There's a sound file of Indiana University's basketball coach, Bob Knight, that's become a staple on Web sites run by full-time Knight-haters (i.e. University of Kentucky fans.) It's a tirade captured while he verbally undressed players for what he considered to be a shoddy practice effort.

For fans, it's a rare fly-on-the-wall moment that takes them behind the locker-room doors and lets them listen in on how big-time college basketball feels when the ESPN cameras are not around.

For literally hundreds of IU players past and present though, the tape simply captured an unpleasant ritual played out countless times since Knight the taskmaster arrived on the picturesque Bloomington, Ind., campus in 1971, quickly turning the school into a hoops powerhouse and becoming a Hoosier legend in his own time.

But until you listen for yourself and hear the hostility, the vein-popping anger and the resentment (not to mention the vulgarities) pour out of Knight's mouth, it's hard to really understand the man's ferocious, almost inhuman temper. Yet even from reading the text of the diatribe, what's so telling, aside from how he relishes his godlike ability to torment and threaten his players, is that the anger's all about Knight, about how his players have wronged him and made his life miserable:

Now I am tired of this shit. I'm sick and fucking tired of an 8-10 record. I'm fucking tired of losing to Purdue. I'm not here to fuck around this week. Now you may be, but I'm not. Now I am gonna fucking guarantee you, that if we don't play up there Monday night, you aren't gonna believe the next four fucking days. Now I am not here to get my ass beat on Monday. Now you better fucking understand that right now. This is absolute fucking bullshit. Now I'll fucking run your ass right into the ground. I mean I'll fucking run you, you'll think last night was a fucking picnic. I had to sit around for a fucking year with an 8-10 record in this fucking league and I mean you will not put me in that fucking position again, or you will goddamn pay for it like you can't fucking believe. Now, you better get your head out of your ass.

That cult recording sprang to mind in the wake of the latest allegation aired by CNN/Sports Illustrated that the mercurial Knight had choked one former player and verbally abused scores of others. Those accusations, coupled with the steady stream of top recruits who have fled the Indiana campus for more humane destinations, are just the latest in a string of on- and off-the-court embarrassments that threaten to tarnish what had been a brilliant coaching career.

But as is Knight's custom, he's refused to apologize for his actions. ("I'm not sure just what the hell it is that I'm supposed to apologize for," said Knight, feigning confusion about the facts.) Instead he lashes out at his enemies, whether they're "bitter," "malcontent" ex-players who have the nerve to speak out, or the press corps that asks the questions. (Think of him as the Rudy Giuliani of college hoops.)

Knight argues he's immune to criticism because he's never been convicted of any NCAA recruiting violations and he molds decent citizens. And right there beside him overseeing the smear campaigns against any Knight critics are school officials who refuse to grasp reality and deal seriously with any of Knight's shameful episodes. "The president of IU's trustees, John Walda, is tucked so deeply into Knight's pocket that he comes equipped with a key chain and lint," wrote Indianapolis Star sports columnist, and IU alum, Bill Benner.

Consequently, Indiana University, one of the country's great state-run educational institutions, now runs the risk of becoming a national joke at the willing hands of its blustering coach Knight. Knight should spare the school that embarrassment and call it quits.

His abhorrent behavior over the years would be one thing. (To recap: He once told Connie Chung during an interview, "If rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it"; he shoved a Louisiana State University fan into a garbage can; he threw a chair across the court as a Purdue player was getting ready to shoot a free-throw; and he was convicted in abstentia for punching a policeman in Puerto Rico where Knight was representing America as coach of the U.S. team at the Pan Am Games.)

But the new and more pressing concern is that Knight's basketball teams are no longer very good. With college hoop fanatics preparing for tonight's NCAA finals, Hoosier fans have had nothing to do but ponder next season. That's because Knight's team bowed out in the first round of the 64-team tourney, getting thoroughly embarrassed by Pepperdine University. (No giant killers, Pepperdine was beaten handily in the next round by a talented Oklahoma State squad.)

When IU lost in the first round in 1990, it was a shocking blow to the school and its loyal fans in a state where basketball reigns supreme. Now, those first-round NCAA Hoosier losses have become commonplace. Four times in the past six years Knight's teams haven't advanced to the second round, a truly dreadful record, considering big-time basketball programs are judged by how they perform during the crucial month of March.

At one point this year, IU's squad was ranked in the top 10 in the country, only to stumble through February and then lose its final three games of the year, ending at a mediocre 20-9. In a business where top coaches are supposed to have their teams peaking in early spring, Knight now accomplishes just the opposite, with his teams regularly folding during March Madness.

In fact, most coaches at a big-time Division I basketball school would be shown the door if they posted the paltry NCAA numbers Knight has recently racked up. But Knight, it appears, can do no wrong. The day after the humiliating Pepperdine loss, the Indianapolis Star ran an online poll asking readers what Knight's future should be; more than half checked off "Go get 'em next year."

