Bob Knight Commentary

Some of you may have seen the news that Bob Knight, former basketball coach at Indiana and current coach at Texas Tech, has retired after racking up 902 career wins--the most in Division I history. Some of you may also know about Knight's incredibly hot temper and angry demeanor that so defined him as a coach and a person over his career.

This morning's newspaper carried a commentary that looked back over Knight's long and successful career and drew this conclusion (the words of the headline to the story): "He did far more good than harm."

I, for one, disagree with that conclusion. In the first place, I do not think that it is even POSSIBLE to say that Knight did more good than harm. How can we even begin to gauge the impact of the "harm"? Think of all the young men that he coached over the years and all the young men that watched him from the sidelines. What did he succeed in teaching them? He taught them that the end is more important than the means. He taught them that it's okay to be a REALLY nasty person--as long as you're successful. He taught them unsportsmanlike behavior. He taught them to swear and to beat down others to get your own way. He taught them unvarnished arrogance. And this is just SOME of the "harm" that Knight has done. It is almost impossible to measure the real amount of "harm" that has come and will continue to come from Knight's poor influence.

In the second place, even if we take a few of the things that I just mentioned as the "harm" of Bob Knight's career, I think that it should be patent that to say that "He did far more good than harm" is to put a higher value on winning and success than on personal character. What we need today is men who strive for success but NOT at the price of character. We need men like Tony Dungy, for example--men who are committed to hard work and to success but not to success at all costs. Dungy, a committed Christian, has given his life not just to teach a handfull of men to win football games but to teach MANY men and women to win at the game of life. He wants to teach character and morality. He wants to teach God and family first and winning football games a FAR distant second. THAT is the kind of man that I look to as being a SUCCESS--not Bob Knight. I don't care how many games he won. He will always be a failure in my eyes. Even if my son were a gifted basketball player of age to have played with Knight, I would have encouraged him to play for almost anyone else BUT Knight.

I think the harm that has come and that will continue to come from his career is FAR WORSE than any good that he might have done.

Comments?