Monday, March 26, 2001
Knight better than his image
VEVAY, Ind. — Eleven years later, Bob Knight wrote Winston Morgan a check for $6,000.
After Knight judged Morgan to be coasting through his junior season at Indiana, the erstwhile Hoosiers coach summoned Morgan to his office. “I'm taking away your scholarship,” Knight said.
Morgan could start at Division II or III, but he would not be getting a free ride his senior year at Indiana. He came back to IU as a walk-on. Knight never knew how Morgan paid his bills. Nor did he ask. Morgan showed up at an IU practice in 1997, 11 years later.
“Hey Winston,” Knight asked. “How'd you pay for school your senior year?”
“Coach, I worked about eight jobs and borrowed money from my dad.”
“How much altogether?”
About $4,000, Morgan said.
“Come to practice tomorrow,” Knight told him.
When Morgan arrived, Knight delivered the $6,000. “With interest,” Knight said.
It was a good story. May be Knight should tell it more often.
He offered it to a few hundred people here Sunday. They paid $20 or $25 apiece to listen to the new Texas Tech basketball coach talk at the Belterra Resort and Casino.
Bob Knight's biggest problem isn't that he's a horse's hind end. It's that most of the planet thinks he is. We live in a time of style and perception; Knight is lousy at both. The only way Knight would glow is if someone poured Three Mile Island on him.
He's not politic about it, either. He George Pattons his way through life. If image really is everything — and it's heading in that direction — Knight could win 1,000 games and graduate 99 percent of his players, and he'd still be The Guy Who Choked Neil Reed. That's a shame, because he's better than that by miles.
“I don't really apologize to anybody for the way I've coached,” he said Sunday. It
was an amazing statement, given the events of the past few years. But that's Knight. He doesn't help himself. Never has.
After the speech, I sat with Knight for 45 minutes, as he autographed memorabilia. For a guy who professes not to care about his image, Knight never tires of trying to explain himself.
“Could I have made it easier on myself by always being cooperative and available with the press? Sure.
“Al McGuire told me dealing with the press is a con game. Nobody disliked the press any more than he did. But he told them what they were going to like, made himself accessible to them. I think I could follow his advice for a day or so.”
He is enthusiastic about Texas Tech. They never spoke to him about a “conduct clause” in his contract, only about winning games, filling their new, 15,000-seat gym and the best places “to hunt quail and pheasant, and where I could go fishing.”
Knight said he's going to like it there, a big reason being “it's away from all the BS.” No big-city media thrashing about in his wake, making headlines out of hangnails. “I don't need that,” Knight said.
Knight had a shot for Mike Davis, the coach who replaced him in Bloomington: “I'm not sure in 29 years I ever lost 13 games (in a season) at Indiana.” He called the NCAA official who “blistered” him for picking NCAA tournament games on an Internet site “a moron” and said he had no qualms about speaking at a casino.
“Who's the NCAA's biggest partner in the tournament?” Knight asked.
That would be CBS.
“They play a game on CBS Sportsline just like” the one Knight played for Sandbox.com. “The biggest summer tournament in the country? (In Las) Vegas. The biggest clinic? Vegas. Every Nike coach speaks at a casino in Vegas, (during) that clinic.”
Knight spoke about the incident that got him run from IU. “When we make a national issue over teaching some kid manners, we're grasping for things. I mean, I laid my hand on this kid's arm. God can't convince me there's anything wrong with saying son, don't call people by their last name. Call 'em by their first name, or mister or coach or whatever.”
He brought up Reed. Knight said he talked to someone who has studied the infamous tape of Knight's right hand on Reed's neck. Knight claimed the guy supports his version of the story.
Knight asked, “Did anybody pull me off the kid?”
That is not a question that should ever be asked. I like Knight. I think what he has done over the years is honorable compared to how other coaches have sold their players down the river, degree-less and clueless, after their eligibility was used up. But if someone's going to put a hand on my kid, it's going to be me.
The Reed incident doesn't make Knight a tyrant, though. It just makes him seem that way.
Having interviewed Knight one-on-one half a dozen times in the last decade, I know this: He's too big a personality to stereotype. He could never corner the market on boorish college coaches. It's a big market.
But he's not worthy of the blanket defense offered by apologists, either. For a smart guy, he does some dumb things. Over and over.
He's a substance guy in a style world. He isn't big on BS, and that's hurt him. He has a pathological need to be right. He's 60 years old. He isn't likely to change.
A year after Landon Turner's career ended in an accident, Knight asked Boston Celtics president Red Auerbach to draft Turner with the Celtics' last pick; Auerbach did.
Knight told that story Sunday, too. You'd never get that one from a press conference, though.
I wished Knight the best at Texas Tech.
“I hope it works,” he said. “I'm tired of the BS.”
E-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/daugherty.
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DAUGHERTY: Knight better than his image