| | Well, they sure threw the pamphlet at Bob Knight this time, didn't
they?
Then again, what else was there for Indiana University president Myles
Brand to do but give him one more chance ... or four ... or eleven,
depending on the team's record, the importance of the person offended and
how alumni solicitations are going.
|
“ |
At least (IU president Myles) Brand admitted that
the school has 'a systemic problem' in regard to its basketball
coach, an admission of galactic
understatement. ” |
A three-game suspension ... a $30,000 fine ... a stern warning along
the lines of, "If you do something, and we catch you, and enough powerful
people complain, we'll really be mad this time" ... that lone figure you
see dancing and singing through the streets of Bloomington is R. Montgomery
Knight.
Then again, people are creatures of habit, and a quarter-century of
Knight having his run of the school is hard to break.
The fact is, based on IU's traditional record of zero lack of tolerance,
Knight should not have been fired, at least not by the titans who sat behind
the table Monday and tried to make this trimming of toenails seem like 100
lashes.
They and their predecessors let Knight roam the land unfettered by the
strictures of other university employees. Had he been called in and
reprimanded years ago, the first time he crossed the line that Brand and
trustees president John Walda said he can cross no more, this shining example
of administrative action never would have been necessary.
At least Brand admitted that the school has "a systemic problem" in
regard to its basketball coach, an admission of galactic understatement.
The systemic problem remains, though, as shown by the fact that the men
who judged him so generously were the same ones who committed extraordinary
gymnastic poses over the years not to see what finally was tied around a rock
and hurled through the administration building's bay window.
Had Knight been fired, they, too, would have had to go, for the simple reason that they changed the rules by which he was asked to perform at IU. He had been allowed to act as he has, and had been even before that first national championship in 1976. For these earnest-looking
invertebrates to turn on him now would have looked like caving in to public
pressure, which they have so successfully resisted on his behalf up to now.
Yes, Knight is a man of principle, and of principles. He has performed
enough good deeds on behalf of those who could endure his darker side to make
him a tragic figure of sorts. In some ways, he is almost Clintonian in that
any discussion of his presidency must include the sentence, "Think of what
he could have been if he hadn't ... "
|  | | Myles Brand: "We cannot change the past, but we can shape the future." |
And then you fill in the blank you choose.
Then again, Walda couldn't help but slip into a little Clinton himself
when he responded to a question about the Neil Reed incident with this
deathless bit of legerdespeak:
"It depends on what you mean by the word "choking,' " Walda said.
With this as one of the high points of Monday's press conference, it is almost impossible to imagine that Brand means what he says when he uses words
like "zero tolerance," or "up to an including termination."
Oh, he did strike a properly outraged pose when those blood-thirsty
media hyenas all but called him spineless to his face, but the plain truth is
that he is not the man to throw out words like "zero tolerance," not when
he and his fellow administrators essentially have told Knight that he can
show zero tolerance to those who have offended him.
He understood that firing Knight meant reaping a whirlwind he could not
reasonably withstand. By not firing him, Brand would only be scorned by those
who already have done so. He couldn't win those people back, not after the
miles of slack he had given Knight along the years.
He could, however, create a whole new group of enemies inside the school
and the state, which would leave him with his immediate family, including the
pets, as his entire constituency. Those of us who thought Knight could not
withstand this plainly misunderstood the depth of the IU administration's
fealty to its basketball coach.
Brand said at one point, as he was slapping on the last coat of
whitewash, "We cannot change the past, but we can shape the future." He was
trying to make the claim that Knight had to be forgiven for all the things he
already did but would judged harshly for what he might do from here on.
Nobody was buying who wasn't already predisposed to do so.
Then again, just as Knight has been acting in character all these years,
so was Brand. One of Indiana's charms is its resistance to change for
change's sake, especially change demanded by those who live outside the
state.
Thus, for those of us who thought Knight finally had hit the wall, this
proved an invaluable education. The firewalls remain intact, the emperor
survives, and if he did not grow stronger as a result of this brush with
ignominy, neither did he grow any weaker. Not when those given the task of
disciplining him were the same ones who couldn't be bothered to do so when it
might have done everyone some good.
Ray Ratto, a columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. | |
ALSO SEE
Knight to remain as Indiana's coach
Katz: Trustees change tune
Garber: Belichick sees different Knight
 Vitale: Time to move on
Katz: All eyes on Knight starting now
Kreidler: Promises of another dark Knight
Bilas: Knight, IU both to blame
Stats Class: Knight in the NCAA Tournament
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