In the Heat of the Knight

His water-cooler tirades chased trembling receptionists back to their cubicles. He cursed his wife, associates, reporters, interlopers, roughed up players, yes, and ruled with an iron fist and unfettered power over a sporting dynasty in a remote Midwest fiefdom.

His dictates--duty and discipline--were honed at West Point, where he huffed, puffed and pontificated.

He even confessed once his temper and impatience were characteristics he was “never able to subdue wholly.”

So, if we could forgive former Green Bay Packer Coach Vince Lombardi these trespasses and anoint him an icon of the 20th century, how is it Indiana basketball Coach Bob Knight became a pariah?

How did a 59-year-old man with three national titles, irrefutable impact and a zero-tolerance policy for NCAA infractions so suddenly set main sails toward a career-ending crash course?

How did it come to this?

That a man only 116 victories shy of Dean Smith’s all-time victories record could put his hand around a kid’s neck and end up groveling to save his own?

That a man of convictions, if little else, could become party to a cover-up and institutional whitewash?

On May 15, disagreeable Knight agreed to a three-game suspension, a $30,000 fine and a set of ball-and-chain conditions that were all but trumpeted, in the town square.

The man Lou Henson once called a “classic bully” will heretofore be civil, obedient and contrite.

Or else.

There is no excusing the onerous actions of our obstreperous Bob, but explaining him could lead to new branches of discovery in the social sciences.

Clearly, Knight’s demons have been allowed to race unchecked because ultimate success in sports--warning, Dennis Rodman fans, this may shock you--almost always trumps psychiatry.

If anger is Knight’s addiction, Indiana has been his enabler.

The school’s relative basketball decline--the fabled Hoosiers haven’t bagged a national title since 1987 nor advanced beyond the NCAA tournament’s second round since 1994--at last stripped Knight of the political capital a Machiavellian needs to wield power.

To wit: Had Indiana made this year’s hometown Final Four at Indianapolis, it’s doubtful Neil Reed’s choke-hold allegations would have led to others emerging with their claims.

Hoosierdom has its own code of silence and only Knight’s vulnerability--thank you, Pepperdine-- made it safer for drips of evidence to escape from sealed lips.

With mediocrity comes bravery.

More than anything, though, Knight simply is a man out of time, Tyrannosaurus Coach, tethered to the Cold War and military industrial complex.

There was an age when fear and discipline were the coach’s guns and butter.

That time faded, but Knight raged on.

Al McGuire, penning the introduction to John Feinstein’s book, “Season On the Brink,” wrote that Knight “may well be the last of the great coaching dictators. The last of a breed.”

Fourteen years later . . . “Most things have changed,” McGuire says now, “but he really didn’t change.”

Consider the context of Knight’s life:

He was raised in Orrville, Ohio, in the radiance of Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes, a history and military buff who often equated football to war.

At Hayes’ legendary heights in the early 1960s, Knight soaked up the vibes in Columbus as sixth man on Fred Taylor’s celebrated basketball teams.

Then, at 24, Knight became head coach at Army in West Point.

For six years, at the apex of the Vietnam War, he worked his notions on young plebes. It was at Army that basketball forever became boot camp for Knight, a joyless exercise in which victory, as in war, was the only acceptable byproduct.

“I think West Point was a real influence on Bobby’s whole philosophy,” Pete Newell, the legendary coach and one of Knight’s closest friends, says.

Newell’s 1960 Olympic team, led by Jerry West and Oscar Robertson, trained at West Point.

“It’s an eye-opener,” Newell says, “because discipline is such an important part of the training. It’s overdone. When you’re a young coach, in that type of atmosphere, I imagine you see the success in the product they turn out and you do the same in athletics.”

Knight was not unlike his early contemporaries--Hayes, Lombardi, Frank Kush--he was just much, much younger.

Knight immersed himself in “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military philosopher.

That plastic figurine on Knight’s Indiana desk?

