Knight in fading armor gets last reprieve

by Jon Greenberg

Countenance.

That is Bobby Knight's greatest enemy. Frank Deford stated this in 1983 when he wrote a story about the beleaguered coach for Sports Illustrated. Knight claimed then that he is often misunderstood because people fail to look past countenances.

Today it is not hard to understand Knight's visage. Knight's mug conveys the look of gratitude, like the appearance of a man who just had his death sentence overturned. For that is what happened yesterday when Indiana University president Myles Brand gave Knight a slap on the wrist after a seven-week "coach-hunt" that saw Knight go from miserly figurehead to hated bully. Knight was given zero-tolerance probation for the laundry list of heinous acts of which he was accused.

But it was not merely an old, fading basketball coach that was on trial for these past two months, it was sport unto itself. Whether you love him or hate him, Indiana men's basketball Head Coach Bobby Knight is the embodiment of sport, wrapped into a tight red sweater and wearing a pasty, sour face. He represents all that is good and bad in sports, from his unwavering desire to win to his boorish public demeanor.

Knight, the epitome of the "man you love to hate," easily could have folded under the public pressure, but he didn't. That is why he's a winner. The man could have taken his three NCAA titles, his Olympic gold medal and his 763 wins – good for second all-time to Dean Smith – and gone home. But he didn't. He always has been a man cloaked by mystery – Batman on the hardwood.

No one can say why a man at the height of his career would punch a police officer, like he did in Puerto Rico in 1979. It's an enigma why this role model would tell Connie Chung, "If rape is inevitable, (a woman should) relax and enjoy it," as he did in 1988. And no one knows for sure why he is willing to accept a probation that silences his abrasive tongue.

Knight is a conflicted man. A figurehead of respect and discipline who still goes by a child's name. A man who demands ultimate respect, but is quick to act like a buffoon in the public spotlight. Why does he act in such a manner, and why do people continue to put up with him?

I can offer only one answer: Bobby Knight is a winner, and that is why I'm glad he gets another year in the spotlight.

To keep his job, Knight now has to be the model of decorum, a task that might prove too difficult for him.

"Excuse me, Mr. Referee? I believe that you missed the call because your gluteus maximus is lodged up your cranium."

This is a new challenge for a man who has lacked one since he won his third NCAA title; acting civilized in a world where hostility previously dominated. His countenance will have to resemble Larry Hunter rather than Bo Schembechler.

"Dane Fife, will you please stop turning the ball over, I’m getting quite miffed."

The bottom line to this never-ending debate is simple: Knight is a good coach, one worthy to leave on his own clock, not at the insistence of faceless university trustees or whiny hacks like Neil Reed and Richard Mandeville.

I used to be a Knight hater. I thought he was an overrated fossil who relied on fear to inspire his charges. Then I looked past his appearance and into his life. I read John Feinstein’s masterpiece A Season on the Brink and Deford’s SI article, and I gleaned the hidden brilliance behind Knight's surly façade.

He will sit his three-game suspension, pay his $30,000 fine and apologize to the would-be plaintiffs who wished to bring about a public kangaroo court. He will bite his tongue because he has won, and that is all Bobby Knight knows how to do, win.

Greenberg is a junior journalism major that respects Knight from afar and is glad he doesn’t work for the Indiana Daily Student. "T" him up at jg371997.