Early Line on the Early Line: Eight Months
"The General Marches On With A Warning"
MAY 15, 2000
Mike DeCourcy
The Sporting News
INDIANAPOLIS -- Bob Knight was about as far removed as possible from the news conference called to discuss his future as Indiana?s basketball coach, which is one way to assure his tenure with the Hoosiers lasts as long as he would like.
In the future, Knight will be forced to exercise "appropriate decorum and civility" in dealing with the media. There may be no greater threat to his continued employment.
Reporters who squeezed into a hotel conference room Monday afternoon -- while Knight jetted off to Scotland -- laughed when IU president Myles Brand used that phrase.
Many of those who have witnessed numerous Knight outbursts and tirades, or those performance art pieces he unveils each year at the NCAA Tournament, are convinced he will be unable to last long under the "zero-tolerance policy" that Indiana has instituted for Knight.
Seeing as how the NCAA's drive to remove gambling on college sports from the Nevada casinos is only on the pace lap, the legal books ought to make one more college basketball killing by offering this proposition: over-and-under betting on how many months The General lasts without losing his cool and, subsequently, his job.
Early line on the early line: eight months.
Of all the aspects of his new constrictions that will be a challenge to Knight, managing his dealings with the media will be most difficult.
It is unlikely he can avoid reporters completely; if he were to make a policy of non-attendance at postgame news conferences, he would no doubt anger the people who have permitted him to remain on the job.
That means he will have to face their questions periodically, and there is no question that will mean frequently being challenged by vengeful reporters who would love to be able to sit at the bar and claim responsibility for asking the question that led to the meltdown that got Bob Knight fired.
He will be prodded in this fashion, and it may happen often. The depth of media resentment toward Knight was obvious during the press conference announcing the sanctions against him. Reporters hammered IU president Myles Brand for choosing not to dismiss the coach and presenting him with "one last chance."
It wasn't out of desperation to save his basketball program that Brand acted as he did. Knight is a diminished asset to Indiana. His coaching performance over the past half-dozen years, with no NCAA Sweet 16 appearances or Big Ten titles in that stretch, has not been sufficient for the administration to continue tolerating his behavior.
At 59, his age would be a factor to any school that would be interested in hiring him away from IU. Only the most desperate major-conference school would risk the negative publicity that would accompany his hiring.
He is not going anywhere, in other words, unless IU sends him away.
It wasn't out of fear that Brand kept Knight, because Knight had to humble himself to agree to the difficult conditions set before him, including a $30,000 fine, three-game suspension and several apologies.
Brand presented a perfectly logical, rational explanation for taking the course he did. He admitted IU had not dealt effectively with Knight in the past and had been complicit in creating the problem the coach personifies today.
Because the university had been too tolerant of Knight's actions, and because the two-month investigation of his conduct uncovered nothing that went outside the pattern of Knight's aberrant behavior, the only reasonable course for the university would be to set strict standards for his future conduct.
This did not satisfy reporters who came to witness a beheading, and Knight can expect this will not end their crusade.
If Knight is to survive the five to six seasons that will likely be necessary for him to surpass Dean Smith for the NCAA Division I career victories, he will need to hold his temper through any number of efforts by media folks designed to embarrass him on the public stage.
He must learn two words that could allow him to survive when he's pushed to the edge: "Next question."
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Mike DeCourcy covers college basketball for The Sporting News. Drop him a line at mailto:decourcy@sportingnews.com |
