BYE BYE BOBBY KNIGHT, WE SHALL MISS YOU!
ALWAYS GOOD FOR A COMMENT, ALWAYS READY TO PUT YOU IN YOUR PLACE, ALWAYS READY TO TELL YOU WHAT A LOUSY PLAYER YOU ARE, AND ALWAYS READY TO GO TO BAT FOR YOU 100%.
IT ENDED FOR BOBBY KNIGHT YESTERDAY, AND RAY RATTO OF THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE ECHOES THOUGHTS SHARED BY MANY OF US…..AND PUTS WORDS TO THOSE THOUGHTS TOO! THANKS RAY! MORE ON KNIGHT THE ONE AND ONLY LATER…….
Ray Ratto
Knight Didn’t Change With The Times
02/05/2008
(02-05) 12:24 PST — By now, everyone has agreed that Bob Knight was (catch-all word here) “complicated” and “inconsistent” and “mercurial.” Of all the millions of words devoted to his abrupt resignation at Texas Tech, everyone agrees that Knight didn’t always walk what he talked, but that he walked it a lot. How much is what fuels the argument.
But as he leaves, at least for the moment, let’s forget the argument and consider what Knight takes with him - the notion of the coach as the pre-eminent figure in athletics.
Oh, there are still a few holdovers, and all of them are college figures - Mike Krzyzewski at Duke, Pete Carroll at USC, Pat Summitt at Tennessee, a few others here and there. But for the most part, the coach as the sole authority figure, right and wrong, is yesterday’s power structure. In exchange for better contracts and job opportunities outside the business, the coach is now an employee, and given how employees have been devalued in the new economy, that isn’t necessarily a positive development.
Knight was a cavalcade of extremes that obscures the lesson as much as it illuminates. He was a lousy employee, and the one time he was reduced to being one, his last year at Indiana, he didn’t last very long. He was temperamentally suited to be an owner - George Steinbrenner at the height of his powers, Daniel Snyder now, Al Davis any time - but he didn’t have the money or the corporate sense. His leverage came from the force of his personality and his almost pathological need to dominate the space around him in all situations.
The problem with that approach, of course, is that while personality quirks may fascinate us and stimulate our inner voyeur, the actual power is now to be found by following the money and its holders. Bob Knight could only work for compliant bosses, and he found two more than most folks, but fewer bosses are willing to endure a Bob Knight on the payroll. Idiosyncratic (and that’s the kind way of describing Knight) genius is less prized than collegiality, and far less than the chain of command.
Knight’s extremes obscured his middle ground, and the fact that we gravitated toward those extremes like moths to a truck fire sets off red flags in the world of Human Resources. He was a man of another time, because he would never have survived a high school job today.
But that’s Knight being Knight. Knight as a representative of the coaching fraternity is also one of the last of his kind, because coaches are increasingly considered to be glorified shop foremen. In the pro game, they fall behind the owner and the highest paid player without a troublesome arrest record. In the college game, they fall behind the richest and loudest alum. In the high school game, they fall behind the best player and the most organized unhappy parent.
And their weapons are not job security, but in being willing to leave for another job, like Rich Rodriguez did with West Virginia. Rodriguez, though, is his own exception because the typical coach’s deal is more Faustian than that. The coaches are paid better, but they are bought out of their contracts more quickly, because they didn’t win at a national championship level, or because they didn’t jolly along the big alums, or because they are board-stiff with the media, or because they didn’t advance the brand or make the boss enough money.
In other words, for any number of other reasons having little to do with the traditional coach’s role of teacher.
Knight went to Texas Tech because the Red Raiders paid for his personality. He made plenty of money because he advanced the brand of Knight. And he advanced the brand of Knight at Indiana until Indiana stopped enjoying his brand, because he didn’t advance deeply enough in the NCAA Tournament often enough at the end, because he crossed lines that hadn’t previously been drawn for him.
In short, the power shifted, and Knight was slow and reluctant to adapt to a changing environment. He hated the media, sure, but he used it plenty to his own advantage. He hated the restrictions on his power while rarely having to actually face them. He hated being judged by those millions he considered his inferiors, but he could easily compartmentalize them into useful and non-useful tools.
Now, he is gone from the game, quite possibly for good. His like will not be seen again, either, because while other men and women will win championships and act boorishly and help mold character and become characters, nobody in his business will be granted his freedom of movement and mood ever again. That is reserved for those who pay the people in profession, and the tide shall never again be reversed.
E-mail Ray Ratto at rratto@sfchronicle.com.