of head coaching, he never changed, never stumbling upon one of life's most important lessons-people don't think like you do. I still remember figuring out that little fact and I was just in middle school. Hell, I still thought British Knights were cool and NKOTB was due for a comeback when I figured out that little truth. But no such luck with Bobby Knight.
As a matter of fact, in the past 29 years, there are two things that haven't changed-G105's playlist and Bob Knight. And while we all need a little Britney from time to time, we can damn well live without another tirade from Bob Knight.
The man just never understood thinking beyond the limits of his own gray noggin and he certainly never understood what zero tolerance meant.
Hell, when he stood in front of the media Friday at the dry-erase board diagramming how he conveyed the teachings of Miss Manners to a freshman, it was the first new play the man had drawn up since underhand jumpshots were in vogue. (And by the way, could he have had a less credulous witness than assistant coach Kato Kaelin? It's like now testifying on behalf of David Duke, Mark Furhman.)
You know Bob Knight has no real defense for himself when everyone who stands up for him talks about how he is so great for avoiding NCAA sanctions and graduating players. Or to put it another way, stuff he was supposed to do. You don't hear me bragging about how efficiently I checked a book out of the library on my last visit.
And don't mention all this crap about discipline. He didn't discipline his players, he bullied them, intimidated them into line with physical and verbal abuse. Hell, John Chaney gets his boys on the court at 6 a.m., and when was the last time you heard anybody accuse Chaney of trying to put a player through the one-arm spin cycle? Discipline ain't the right D-word Bob Knight teaches you, it's duck.
A special word of congratulations to Indiana Athletics-way to go with the zero tolerance, guys. Myles Brand and crew did zero tolerance about as well as Duke football does offense. Somebody make the damn sign up for Assembly Hall-Indiana Athletics: The zero tolerance of zero tolerances.
Leave it to Bob Knight to make his grand exit in the only way the chair-throwing, headbutting General could-with acrimony for all.
As for our Knight apologist, I'm still hoping that maybe he was just a little more perceptive than the rest of us in the industry and realized that sportswriters really are at a loss without Bob Knight-we've all just lost our great villain.
Any of you out there have any idea just how many punchlines "Bob Knight" completes? Sure, Indiana will replace Knight on the bench, but who are they gonna give us to hate? I'd suggest Dennis Rodman, but I doubt there's any way they could find a dozen pair of white heels to go with new bridesmaid dress uniforms.
But at least me and my apologist friend agree on something; No matter who replaces Knight, they'll never get anybody better suited to preside over Indiana's arena. After all, it practically had Bobby Knight's name written all over it, Ass. Hall. See-ya Knight.
UPON FURTHER REVIEW is a weekly column written by a sports columnist. It appears every Wednesday.
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