No doubt loyal Hoosiers are still rewarding Knight for legendary accomplishments of years gone by. The pride of tiny Orrville, in northeast Ohio, Knight starred on Big 10 champion basketball teams at Ohio State University in the early '60s before becoming head coach of Army at 24. Since then he has amassed a staggering 763 career wins while claiming three national titles at Indiana, in '76 (lead by Hoosier great Quinn Buckner), '81 (Isiah Thomas) and '87 (Steve Alford). He coached that year's Pan Am Games team and a later Olympic team to gold medals.

And few purists would argue that over the years watching the Hoosiers play hasn't been a delight. The unselfish IU five weave their way through a double-screen offense that rewards patience and smarts, two things in short supply at many run-and-gun schools where discipline has been replaced by coddling, as coaches work furiously to pamper their star players hoping they'll remain on campus for at least two years before jumping to the NBA.

You'll see no shin-length shorts on Knight players or bodies blanketed with tattoos. At Indiana there's a reason players' names are still nowhere to be found on the back of their jerseys; it's a team effort. And for a young fan like myself growing up in Indiana, worshipping the Cream and Crimson, staying up late on weeknights to watch the Hoosiers finish off Purdue, Michigan or Ohio State, and spending arctic snow days shoveling outdoor courts in order to play 3-on-3, it was impossible not to worship Knight and relish his team's aura of excellence and invincibility.

But recently, win or lose, it's been painful to watch the Hoosiers go through their joyless motions on the court, with players seemingly motivated more out of fear of Knight's potential wrath, than love of the game. (Perhaps that's why so few IU stars cut it in the NBA; Knight seems to sap their passion for the game and creativity.) And with yet another late-season collapse, it seems the yearlong mental strain Knight unleashes has become too much for even some of the most talented and dedicated student athletes to endure.

The problem for Knight (aka The General) isn't that he's simply a throwback to another era when tough guys prowled the sidelines, demanding respect and spraying the court with profanity. Watch University of Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins on TV and lip-read the "fucks" that fly out of his mouth. You think workouts with him are pleasant? And look at Temple University's John Chaney, another old-school disciplinarian known to drag players in for pre-dawn practices following disappointing losses the night before.

Chaney, like Knight, refuses to change his ways simply to accommodate today's modern athlete and is justifiably proud of the type of men his system molds. And like Knight, Chaney once publicly embarrassed his university when he let his anger run wild. It happened during a 1994 post-game press conference when Chaney physically attacked the young, cocky University of Massachusetts basketball coach, John Calipari, who had unlocked Temple's mysterious matchup zone defense and made a habit of beating Temple teams year in and year out. Unlike Knight though, Chaney quickly, and passionately, apologized to his players, to his school and to Calipari. Chaney has since resumed his role as Temple's most respected public ambassador.

Increasingly, Knight's been unable to see the value of public or private contrition, which may explain the player exodus. Since 1995, nine players have transferred to other schools, including such Indiana household names as native son Luke Recker and high school All-American, 7-foot center Jason Collier. Almost all of the nine cited Knight's abusive behavior as the reason for their exit.

The coach insists the team's transfer rate is lower than the national average. But that's when Knight looks at his 29-year run at IU, not since the floodgates opened in '95. (Because Division I athletes must sit out a year when they transfer, the move is not taken lightly, and it's almost unheard of for high-profile, All-American recruits to jump ship.)

Rather than address the problem, Knight and the university have simple hunkered down. Just look at how the two teamed up and responded to the troubling CNN/Sports Illustrated piece, which included on-camera interviews from former players who transferred, such as Neil Reed, who claimed Knight choked him.

Also interviewed was Richard Mandeville, a player who never left IU but claimed that one day at practice Knight emerged from a bathroom stall, pants around his ankles, brandishing dirty toilet paper and insisting that was how the team was playing. Despite the fact that Knight declined several interview requests from CNN/Sports Illustrated (Amazingly IU's president declined to be interviewed based solely on the fact that Knight had refused; who's running that university?), that didn't stop Knight or the university from spinning furiously, even before the report aired.

Calling a news conference in hopes of mounting a preemptive strike against the report, IU basketball flack Todd Starowitz, suffering from a warped sense of self-importance, suggested cryptically that CNN/Sports Illustrated producers had been carrying around a Knight grudge for years, just waiting for the right time to unleash it on the public: "People involved in the piece had it out for coach Knight for upwards of 15 years, back actually to when Indiana played North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament in 1984," he reported.

That wasn't the worst of it. At the same briefing, when asked about criticism by tenured Indiana University English and American studies professor Murray Sperber ("I call Knight the emperor of Indiana"), Starowitz simply answered, "I don't know who he is." What a shock.

