Bob Knight: Coaching or abusing?

Too many shots to the head:
The bizarre success of coach Bobby Knight

ROBERT LISS

As basketball players become ever more graceful and athletically gifted, and as the skill level in college far exceeds anything that was remotely imaginable when Ohio State unleashed Bobby Knight with a degree in 1962, the most recognizable names in college basketball are now the celebrity coaches— most of them garbed regally in fancy suits, others remaining idiosyncratically clad, all of them commandingly presiding over their respective “franchises," and compensated handsomely beyond whatever wild dreams originally drove them into their profession.

Their prominence and fame stands in inverse proportion to the collegiate shelf life of great players, and in fact derives from the evanescence of their lineups, since the best of their players are those whose presences are least likely to grace the arenas they fill for long, as they must quickly turn pro in order to rival the bank accounts of their collegiate mentors.

Franchise coaches are indeed the order of the day. Even those who are disgraced and fired at one institution are soon welcomed and rewarded at the next: Bob Huggins, Eddie Sutton, Jim Harrick, and of course Bobby Knight, who was fired at Indiana by then-university president Myles Brand, the same man who now presides over the National Collegiate Athletic Association, which looks on cheerfully as Knight perpetuates his pattern of random abuse a bit more subtly at his new imperial throne-site of Texas Tech.

Did you see the punch?

Their salaries supplemented by enormous sneaker contracts, and their prestige bringing name recognition to schools otherwise unknown (Texas Tech?), these men constitute a fraternity that makes and is judged by its own rules. Juries of their peers share their biases and are beholden to their silent pact of mutual solidarity.

Many, even most, are good men, as Marc Anthony might intone, and should be praised more than buried. But their rush to defend Bobby Knight following his latest outrage— during a time-out, he poked a player to get his attention— demonstrates their implicit contempt for rules, language and ordinary meaning, which are now subordinate to fame and revenue-generating potential. The media and coaching fraternity leap to Knight’s defense, calling on their own version of Orwell to seize moral high-ground: “What used to be called coaching is now called abuse!”

For the coaching fraternity, thought and speech follow Orwellian principles of obfuscation: So he threw a punch, but a short punch: one good right hand, so short you could barely see it, like the one with which Rocky Marciano took out Jersey Joe Walcott to wipe out a big lead on points and win the heavyweight title about a half century earlier. Did you see it? The recipient felt it.

Walcott went down, but the recipient of Knight’s right hand straightened up. Both punches accomplished their purpose. A punch is a punch, for all that.

But he’s a teacher….

But “no,” say the pundits, that was no punch; they just have to understand Bobby Knight! He’s a teacher. The boy understood. He listened. He loves Coach Knight. His parents couldn’t get him to listen, and Bobby Knight did. He’ll make him a man. We love Coach Knight too!

Worse yet: “If it were anyone else, we wouldn’t be talking about this,” declaimed ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla, attempting to close ranks around Knight, and to make further discussion appear ridiculous and reflective of the frivolity of silly and envious liberal wimps.

One of the clearest intellectual moments of my college days at Columbia occurred when I learned from a philosophy professor the basic principle of formal logic: From a false premise, anything follows. So simple, yet so pregnant with eloquence and applicability.

How does this apply? Simple: “If it were anyone else” is a false premise. What would we say if the revered John Wooden of UCLA had hit one of his players? Absurd question, meant to deflect attention, because it simply couldn’t have happened.

Abusers and their victims

Abusers all too often lay claim to the love of their victims. The professions of love that follow mean nothing. They are often psychologically obligatory, as victims typically crave their abusers’ love.

Being rewarded, they love even more fervently. Is it coincidental that the recipient of Knight’s punch, Michael Smith, received more playing time after the incident, as if in payment for his family’s testimonials to his love for Knight and his future silence?

Even strong men break down in their need for love and reparation. With the recent death of the legendary Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach, it is worth recalling a story told by the 1950s Celtic roughneck Jim Luscutoff, who planned, after his last game, to administer a physical beating to the coach who had so tormented him over the years. But at the last moment, approaching Auerbach with harmful intent, Luscutoff broke down, wept, hugged his coach and told Red how much he owed him and loved him.

What happens in Texas Tech practices, behind closed doors? The father of a Texas Tech freshman reports that Knight sucker-punched one of his starters for missing a defensive rotation, but it was his son whose minutes Michael Smith is now usurping.

Let’s talk about my problem

My outrage is of course as fueled by my own feelings about Knight, perhaps in mirror-like fashion to the way that his brethren leap to his defense. I simply cannot tolerate people’s tolerance for this boorish lout and see no justification for it in the undeniable fact that Knight may be an effective, even an excellent, coach. My argument seemed airtight to me, but no position ever really is.

"How is this situation different from the verbal abuse that so many coaches deliver?" challenges my friend Cindy, originally South African and an outstanding athlete in two sports, with a similarly athletically gifted daughter.

With such food, can thought really starve? A good shot to the head can make ya ponder, and the heart grow fonda. I said ponder, not pander. Who knows any more? The media have me confused. I’ve taken too many shots to the head to tell.



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