Gen. George S. Patton.

You were expecting Gandhi?

Eventually, though, society rooted out the old school.

Hayes’ career ended with one swipe at a Clemson player on national television. Kush, whose Arizona State training camps produced winning teams and horror stories, was forced out in 1979 in the maelstrom of an incident in which he allegedly struck punter Kevin Rutledge.

Kush, living now in the Phoenix area, says America became less tolerant of coaches like himself and Knight.

“Our whole society is too soft,” Kush bemoans. “If we had some type of national conflict, everybody would be up in arms and the Bobby Knight approach wouldn’t be so out of line.”

Turn, Turn, Turn

Et tu, Lombardi?

The legendary Packer coach cut his teeth in the 1950s as an Army assistant under legendary coach Red Blaik.

Had Lombardi lived, you wonder if his career would have ended in front of a board of inquiry after some grainy-film release of him yanking a player by the facemask.

In his brilliant biography, “When Pride Still Mattered,” author David Maraniss posits Lombardi was already losing his hammerlock grip before his death in 1970.

In the late ‘60s, Lombardi despised the advent of the NFL players’ union, an obvious threat to his totalitarianism.

“It could be argued that Lombardi was dying at the appropriate time,” Maraniss writes, “. . . leaving the scene was a way for him to survive in memory as a mythic symbol, the block of granite and steadfast coach of the glorious Packers, rather than staying around to become an increasingly frustrated coach fighting for relevance in the fickle modern American culture.”

It was bad timing for a certain young disciple of discipline.

In 1971, Robert Montgomery Knight was named coach at Indiana.

Some contend Lombardi would have adapted.

“He loved winning more than beating people up about it,” Kevin Grace, an associate professor of social sciences at the University of Cincinnati, says. “The big difference between Lombardi and Knight comes down to character.”

Grace teaches a course called “Basketball in American Society.” Not surprisingly, Knight’s plight this season dominated the curriculum.

Grace is an admirer of Knight’s coaching abilities, but says recent revelations sickened him.

“You can go into all sorts of psycho babble,” Grace says. “But the bottom line is parents and children don’t put up with what essentially is domestic abuse anymore.”

More than the Reed incident, Grace was chilled over a report, not refuted, that Knight broke eldest son Tim’s nose and dislocated his shoulder on a fishing trip.

“As brilliant of basketball mind as he’s had, he could have done it without the physical intimidation,” Grace says. “But he seems incapable of doing that.”

Grace says societal changes have left Knight increasingly isolated.

Once, a generation of parents may have wanted for their sons the structure Knight offered at Indiana.

“We’ve skipped a generation of the military mentality,” Grace says. “We don’t have that rationale to justify that behavior anymore. We are the first generation to be raised without fear. I can’t think of our big fear.”

Without fear, and the threat of war, what is Bob Knight?

While he still procures his share of quality recruits, Knight’s style has chased off several top players--Luke Recker, Jason Collier and, most notably, Reed.

Moreover, there are numerous touchy-feely coaching options for today’s players, headmasters who see the Zen, keep-the-peace wisdom of Phil Jackson’s philosophy.

Even Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, who played for Knight at Army, long ago distanced himself from his former mentor, opting for a more civil approach to player development. Krzyzewski and Knight, reportedly, are no longer friends.

Each year, Knight inches farther out on the limb.

Old Soldiers

Could Knight have adjusted?

Some did.

Penn State’s legendary football coach Joe Paterno, once a Knight-like tyrant, made a conscious decision to change.

The epiphany hit Paterno after his 1992 squad finished 7-5.

In the biography “No Ordinary Joe,” author Michael O’Brien recounts the transformation.

“I’m losing touch with the kids,” Paterno told his brother, George, after the season. “I’m going to get it straightened out. I’m going to have another great team even if they carry me out on my shield.”

Instead of turning the screws tighter, Paterno lightened up.

