9/12/00 11:55 a.m.
Good Knight, Bob
It's the politics, stupid.

By Michael Ledeen, holder of the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, & author of Tocqueville on American Character

nyone who thinks Bob Knight was fired because he grabbed a kid's arm and lectured him on the proper way to address his elders should join Clinton Legacy, Inc., because they'll believe anything, so long as it's on TV or in the elite press. Bob Knight was fired for a combination of political reasons, some having to do with him, some totally extraneous.

The key to understanding the Knight purge is the incredible press conference held last Sunday by Indiana University president Myles Brand, in which he said that, even though the incident in question did not "rise to the level" of violating the "zero toleration" moral code the university had imposed on Knight, there had been other such incidents, and they were gonna fire him anyway. To be sure, none of the other incidents "rose to the level" either. But they were sick and tired of him, and so they were gonna fire him anyway. So, even though they really didn't even know the facts of the latest incident (the police investigation was scheduled to be completed on Tuesday), they didn't need to, because enough was enough and they were just gonna fire him anyway.

Those of us who spend our working hours analyzing politics and strategy know this kind of language: It is the language of the failed bureaucrat, looking for someone else to blame it on. The folks I talk to on the IU faculty have long felt that Brand's administration was a disaster for the university, even to the point where the music school, long one of America's finest, is now clearly sliding. They think Brand had gotten the word that he was going to be replaced in the next couple of years, and Brand is certainly smart enough to know that "friends of Knight" are not as likely to get decent university jobs as are "Knight slayers" in the PC-dominated world of contemporary American academia. By stabbing Knight in the belly, Brand has great enhanced his own career opportunities.

Then there are the trustees. They were furious with Knight, primarily because he had refused to do more than the required minimum appearances at public events, fundraisers, and the like. He did this because he knew that he would be provoked at all public events, and he wanted to survive as long as possible. Since Knight was the most famous man in Indiana, and for all his famous character defects arguably the most popular man in the state, and without doubt the most effective fundraiser in the state, this cost the trustees a lot in terms of money and prestige. They wanted Knight out because he had failed to show them proper deference. Rather like Knight with the wise-ass kid in Bloomington.

As I have argued before, Knight is a handy target for the media and academic mafias, both because of his intemperate outbursts and because of his conservative views. He is the first to admit he is a dinosaur, and he is certainly the wrong kind of coach for many of today's student athletes. But he is also a genius in his chosen field, a true leader of men, hyper-ethical in a field overrun with cheating, fraud, and payoffs, and a rare philanthropist in a world dominated by personal self-indulgence. Knight was one of the biggest contributors to Indiana's history department, and organized the chair for Professor Robert Byrnes, one of the greatest scholars of Russian Studies in the last century.

Should there not be room for such a person at a serious American university? His athletes loved him — they are now threatening to leave Indiana — and they came of their own free will, and that of their parents. Most of them were heavily recruited by other programs, and by other coaches with styles that fit the current standards. They certainly knew all about Knight's shortcomings. Why should they be deprived of the chance to learn the game from a great coach?

One final point: I believe that virtually every big-time coach, in college or professional sports, could have a dossier compiled on him every bit as damaging as the one on Knight. Last spring I attended the Final Four basketball playoffs in Indianapolis, and I saw Wisconsin's head coach tear into his players, publicly and vociferously, in a way equal to Knight's legendary outbursts. Coach Bennett grabbed his players' uniforms and arms, used colorful language, humiliated them in public, desperately trying to motivate them to play harder. I have never seen a single line in print about it, probably because Bennett, unlike Knight, does not tell the sportswriting mafia that they are fools and dolts.

Don't tell me they acted out of moral conviction. It's the politics, stupid.