But the wagons were just beginning to circle. Soon a letter was being passed out to members of the press. It was written by a mother of a Knight basketball camper who complained that Reed had once used profanity when dealing with her son five years ago. More dirt? How about freshly Xeroxed copies of old press accounts that described how Mandeville was allowed to return to the team after an "alcohol-related incident prior to his senior season." (Again, Rudy would be proud.)

Meanwhile, as part of the university's Keystone Kops routine, Steve Downing, associate athletic director and director of student services, issued a statement reminding people that the university had investigated Reed's claim of physical abuse in 1997 and found no wrongdoing. "How is it possible for everything to have changed three years later?" he wondered. So if nothing had changed and IU was backing Knight, why did IU Athletic Director Clarence Doninger tell the Associated Press that the school was going to reexamine the Reed case?

Then IU players A.J. Guyton and Michael Lewis were paraded before the microphones to talk trash about their former teammates. "[Reed] transferred to Southern Mississippi and halfway through the season his dad [the coach] was fired, so obviously there's some kind of problems there with Neil and his father and neither of them want to take responsibility for that," said Lewis.

What about Mandeville, who never transferred and stuck it out at IU? "I think he came in as a very highly recruited player and never really played. I'm sure he was disappointed in his development as a player and if he thinks that is coach's fault ... Now he's trying to put blame on somebody," added Lewis.

So these are the leaders of tomorrow Knight is so proud to have shaped? Young men who understand instinctively that when someone attacks, you publicly malign them by assigning motivations and questioning their character? How sad.

Simultaneously, Knight was showing his boys how the smear (and non-denial denial) was really done. The day after the CNN/SI piece ran, Knight sent out invitations to local Indiana press only (minus the state's largest paper, the Indianapolis Star) to hear his side of the story.

"Sometimes I kind of grab a player," Knight conceded to a local TV affiliate. "Maybe I grabbed Neil Reed by the shoulder. Maybe I took him by the back of the neck, I don't know. I don't remember everything I've ever done in practices." Knight even called up ESPN to see if IU alum and TV hoops commentator Quinn Buckner would walk him through some questions. Buckner wisely stayed clear of that spin-patrol assignment. (A week after the CNN/SI story ran, Knight did receive kid-glove treatment from former SI writer and longtime Knight admirer Frank DeFord who interviewed Knight, his wife and son for HBO's "Real Sports.")

The next day, meeting with the press gathered for the NCAA tournament games in Buffalo, N.Y., to presumably talk about the upcoming Pepperdine matchup, Knight instead uncorked a 20-minute self-congratulatory monologue on the wonders of the Indiana University basketball program.

Once again he bragged about the outstanding graduation rate his players enjoy, and his clean recruiting record. He also noted with pride that the basketball team had raised $5 million for the university's library, which sounds nice. But how much money, for instance, has Knight pocketed from running his lucrative summer basketball camp at IU, staffed by team players? Nearly 50,000 kids have spun through those turnstiles over the past three decades. And with weekly tuition now up to $500 per camper, Knight could probably help construct several new university libraries if he wanted to.

Meanwhile, Knight wondered why he should apologize for himself or his program. "If my kids left and were on the bread line or they were selling drugs or they were in jail for one thing or another, then I'd really have some questions about what the hell my methods were all leading to," said Knight.

Exactly which big time college basketball programs are producing convicted felons who pass their time begging for food and scoring drugs, he didn't say. (Duke? Kansas? UCLA? Syracuse? Stanford?) And does Knight really think IU is the only place in America where boys arrive to play basketball and leave four years later as educated young men?

More importantly, Knight wanted to punch some holes in the CNN/SI allegations. Despite having refused to participate, Knight complained about which sources producers used and how they refused to talk to former players with anything positive to say about Knight's program. The fact is the first two people who appeared on camera were former IU players who praised Knight's generosity and warmth.

As for explaining away players critical of Knight, that was easy: sour grapes. "You could go to any school in America and you could find kids that were unhappy, that were malcontents, were really bitter about their experience basically because they hadn't gotten to play very much or they weren't as good as people thought they were going to be."

Transfer Reed was a bitter malcontent? That's hard for Hoosier fans to imagine since they recall how the gritty Reed, a slow, short, white kid from Louisiana, showed extraordinary courage floor-marshaling the team while playing one season with a separated shoulder.

As the press briefing in Buffalo wound down, Knight, who took just three questions from reporters, was asked if he regretted how he had treated any of his players.

Knight: "Sure, I have a regret about how I treat my wife once in a while. I mean, I'm a long way from being perfect Are you? Well, what's your answer? I'm asking you. Are you perfect?"

Reporter: "No, no, I'm not."

Knight: "Good, I'm glad we're in the same boat."

No doubt Knight, who despises the press, enjoyed the brief exchange, content he had gotten in the last word. But the final word actually came the next night when his Hoosier team, looking drained, demoralized and ill-prepared, limped through the loss to Pepperdine.

That's the real reason why it's time for Knight to show some Hoosier pride and resign.