King Kaufman's Sports Daily
A peewee football coach berating 5-year-olds and attacking a ref. Just Bob Knight being Bob Knight?
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Nov. 16, 2006 | If Bob Knight didn't exist it would be necessary to invent him as a commentariat jobs program.
Knight does something crazy and we spring to our tasks. ESPN puts the greatest hits into heavy rotation, the bullwhip and the chair throw, the head-butt and throat-grab, the "kiss my ass" speech, the "game face," the "relax and enjoy it" interview.
The haters hate, the apologists defend. We can all put food on the table and braces on Junior's choppers and Knight can go right on doing his thing. See you next time, Coach.
The machinery wheezed into motion this week when Knight chucked one of his Texas Tech players, Michael Prince, under the chin to get his attention during a timeout Monday.
I didn't feel like playing along this time. But now I've seen the video of a peewee football coach attacking an 18-year-old referee and knocking him unconscious at a game in Texas. The referee had ejected the coach for nonstop cursing at his players. Who are 5 and 6 years old.
I can't help wondering if there's a connection.
Zing! Fifty e-mails just got sent to me. Lemme just rebut 'em all real quick. 'Scuse me.
Dear apologists,I didn't just blame Bob Knight for some emotionally stunted lunatic in Corpus Christi working out his inadequacies on a bunch of kindergartners and a teenager. Thank you.
Love,
King
I still think there might be a connection, though.
I hadn't felt like writing about Knight because I have Knight fatigue. I've said my piece.
You know what you're getting when you hire him or go to play for him. He'll bully whoever he can, not just players but also secretaries and assistant coaches and reporters and lippy students and compliant administrators, anybody he feels he has the drop on. Most of those people don't sign up for that kind of treatment, but the players certainly do.
Any baller who complains about his treatment by Knight has nobody but himself to blame. Anyone good enough to even sit on the bench at a Big XII school like Texas Tech or a Big Ten school like Knight's former see-no-evil employer, Indiana, has plenty of options to play elsewhere. Coach Knight's methods were not a secret when today's fifth-year seniors were watching the Smurfs. Caveat athleta.