Muzzled Knight Just Not the Same

Bob Knight saved his job and diminished himself. Hope he thinks it was worth it.

There is so much to admire about Knight. He is charming. He can sit down, look you in the eye and talk about anything. About presidents and senators, about foreign affairs and the Chicago Bears. And he is worth listening to. Knight’s opinions were rarely ill-formed or ill-informed and on those days when he was in a good mood, you would want Knight as a dinner companion. You would want to sit and talk forever.

Firm in his beliefs, convinced of his own rightness, he could almost make you understand his tantrums. If you set high standards and you see a referee who might be a little out of shape, a little slow getting to the right spot, an ill-prepared professional who then made a mistake, maybe you’d throw a chair too.

If some drunken, smart-mouthed punk got in your face before a Final Four game you might shove him into a garbage can. Sometimes when we were knocking Knight, how many of us wished we had the guts to do what he did, stand up for something?

Monday, when Knight agreed to Indiana’s “zero-tolerance” edict, when he agreed that, to keep his job as Indiana basketball coach, he would not throw chairs or stuff fans into garbage cans, not grab players around the neck or get in the faces of 64-year-old women and frighten them, not, in other words, defend his right to be right, Knight became just another coach clinging to a job.

More than anything in the world, Knight wants to pass North Carolina’s Dean Smith and become the winningest coach in college basketball history. That’s one goal. Knight also might be afraid to quit coaching.

Three years ago, at the same NCAA regional in Winston-Salem, N.C., where Dean Smith broke Adolph Rupp’s record for college coaching victories, Knight’s Hoosiers were badly beaten by Colorado in the first round.

On the evening when Smith was being celebrated, a strangely vulnerable Knight was unusually forthcoming with a reporter. There had been rumors swirling that Knight was tired of recruiting, of the ugliness that has become part of college basketball and was ready to quit. Knight was asked about these rumors. Were they true? No, Knight said. Those rumors were not true.

“What else would I do?” Knight said then.

Smart enough to understand the danger his temper was presenting, Knight brought his son, Patrick, to his side as an assistant coach for the last two seasons. If you’ve watched Patrick on the bench over the last year, you’ve seen Patrick become his dad’s guardian angel, hovering between Knight and a recalcitrant Hoosier player, between Knight and a blind referee. Patrick’s job has been to make sure his dad didn’t pull a Woody Hayes, didn’t go ballistic and get himself fired on national television.

Patrick has done his job well. He arrived too late, though. Too late to keep his dad from becoming a sad figure.

Knight did not have the courage to attend Monday’s news conference and face the harsh questions. He did not have the pride to offer any defense. And there is something to defend. All of what Knight stands for is not wrong.

It is not wrong, and more and more it is especially right, to have standards and teach young people to live up to something. We say that kids are different now and you can’t be Bob Knight anymore. Maybe that is our failing. Kids might not be so different. Having someone get in your face when you are a cocky, coddled 18-year-old athlete might not be so very bad. Having someone stretch your limits, teach you the right way to set a pick or move your feet on defense or set your alarm and move your feet to class every day is not a bad thing.

So by doing that, Knight has been a good man. Not setting those same standards for his own behavior has been his biggest failure. He failed to live up to those standards again Monday.

Knight could have earned a large measure of respect had he shown up Monday, had he sat next to Indiana President Myles Brand and spoken for himself. Knight could have proved to be a man of guts, had he been willing to make a personal apology to Neil Reed, the player whose accusation of being choked in practice set off this whole chain of events. Knight could have proved worthy of the job he is being allowed to keep by answering critics in a measured, civilized, intelligent way.

Knight is a kind man. Ask Landon Turner. Turner is a former Indiana player who was paralyzed in a car accident. Knight made sure Turner was hired by Indiana, given meaningful work and given the chance to be a productive adult, allowed to be a proud, not a pitied, man.

Knight is an inconsiderate man. Ask Luke Recker, a former Indiana player who transferred rather than accept Knight’s treatment of him. When Recker was in a tragic car accident that left his girlfriend paralyzed and his girlfriend’s brother in a coma, Knight never him.

What lesson do we learn about Knight there?

We learn that Knight is just another man. Good and bad. Caring and petulant. Incredibly smart and incalculably dense. And after Monday, nothing special. He came home from a fishing trip and begged for his job and then ran away to hide again. Maybe he’ll behave now and break Smith’s record but will it be worth it? Will the record be worth becoming a different person? Because that’s what Knight will have to do.

And if he does, it means Knight didn’t much like the person he has been for the last 30 years. How could he, though? All that good, but such a waste.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com.