Knight Sympathizers Appear to Be in the Dark

For such tall people, the basketball players at Indiana have sure come across like mental midgets.

I know, they’re just kids, but boy have they been duped.

* “I don’t owe nobody nothing,” freshman A.J. Moye said. “The only person I owe something to was Coach Knight, and they took him away from me so I don’t owe nobody nothing.”

If he doesn’t transfer, there’s still a good chance he will learn to say: I don’t owe anybody anything.

* “We are ready to go if they don’t meet our demands. Indiana will not have a team,” forward George Leach said.

I might have to rent “Hoosiers,” but I’d get over it.

* “He’s going to be a friend to us now instead of a coach,” forward Jarrod Odle said.

Well kids, here’s what Bob Knight told the Sporting News in an interview this week: “I’ve been here since 1971 and I really like the area. I can play golf. I can catch 50 bluegill in an hour. I can go turkey hunting. . . . Now all that’s wiped out, and I feel worse about that than not having the coaching job.”

He’s a man, remember, teaching boys how to be men, so he apparently could not say, “The thing I feel worst about is abandoning the kids I recruited. I will miss them, and the opportunity to share in their collegiate experience.”

If Knight cared about the youngsters in his command, he would have controlled himself as he has always controlled them, which makes you wonder about the commitment he made to the four freshmen who signed letters of intent to attend Indiana this year. They are now bound to remain at Indiana for one full academic year, or sit out two seasons if they elect to transfer.

These kids apparently never crossed his mind when he stepped beyond the zero-tolerance agreement he had accepted, and while he says now no one ever explained to him what those boundaries might be, do you think he would have accepted that kind of answer from any of his players?

“I don’t think I had any chance to abide by the rules,” he said in an ESPN interview Tuesday. And while in Knight’s mind that might mean something entirely different, hasn’t it been his lifelong mantra?

Those who defend Knight point to his brilliant career on the court and this notion he had a gift for taking boys and making men out of them, prompting some parents to say, “If I had a son, I’d want him to play for Bob Knight.”

Why would anyone want his child to be with someone who seemingly hasn’t learned a thing?

“I’m an unemployed teacher,” Knight told ESPN. “There is no way I’m done coaching.”

Chilling words, because there is someone who will eventually bring Knight to another institution of higher education, and with even a bigger chip on his shoulder, “the ideal coach,” we will be told, “to teach our young men.”

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I UNDERSTAND SWIMMERS love the Olympic pool, with 12 world records already having been set in the Sydney International Aquatic Center, and I also read where Australia is home to 166 of the world’s 370 species of sharks. Mix the two together, the records will really fall, and although tape delayed, I’ll watch.

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A NEWSPAPER, OF course, does not reveal its sources, and I wouldn’t even ask Jason Reid, our fine Dodger beat reporter, who told him that the team has “decided not to re-sign productive catcher Todd Hundley” after the season.

But I’m not prevented from guessing.

Reid quotes General Manager Kevin Malone as saying the team won’t start thinking about next season until this season ends, and while ordinarily that would leave Malone off the hook, this season has ended, hasn’t it?

But Reid also wrote that “Malone believes Hundley will hit 40 homers next season,” and unless Malone is a complete idiot when it comes to baseball--well, even if he is--he’s not going to let someone like that go.

You wouldn’t think the Dodgers are giving Manager Davey Johnson the opportunity to get rid of one player as a going-away gift. If they were, I’m sure he’d start with Ismael Valdes and Carlos Perez before getting to Hundley.

I called Bob Graziano, the team’s president, and asked him if he was the source, and he said, “I’m never a source.”

Graziano called later to say he had checked around, and it was baseball sources outside the Dodger organization who were talking to our reporter, although how would they know Hundley is not coming back unless they were talking to the Dodgers’ brass? Baseball sources can’t decide not to re-sign Hundley. I also note it was baseball sources, which is plural, which means apparently lots of people know what the Dodgers are doing, which means they must be doing something.

Best guess, that leaves Chairman Bob Daly as the bigmouth, so why doesn’t L.A. Steinbrenner just say so instead of all this secret source stuff? It really can’t be anyone other than Daly--unless the executives at Fox are back, pulling strings behind the scenes and whispering to our writer.

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SAN DIEGO TAXPAYERS have bought more than $3.35 million in Charger tickets already this season to meet the city’s guarantee to make every game a sellout as part of a deal with the team to renovate Qualcomm Stadium. Since 1997, taxpayers have paid $15 million for unsold tickets. The deal runs through 2007.

It gets worse. The team announced Tuesday it has sold 43,000 season tickets--down from 46,000 a year ago. Stadium capacity is 70,000, and while I’m sure lines are already forming for Seattle quarterback Jon Kitna’s visit Sept. 24, taxpayers will probably be writing another hefty check.

A cheerful note for taxpayers: You’re helping pay Ryan Leaf’s salary.

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YOU GET THE feeling none of Bear cornerback Thomas Smith’s teammates really like him. After promising to buy all his defensive teammates dinner if they beat Tampa Bay, Chicago went out and lost, 41-0.

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TODAY’S LAST WORD comes in an e-mail from Edward:

“I’m a businessman, married, go to church, and I enjoy watching Raider games. I have no tattoos, spiked clothing and don’t have a drinking problem.”

I guess it’s true what they say--there’s one in every crowd.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at his e-mail address: t.j.simers@latimes.com