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Time for Knight to go
Posted: Monday May 15, 2000 05:18 PM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum touches on a Hot Button issue each Monday on CNNSI.com. After you read Jack's take, give us yours. If you think Indiana University president Myles Brand should send Bob Knight to the unemployment line, start nodding your head in agreement. But if you hold the opinion that Knight is a victim of some kind of conspiracy and that he stands for everything good in sports, then open your mind for a couple of minutes. First, take the press out of the Knight equation. Assume that no one cares that Knight treats us like dogs and deprives his players -- the ones he pretends to care so much about -- of positive publicity by denying access. Take Neil Reed out of the equation, too. Call the former Hoosier guard a whiny, whistle-blowing weasel who doesn't adapt well to, ahem, "imaginative" coaching techniques. Let's say that Knight shouldn't be fired for anything he's ever done to his players or to the press. You know what? He should still be fired. And it's not even a close call.
Most of all, this is a man who failed to place a simple telephone call to one of his former players, Luke Recker, after Recker was in a serious car accident that left his girlfriend paralyzed. Every other coach in the Big Ten did so. That's only a partial list of Knight's non-press, non-player-related transgressions. This is a man who is an utter failure as a human being, a man who has brought disgrace upon all right-thinking people at the university he is supposed to represent. Stop believing that Bob Knight stands for the old, traditional values, that he stands -- brave and alone -- against some kind of permissive tide. He doesn't. He stands for things that were never good in our sports culture, things like being a bully, managing through intimidation and, perhaps most reprehensibly, spreading joylessness and scorn in a game that is supposed to be about baskets and balls and fun. If Knight is fired, trust me on this: The game will not miss him for a minute, and the quality of life at good ol' Indiana U will go up immediately and immeasurably. Sports Illustrated senior writer Jack McCallum will contribute a Hot Button issue every Monday on CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the
writer.
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