Good night, Knight
All week long I've been watching
the big media flap about Bobby Knight, who lost his
day job as basketball coach at Indiana U. last week
after he grabbed a college boy and read him the riot
act. The Knight story made me realize something I
never thought about before -- I could have been a
college coach. Fuck, yeah. I would have loved it.
Obviously, you don't need the
talent to play the game yourself. Knight's a fat guy
with grey hair who can't dribble unless he's eating
soup. I've watched too many replays of Bobby
Knight's antics over the past few days, and I
couldn't help notice that he never once touched the
ball. Not once.
He touched his players, though. He
choked the shit out of one guy at least a foot
taller than him. And get this. This young, tall,
well-built basketball player didn't do jack shit. He
took it like a puss. Afterward, Knight must have had
himself a nice Scotch and soda and thought, "I get
to yell, choke and bitch-slap my basketball players
who could kill me if they wanted to, and yet I get
away with it. I fuckin' love this job."
Who wouldn't love it? Provided you
don't coach at the professional level, where the
players are more likely to choke the shit out of the
coach. Or have you whacked.
And Knight's not the only good
coach gone bad. I've seen footage of Woody Hayes
knocking the shit out of a Clemson football player
and Frank Kush slapping around one of his football
players. And you know not one of them could take the
player in a fair fight.
Still, I kind of feel sorry for
Knight. Ha! Just kidding. Fuck Bobby Knight. If I
feel sorry for anybody, it's the Indiana basketball
players. Now they'll have to transfer to North
Carolina. Not good.
Some will say Knight got a raw
deal. After all, he was blindsided by an
antagonistic student, Kent Harvey. This youth (I
call him youth, since he exhibits criminal
tendencies) said, "What's up Knight?" As Knight
explained in his press conference, "You can call me
Mr. Knight or you can call me Coach Knight, but you
can't call me Knight. You've got to respect your
elders."
I have a similar slogan. You can
call me buddy or you can call me guy. But you can't
call me Buddy Guy.
Some will say the incident was a
setup, since the kid happened to be the stepson of
one of Knight's more vocal critics, radio sports
evangelist Mark Shaw. Me? I don't think it was a
setup. Not after watching Keith Olbermann interview
Shaw on FoxSports. I believe Shaw when he says the
entire snafu was nothing more than a coincidence.
For had it been a setup, the kid could have done a
much better job.
"What's up, asshole? How's the zero
tolerance thing working out?" After that, all the
Harvey kid would need to do was make sure his
friend's handycam was rolling when Knight choked the
living shit out of him.
The weirdest thing about the
FoxSports interview was when Olbermann told Harvey:
"I understand. My mother was hit with one of Chuck
Knoblach's errant throws. Coincidences do happen."
No shit? Olbermann's mother got hit
by a baseball thrown by a Yankee head case second
baseman? How come no one tells me about these
things? Baby, that wasn't a coincidence, that was a
conspiracy. I don't buy the lone second baseman
theory at all. I think Knoblach turned to Derek
Jeter and said, "Look, it's Olbermann's mother.
Check this out."
I also watched the ESPN interview
with Knight and he didn't come off sympathetic to
me, especially when Knight turned to Jeremy Schaap
-- son of veteran sportscaster Dick Schaap -- and
said, "You got a long way to go to be as good as
your dad. You better keep that in mind."
Translation: Don't think I wouldn't
choke the living shit out of you too, microphone
boy.
Wow. I think I've gotten completely
derailed here. What was I going to say? Oh, yeah, I
was going to talk about what I would do if I were a
coach.
Not much, really. But I would write
a code of conduct called "Coach's Credo," engrave it
on a mahogany plaque, then hang it on my office
wall.
- 1) Coach is always right.
2) No one ever rats out Coach.
3) Coach will use whatever it takes to motivate
the team: yelling, screaming, throwing chairs,
right crosses, gunplay -- whatever it takes.
4) No player is allowed to retaliate on Coach.
Ever.
5) Each player must always remember to be grateful
that Coach is not gay or else there would be many
more rules, such as...
6) If the Coach wants to fuck you up the ass,
you've got to let him fuck you up the ass.
That should keep the kiddies in
line.
Here's the truth: Bobby Knight is
an old school college coach, blunt, loud, violent,
outspoken, arrogant and egotistical. But his
behavior is totally unacceptable. Why?
The fucker hasn't won a national
championship in over ten years. There's your zero
tolerance, baby.
* * *
STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This column aims to be funny. If you can
read anything else into it, you're on your own.
Link(s) Of The
Week
|