Posted on 02/04/2004 6:06:28 AM PST by sinkspur
Well, now we know who really runs Texas Tech University, don't we?
Anything else, perhaps, that coach Bob Knight would like the administration to do?
Wash his car? Buff his posterior?
With an adoring ovation ringing in his ears, Knight was back on the Texas Tech sideline against Baylor on Tuesday night. Knight's original "five-day suspension" for verbally assaulting chancellor David Smith had lasted, at best, maybe four hours.
"I regret that the situation turned out the way it did," Knight said in a statement released by the university. "I look forward to finishing this season in a strong fashion, and I am glad the situation is behind me so that I can return to the business of coaching."
Regrets? The only regret that Knight professes to have is how the episode "turned out," which is something that any convicted felon could say as he was being strapped into the electric chair.
Knight also declared that the "situation" was behind him. (Translation: Smith had better not ever try to mess with the coach again).
With his latest incident "behind him," coach Bob Knight has assumed the throne at Texas Tech.
Notice that Knight didn't issue anything remotely resembling an apology for the incident that occurred at a Lubbock supermarket.
He doesn't do apologies. He throws chairs. He disrespects chancellors. He bullies TV interviewers and arena managers.
But don't ever expect him to say that he's sorry.
Instead, Knight apparently used his considerable leverage Tuesday to turn the tables on Smith. The chancellor reportedly was only trying Monday at lunchtime to issue Knight a compliment, and silly fellow -- he thought that Knight actually cared.
When the tongue-lashed Smith tried to impose a suspension on the coach Tuesday, Knight presumably reminded everyone whose basketball team had a 16-4 record.
Whereupon, athletic director Gerald Myers issued the pronouncement: "The matter has been resolved in the best interest of the university."
It was the funniest line that anyone pronounced all day.
You bring home the dog, you bring home the fleas.
Myers, of all people, had to know that when he sloppily handled the firing of James Dickey and brought Knight out of coaching exile three years ago. But his rap sheet in Lubbock, topped off by verbally lambasting the school's chief administrator -- try that one at work sometimes, and see how long you still have a job -- suggests that Knight hasn't changed a bit.
He's still the bully, threatening the arena manager, belittling the ESPN reporter and showing no respect for the people who run the university.
This, though, is what it had come to for Texas Tech three years ago. Its brief run through the Big 12 Conference had shaken the school's confidence.
It sold its basketball soul to the devil.
I know, I know. Knight took all those Indiana teams to the Final Four. Knight graduates his kids. He runs a clean program. Knight raises money for the university. He helps old ladies to cross the street.
Blah-blah-blah.
So why does he insist upon embarrassing his university?
Knight would answer that question, as he often does, by relating some demeaning anecdote about the media. Probably R-rated.
It's the old you-don't-know-me defense. The problem is, Knight probably owns the most recognized coaching face in America. His words, both the mundane and the harsh, are quoted daily. His missteps are well-chronicled.
Oh, we know Bobby Knight, all right.
The media needs to mind its own business, the e-mails after this latest incident -- from Lubbock and from Indiana, mostly -- will tell us. Leave Knight alone, they'll write. Knight wins.
It's the same message, sadly, that the chancellor of Texas Tech University probably got Tuesday. Smith likely didn't want to be known as the bow tie who ruined the basketball program, and who chased off the booster contributions.
Deja Indiana, all over again.
The bully got his way Tuesday, just as he did for almost all of those years when he coached the Hoosiers. It can work, provided the bully wins.
The irony is that Knight never opened his iron head to hear Chancellor Smith's message. Considering his checkered past, Knight was doing better with his behavior.
Never mind now, though.
As of Tuesday, the chancellor is powerless.
Somebody maybe call a dogcatcher?
Perhaps you'd rather date the guy with the bow tie who lives by the code of the politically correct.
It's one thing not be 'politically correct', it is another thing to be abusive. For all of Knights talents and drive, he does need to keep his anger in check.
Alumni associations run colleges. Everybody knows that.
Your adoration of "coach" would continue if he had axe-murdered the chancellor.
Knight knows he can get away with this stuff when he has a winning record. And Tech knew it was getting an emotional defective when it hired Knight.
You never hear, at least not much nationally, about the good things Coach Knight does.
Not so. It's poor of you to say it. Perhaps you and Bob have something in common.
John Dillinger was good to his mother.
I have no sympathy either, if he won't stand up to the alumni association. Most alumni would support Mullah Omar for coach if he could win basketball games.
LOL, Knight could not last one week in the NBA with his ego and all the players egos. Beisdes Knight hates NBA basketball.
Knight is a truely great coach and does a lot of great things. But Knight must keep his anger under control. Its a real problem.
As I said on a couple of threads yesterday," it's like a time machine, only the names & places have changed" .
It's a good sign though that the press is actually going to call out the spots on the leopard, its a far cry from the way "coach" was cowed to by the Indiana media for all those years.
That's the way Knight took it, but that is not what was said. Knight was too sensitive to the comment and did not take it in the light it was said or being offered. It was a misunderstanding, and Knight over-reacted. If you watched many Knight interviews, you can see how Knight sometimes looks for insults when they are not there.
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