But here's the thing. There are more enablers out here than Texas Tech athletic director and Knight lapdog Gerald Myers, who said Knight did nothing wrong. There are all the insiders, the former coaches and players who have filled the airwaves this week saying this sort of thing goes on all the time, nothing to see here folks.
There are Prince and his parents, who all said the incident was no big deal, which it's their right to believe and say but if the kid didn't feel that way, would he speak up?
And then there's the rest of us, who just shrug our shoulders. Knight being Knight. Seen it. Talked about it. TiVo'd "Pardon the Interruption" about it.
Just because Bob Knight is Bob Knight, and he's been this way for so long, his behavior is accepted. Criticized, but also defended. A lot. Accepted. And while that doesn't create the world in which a coach of 5-year-old football players feels free to berate the referee, it contributes in a small way.
We can talk about that coach or we can talk about any of the other hundreds or thousands of out-of-control coaches and parents we've all seen at youth sports events. They're not all psychopaths. At least some of them are able to control themselves sometimes, just as Bob Knight does.
I daresay Knight never talked to his mother, his minister or his coaches the way he talks to players, referees and reporters. He decides when it's appropriate to get medieval on someone.
And all over the country, people are picking up cues from him and guys like him that that's how you do it, that's how you coach. And they're picking up cues from those of us in the commentariat that while the details might be debatable, the methods are OK.
I remember being 10 years old and playing right field for the Giants at North Venice Little League and thinking how much Mr. Valdez, the coach of the Pirates, looked like Earl Weaver when he argued with the umps. Was that a coincidence?
It wasn't just Knight fatigue that kept me from writing about him. I hadn't seen the video Monday night and I was misled by print-media reports that described the incident the way I did a few paragraphs ago.
I pictured Knight's uppercut to Prince's jaw as a gentle sort of thing -- silly me -- maybe not quite Rick lifting Ilsa's chin to say, "Here's looking at you, kid," but not exactly Tyson putting away Spinks either.
Knight lifted Prince's jaw. Flipped it. Pulled it up.
I've seen the video by now and so have you. He popped the kid on the chin. Punched him. With a relaxed hand, but it was a punch. Seen from behind, Prince's head snapping up looked exactly like a boxer's after he's been hit with an uppercut.
Prince is a big boy -- 6-7, 205 pounds -- and it wasn't exactly a haymaker. But the cameras caught him on the bench working his jaw around. Funny thing, he looked a little like Knight when he was making fun of the phrase "game face" years ago. But what he really looked like was a guy who just got punched in the jaw.
Put it this way. I know there was no real Ilsa and she didn't really get on any plane in Casablanca. But if she had, I don't think she'd have spent the flight trying to work the kinks out of her jaw after Rick's lifting of her chin.
Bob Knight punched his player.
I screwed up by letting him get away with it in this tiny little corner of the commentary world. Sure, it's a minor incident. Knight didn't really hurt the kid. But he's Bob Knight. Give him time.
That's what we're all doing. We're giving him time. And by doing so, we're giving permission to some messed-up loser to lay in to a bunch of kids who just wanted to have a little fun and play a little ball.
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About the writer
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon. Visit his column archive. You can e-mail him at king at salon dot com or visit his MySpace page.
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