Knight’s act takes another one on the chin

Any thought that Bob Knight would be carefully tending his legacy as he closes in on Dean Smith’s record for victories was erased by the video of Knight striking Texas Tech player Michael Prince under the chin during a timeout Monday night.

Knight remains unapologetically who he is.

The question is whether his achievements will be remembered as much as his acts, and whether he will finish his career before he runs out of goodwill at Texas Tech the way he eventually ran out of it at Indiana.

What Knight did Monday might have been less than a slap, but it was more than what Texas Tech Athletic Director Gerald Myers described when he said Knight “quickly lifted Michael’s chin up.”

The ESPN video shows what looks like a sharp, angry, close-fisted jolt to the chin, and a player who later appeared to rub his jaw on the bench.

Had Knight moved his hand more slowly or seemed as if he were in control of his emotions, people would accept him putting his hand on a player’s face to look him in the eye. But when people see these familiar Knight moments, they react to a bear of a man showing a flash of rage that looks as if he has lost control.

Only the fact that Prince and his parents aren’t taking issue with Knight’s action keeps this from being a bigger story than it is, and, as it was, the video was replayed ad infinitum on television Tuesday.

“It was nothing,” Prince told the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal after the game. “He was trying to teach me and I had my head down, so he raised my chin up.”

Don’t be misled: If Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski did the same thing, it would be a story, just one without the 30-year timeline and video clips to accompany it.

In the last days of the “zero tolerance” policy for Knight before he was fired at Indiana in 2000, the same act would have been the final straw. Knight was warned to watch his behavior after the investigation of a videotaped incident of Knight putting his hand on player Neil Reed’s throat in 1997.

But in these days of Knight’s inevitable march toward breaking Smith’s record of 879 victories -- Knight needs eight more -- it becomes the latest flashpoint in a career marked by many incidents, not all of them caught on videotape.

It does not appear there will be any repercussions. No suspension, no reprimand.

Myers, a former Texas Tech coach and Knight’s longtime friend, defended him in a statement issued by the school:

“I have discussed this with Michael Prince, his parents and Coach Knight. Coach Knight did not slap Michael. Here is what happened: Michael came off the court with his head down and Coach Knight quickly lifted Michael’s chin up and said, ‘Hold your head up and don’t worry about your mistakes. Just play the game.’

“In my opinion, Coach Knight did not do anything wrong.”

Big 12 spokesman Rob Carolla said that the league considered the situation “an institutional matter,” and Commissioner Kevin Weiberg would not comment or seek to discipline Knight.

In the pantheon of incidents involving Knight, this one ranks behind many others, including gripping Reed’s neck, dangerously tossing a chair across the court in 1985 and being convicted in absentia of assaulting a Puerto Rican policeman before a practice in 1979.

But it is worse than banging a scorer’s table, belittling an adult moderating a news conference or haranguing official Ted Valentine, all of which drew substantial fines.

How Knight treats adults, particularly the media, is something to shrug about. How he treats players is a concern for the school officials who put them in his care, even if the players don’t object.

David Schmidly, the Texas Tech president who was in charge when Knight was hired, said that year, “Probably the one thing that would concern me the most would be any of our coaches doing anything physical to a player. We couldn’t have that.”

Schmidly is no longer at the school.

Nor is David Smith, the former chancellor Knight had a loud public outburst against in a grocery store in 2004.

Knight, 66, recently agreed to an extension that could keep him on the Texas Tech bench through 2012. But Myers will eventually retire, and considering that the timeline shows Knight has never gone more than three years between incidents, six more years might be too long.

Knight told ESPN Tuesday he would do again what he did to Prince on Monday night during a game against Gardner-Webb.

“I’m sure there were some cases where I have been wrong, but [Monday night] wasn’t one of them,” he said.

It’s a familiar refrain.

In a 2001 interview with The Times before his first season at Texas Tech, Knight objected repeatedly to a question about whether he had changed since leaving Indiana.

“Why do I need to change?” he asked.

To illustrate, he told a story.

“The farmer went out to talk to his apple tree,” Knight said. “And he told the apple tree that for 40 years the apple tree had given him red apples. And he was tired of red apples. He wanted green apples. And the tree looked down at the farmer and said, ‘The best thing I do is red apples. So if you want green apples, you’re going to have to get another tree.’ ”

Texas Tech has precisely the same tree it planted on its campus in 2001.

robyn.norwood@latimes.com

*

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Knight outbursts

Some of Bob Knight’s outbursts as a college basketball coach:

1975: Upset over turnovers, grabs sophomore Jim Wisman by jersey, jerks him into seat.

* 1981: Shoving match with LSU fan who said Knight stuffed him in garbage can at hotel.

* 1983: Criticizes officiating at midcourt, cursing Big Ten Commissioner Wayne Duke.

* 1985: Tosses a chair across court during a game against Purdue, prompting his ejection and one-game suspension by the Big Ten.

* 1986: Receives technical foul vs. Illinois, then kicks a megaphone, admonishes Indiana cheerleaders for disrupting a free-throw attempt.

* 1987: Bangs fist on scorer’s table after being assessed technical vs. LSU. University fined $10,000 by NCAA; refuses to let team finish exhibition vs. Soviet Union after he was ejected.

* 1991: Publicly feuds with Illinois Coach Lou Henson, who calls him a “classic bully.”

* 1993: Suspended one game after tirade in a 101-82 victory over Notre Dame in which he screams at his player, son Pat, and kicks at him. When fans behind the Indiana bench boo, Knight turns and responds with an obscenity.

* 1994: Head-butts Sherron Wilkerson while screaming at him on bench; says unintentional.

* 1995: Reprimanded, fined $30,000 by NCAA for outburst at tournament news conference because media liaison said he wouldn’t attend.

* 1998: Fined $10,000 by Big Ten for berating referee Ted Valentine. Knight received three technicals and was ejected by Valentine during the second half of a loss to Illinois.

* 1999: Investigated for possible battery after allegedly choking a man at a restaurant. Prosecutor refuses to file charges; assistant Ron Felling fired after Knight allegedly throws him out of a chair after hearing criticisms.

* March 2000: Investigated by university after former player Neil Reed says Knight choked him at a practice in 1997. Videotape appears to support Reed. Reports surface of other confrontations. In one, Knight throws a vase at a university secretary. In another, Knight’s son, Tim, suffered a dislocated shoulder and a broken nose during a scuffle with his father during a hunting trip. In another, Knight attacked and knocked out an Indiana sports information director in the ‘70s.

* May 2000: Investigation brings $30,000 fine, suspension for three games and being placed under “zero-tolerance” behavior policy.

* Sept. 7: Accused of grabbing student, cursing and lecturing him about manners after the coach was addressed, “Hey, what’s up Knight?”

* Sept. 10: Fired for violating “zero-tolerance” policy.

* Dec. 14, 2001: General manager at Compaq Center in Houston says Knight offered to fight him over remarks the coach made about the arena’s locker room (“Would have been very, very cramped with four midgets.”).

* Dec. 22, 2003: Launched into a profanity-filled tirade after an ESPN reporter asked about his relationship with former player Steve Alford, who was also participating in the interview.

* Feb. 2, 2004: Has loud verbal spat with Texas Tech’s chancellor at a grocery store. Reprimanded but not suspended.

* Nov. 13, 2006: Approaches Michael Prince, who was looking down before Knight sharply pushes up player’s chin, apparently in an effort to get him to look up while talking to him.

Associated Press