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A Hard Day's Knight

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Rudy Can Fail

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Double Vision

5/17/00 4:50 p.m.
A Hard Day’s Knight
Hoosier Values?

Robert A. George is an editorial page writer
for the New York Post------------------------------------RAGGEDmail@aol.com

o, there’s a videotape, showing a grown man with his hand around the neck of a teenage basketball player. However, for the defenders of the grown man, that tape is considered exonerating evidence: Hey, at least he didn’t choke the kid!

Welcome to the world of big-time college athletics.

The individuals in question are University of Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight and former player Neil Reed. Reed’s accusation that Knight choked him opened up an investigation into the background of Knight. Reed had undermined his case by stating that he and Knight had to be separated by assistant coaches. That didn’t happen, as the tape clearly demonstrates. But absent Reed’s exaggeration, any reasonable person would be outraged by the sight of Knight with his hand around a student’s neck. And yet: Knight was defended regardless. The investigation ended this week with a determination to suspend Knight for three days next year and Knight’s agreement to abide by a "zero tolerance" policy on further violent actions and outbursts. This being a sentimental era, of course, Knight also delivered a half-hearted "apology" for his "temper."

Is this, as Michael Ledeen claimed on this site, the end result of the "Borking" of Bobby Knight? No, not at all. To the extent that a political comparison can be made, why don’t we just say that Indiana President Myles Brand’s decision to keep Knight around is the greatest "profile in courage" since Arlen Specter voted "Not Proven" in Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial?

Because Knight loves to get in the face of the media, conservatives such as Ledeen feel the need to embrace him: "Like those who savaged Bork, Knight's attackers hate him because he is uncompromisingly conservative in his methods, and makes no secret of his contempt for the popular press and their fashionable slogans."

This is a fallacious argument. Most individuals in the public eye — politicians, entertainers, etc. — have a love-hate relationship with the media. They use the media to get their message or product out, but then complain when those same media expose information that those individuals would prefer not to address. The dance goes on continually. Because the mainstream media treat conservatives abominably, conservatives have nothing but contempt for the media; Knight is the same way.

On the other hand, Bill Clinton, too, despises the media: He blames all of his problems on a media that attacks him (in his view) "unfairly." Thus, his much-praised (by the media!) White House Correspondents Dinner performance a few weeks ago was a thinly-disguised poke in the eye to all of his critics. He mocked the legitimate investigators as well as the media that reported (to the extent that it did) his ethical and legal lapses. Clinton refuses to see that his problems are clearly of his own making.

So, it’s great if someone holds the media in contempt, but don’t assume automatically that that person might be a barometer of conservative values. Knight is being Borked? Hardly. Bork never demonstrated such a temper that he threw things at his secretary and had to be physically restrained from the terrified woman. That has happened with Bobby Knight. The same individual who got between Knight and his secretary — IU’s athletic director, Clarence Doninger — also was on the receiving end of Knight’s wrath earlier this year. This even though Doninger has defended Knight on numerous occasions.

Okay, perhaps conservatives should give Knight a pass for the time he ordered his team off the floor in the middle of an exhibition game against the then Soviet Union, because he didn't like the officiating. But how about assaulting a police officer? How about throwing a chair onto the court — in the middle of the game? Or how about going onto the court to get into the face of a Big Ten official? Or how about arrogantly throwing IU’s president, i.e., his ultimate boss, out of a practice?

Thus, to the degree that Knight is "hated," it is largely well-deserved. Over a long period of time, Knight has repeated one simple pattern: He is an individual who recognizes no authority other than his own and will steamroll anyone he has to in order to get his way. Hmm...Now who does that sound like?

By all rights, any one of the above actions should have resulted in a severe sanction if not outright dismissal, for Knight. And it’s not as if there were no precedent for this: Nearly twenty years ago, Ohio State’s legendary football coach Woody Hayes was canned for physically attacking a player.

Has Knight been successful at Indiana? Yes. Has the school remained "clean" during that time? Yes. Have students largely graduated during that time? Yes. But aside from the fact that this is what a coach is supposed to be responsible for, there are many coaches whose careers have overlapped Knight’s who have not been involved in one incident even vaguely similar to the multitude of Knight offenses: former North Carolina coach Dean Smith, former Georgetown coach John Thompson, and current Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, to name just a few. They prove that a coach can be successful without resorting to physical assault or indulging in a pattern of boorish behavior.

And yet, given all this background, Knight is given a de facto slap on the wrist — with the understanding that the next time he loses his temper he might face termination. Next time! The "rule of law" might not come into play here, but the rules of propriety and basic human decency should. They are clearly being ignored here by an arrogant bully who gets to have the last laugh. So much for Hoosier "heartland" values.

Just because someone is "old school" in their coaching methods and "uncompromising" in their principles doesn’t mean that that person is worth defending. There are many admirable people who truly get "Borked" by the media. The term is wasted on a Bobby Knight.

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