NCAA: Will it Ever Be Knight-Time Again?

By Jason Hirthler Sports Central Columnist

How do you suppose the deposed Hoosier spent his holiday? Various fanciful scenarios sweep into my head: I can see him, thick sheepwool jacket curling round his husky shoulders, bent over at some Midwestern bar, staring at the watery contents of a highball glass. Jukebox croons sad country lullabies in the background. Songs about misery and gin, lives gone wrong, the bitter prospect of life left to live in the aftermath. Knight stares transfixed at his liquor. He is unapproachable. He is a wound coil temporarily unsprung.

Then I recall he has a wife. Perhaps Knight rests quietly in a heavy armchair, twinkling Christmas tree glimmers mid-room. Knight is slumped in his chair, thoughts afar off, holiday libation resting quietly in his lap. His wife moves distractedly around the room, gathering strewn wrapping paper, stuffing it in brown bags.

Then I remember Knight likes to hunt. I see him now, ducked underneath a snowcrusted tree branch, his diamond eyes survey an ivory field with razory precision. He has a shotgun in his gloved hands. He is wearing a heavy wool plaid coat. His head is comically earmuffed and beknitted. He is a picture of poise. Suddenly, there is a fluttering in a far brush. Birds (geese, quail, pheasant, whatever is hunted over holidays) fly up, struggling to find their wings in the bracing freeze of mid-morning. Suddenly, their wobbly rise is interrupted by the crashing, calamitous sound of buckshot unleashed from a doublebarrel. A fat pheasant wobbles sickly and plummets earthward through the pale blue. A dog barks and leaps in pursuit. Knight lowers the discharged weapon, eyes glaring with uneasy satisfaction.

Then I recall that Knight still wants to coach basketball. I imagine him seated on a hideous couch, remote splintering under the pressure of his thumb, as he goes from game to holiday game, his reedy, cracking voice issuing crushing judgments one after another. No team, it seems, pleases him. Televised coaches, fat with holiday stuffing, disgust him with their undeserved good fortune. Finally, he calms at the sight of a ESPN Classic replay of his 1976 national championship win. He calls his wife for a drink.

Perhaps Knight is none of these things this holiday season. One can only feel fairly certain that whatever his locale and occupation, he attends it with the same seething countenance that carried him through decades of sideline theatrics at Indiana. But, though his demeanor is as sure as the seasons, so is his coaching skill. While for many, he may be a national disgrace, he is undoubtedly also one of our national treasures. But, he is a man with empty hands. Nothing to do. He waits, justly sidelined, as another thrilling hoops season unfurls before him. He waits for a call. From any failing program willing to commit the public effrontery of hiring a tarnished and soiled soul of tortured genius. Who is willing to withstand the media assault that accompanies hiring Knight? Probably whomever is desperate enough to turn their program around.

A friend recently suggested to me that Florida State ought to fire head basketball coach Steve Robinson and hire Knight. My friend was lamenting the accelerated demise of the FSU program under Robinson, who replaced Pat Kennedy, a fabulous recruiter with no talent for coaching a team on the floor. Robinson can do neither. The Seminoles are 3-8. That may seem poor, but consider that they scheduled creampuffs to ensure they entered ACC play with a winning record, and it seems positively appalling. Devastating losses to Jacksonville and Cleveland State left them behind SUNY of New York in the power rankings. Duke, UNC, Wake Forest, and Virginia wait in the wings. FSU is a floundering, but well-heeled program in a powerful conference; it seems the perfect place to bring Knight back to the game.

Were they a perspicacious bunch, the FSU Athletic Department would hastily dismiss Robinson at season's end, hold an impromptu press conference, and introduce a sneering, sarcastic, garnet, and gold besweatered Bob Knight to the Atlantic Coast Conference. He might even bring his whip. He would make all the requisite statements about commitment and winning, he would charmingly insult the sequacious inkhorns who'd gathered to cover his return to glory. He would wax pontifical. He would clear the turbid waters of a wastrel basketball program. Oh, and would promise not to choke any 18-year-olds.

What would be better than watching Knight try to resurrect a program already on life support by having to go through his former protégé and current master of the roundball domain, Mike Krzyzewski? Wouldn't that be proper punishment for the old man? Sure, he's an abrasive ass, but he can coach. And so long as he kept his hands off his kids.

There is only one fly in the ointment: would anyone want to play for Knight? Perhaps if he showed a softened demeanor and made overtures to compassion and friendliness. But that is unlikely. Whether he could recruit in the south is a dicey proposition. In any case, though, hiring Knight would be an exciting gamble. The upside would be a nationally-contending basketball team. Downside would be a little manic unpleasantness, some sudden bedlam. But, it would quickly be over. People would recover. Headlines would be made. And Bob Knight would be restored to his tranquil duck ponds, pheasantful fields, or smoky dives on some remote Midwestern tundra. Still, a fantastic memory would remain. The stuff of lore. And what is it we really want from our sports if not legends and myth? Knight has already given us an archetype. We should not end his colorful mythology just yet.

One more adventure, please.

Jason Hirthler is a columnist for e-sports.com and Sports Central.