In 1993, he formed the “Breakfast Council,” a weekly 7:15 a.m. Wednesday rap session with two players from each class.

Sometimes coach and players aired grievances; more often they shot the breeze about music or the Phillies.

Penn State finished 10-2 in 1993 and went 12-0 in 1994.

McGuire says a coach must stay in tune with his players’ rhythms.

“I always thought the ballplayer educated you more than you educated him,” he says.

Why didn’t Knight sense the rhythms?

“I don’t think he was allowed to change because, well, no one brought it up,” McGuire says.

Bloomington deserves its share of the blame, included in this sycophant soup the procession of presidents, athletic directors and reporters who covered ears and eyes to a disturbing truth.

Many of the charges emerging now date years.

Yet, few stepped forward to challenge the king.

Why not?

“I always sat in front of the bus,” McGuire says of his coaching days at Marquette. “And the priest sat in the back. If a ballplayer wanted to hear fluff, they went to the back of the bus. If they wanted to hear it straight, they came to the front. No one came to the front of the bus.

“In the analogy, I make Indianapolis and Bloomington the front and back of the bus.”

Man in Motion

Knight once told a group of reporters he had forgotten more about the game than all of us combined were ever going to know, and it’s probably true.

While recent Hoosier squads have faded down the stretch, which could be attributed to the mental drain Knight exacts on players, colleagues maintain Knight’s tactical skills have not diminished.

Knight’s motion offense, a system that utilizes court spacing and turned the center from a post player to screener and shooter, revolutionized the game.

The offense has been adopted by so many high school and colleges that, Newell says, Knight has effectively eliminated the low-post player, the reason the NBA has to till Europe for centers and why Newell’s annual “Big Man” camp was spawned.

“Bobby’s contribution to basketball and coaching is second to none,” Newell says. “He’s lectured more coaches than anyone in the history of the game. Nobody, I think, can challenge that.”

McGuire agrees:

“On the floor, he’s still completely in tune,” McGuire says “If Bob has a problem on the court, the problem is he’s trying to beat the game. You can’t beat the game. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be a game.”

The End Game

If we can guess how Knight got caught in this trap, how does he get out?

You could argue that he is being set up.

Theory: By saddling Knight with a set of conditions he can’t possibly adhere to, Indiana President Myles Brand relieved himself the responsibility of firing Knight and put the onus on the coach.

Knight, in the scenario, ultimately fires himself.

So, May 15 may indeed have signaled the beginning of the end.

“I think he’s a great coach, and [has] done a commendable job for the program,” Kush says. “He’s probably turned a lot of youngsters’ lives around. But times have changed. Does he have to adapt? Yes, he does.”

But can he?

“I would say, probably not,” Kush says.

McGuire imagines any number of referees, fans, or disgruntled writers trying to bait Knight into the confrontation that triggers his ouster.

Think the fraternity boys at Purdue are formulating ideas?

“You’ve got a lot of OK Corral people out there looking to put notches on their gun belts,” McGuire says. “This thing will be difficult. An awful lot is going to fall on the staff. They’re going to have to be matadors.”

Even Newell, one of Knight’s closest confidants, has his doubts.

“It’s like he’s got handcuffs on him,” Newell says.

Newell recently asked Knight, point blank, if he could possibly work under the conditions set forth.

“He thinks he can,” Newell says. “I said, ‘Bobby, can you do it, because I don’t think I could.’ He said, ‘I can do it.’ . . .

“I would say the chances are really tough for anybody to do it, particularly him.

“He seems to think he can, and I’ve seen him accomplish things I didn’t think he could, so I’m not going to write him off on it.”

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Making a Career of It

Most victories by an NCAA Division I basketball coach, with years coached (*active):

1. Dean Smith: 879 wins, 36 years

2. Adolph Rupp: 876 wins, 41 years

3. Jim Phelan*: 809 wins, 46 years

4. Henry Iba: 767 wins, 41 years

5. Bob Knight*: 763 wins, 35 years