By: Chad Ruter
While every other news and opinion outlet spends this Tuesday sitting around a table debating the outcome of the presidential primaries, I’m here to discuss one thing – really old coaches.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m forgetful. You can tell me one thing, and within five minutes it’s already been shoveled out of brain. Just as your internet browser has a delete history button, my brain has an auto timer that kicks out non-important information the moment I think to myself its no longer necessary. Now you may be wondering why in the heck I’m writing about my part-timers disease. The reason folks – I wrote an entire Super Bowl review yesterday without once typing the name of Giants head coach Tom Coughlin. With about fifty other thoughts from the big game bouncing around the old noggin, I just plum forgot.
Coughlin’s impact on Sunday’s game, and the ‘07-’08 season as a whole, is being utterly ignored. Not many coaches can honestly say they outcoached Bill Belichick in a game, and there is exactly zero coaches that, before Sunday, could say they outcoached Belichick when he had two weeks to prepare. The most amazing part of Coughlin’s coaching this year isn’t the way he changed in-game, but the way he transformed his mentality and coaching ethos with his team outside of hashmarks. After nearly being fired during the past offseason because of his hardcore, disciplinarian coaching style that often clashed with veteran players, he decided that at the ripe age of 61 that he would completely overhaul his personality. To begin, he formed a players council to help him better connect with his players. He became less stringent with the rules he held so close to him, and even treated his players to a bowling night during training camp as a small escape from the hard work and heat. Overall, he seemed like a much happier person, much happier coach, and a figure that his players could rally behind. His team lacked a true leader because of personalities like Tiki Barber and Jeremy Shockey being loud-mouths, Michael Strahan and Barber throwing extra jabs through their biographies, and Eli Manning lacking the ‘voice’ a franchise quarterback normally posseses. Coughlin isn’t getting enough credit for the way he changed his life – so hopefully the ring on his finger is apology enough from everyone who didn’t notice.
Despite rattling off nearly 400 words about Tom Couglin, my original topic for writing tonight was to discuss the legacy of one, “The General” Bobby Knight. The legendary coach that spent his entire head coaching career with just three schools (Army, Indiana, and Texas Tech) retired unexpectedly yesterday, leaving a job he had excelled at for 42 years. According to Digger Phelps (former coach and current ESPN analyst), who talked to him a few weeks ago, Knight had lost the passion for coaching that drove him to become the winningest coach in Division I. With 902 wins, he’s considered one of the best coaches in college basketball history, but at best only garnered a mixed fan base.
His brash coaching style prevented him from winning maybe 1,000 games, but at the same time gained him respect from his peers, and from many of his students. Knight posted a more than impressive 95%+ graduation rate during his tenure which is unbelievable in the world of college basketball. At the same time, that statistic shows that he wasn’t getting the type of talent that can win him a national title. The Floriday teams of the past two years were relative anomolies for this era. Guys that were projected in the Top-5 of the NBA draft made a conceded effort to come back and win another title. That doesn’t happen in the world of basketball nowadays. Maybe thats why Knight hasn’t won a title since 1987. He never wanted to recruit players that only figured on staying around for a year or two. His focus revolved around getting the student-athlete a diploma. That fact escapes the majority of college coaches these days. Hell, the term student-athlete has turned into an oxymoron. Right around the time when colleges and universities realized they could make incredible amounts of money through their athletic programs.
The problem I have with Bobby Knight is the way he went about teaching the game, often yelling and hollering to get his point across. He berated the media at every chance he got, and made headlines for his latest tirade rather than his teams latest win. He taugh defense, intensity, and the value of winning as a team, but the spotlight was often on him alone. Maybe that was by design? By being the man in the spotlight, the team could go about its business without having the media hanging over them after every shot and lost game. And most every player that played for him tells the tales not of the bad times, and the times he yelled at them, but the times that Knight taught them life lessons.
I’ve always been a fan of Bobby Knight, admitting that I’d even want my kid playing for a man like that. Then a co-worker of mine with kids told me that he respects Knight for what he has done, but would never want his kids going there. I thought about that for a moment, and it made sense in this way. Are the results worth it. Or as Mike and Mike put it this morning, “are the ends worth the means.” I’m not sure I could answer that question alone. The chair throwing, the hitting a player, the constant swearing at the media (once saying that there jobs were a step or two above prostitution) – is it all in the benefit of the player? I doubt that. But an awful lot of people that played for him sure like him. And that fact is hard to argue.
He leaves the Red Raiders, not at the top of his game, but certainly close to the right time. His son Pat will now take over, and maybe he can whip the young 10-8 team into shape quick enough to get them into the NCAA Tournament. No doubt Bobby Knight is a legendary coach, but he’s one with a sketchy legacy.
Programming Note: I probably wont post tomorrow night due to a company outing for the Duke/UNC basketball game. When I return on Thursday, it’ll probably be to discuss the Pau Gasol effect, and the possible Shaquille O’Neal trade to Phoenix that is rattling news wires tonight.
To close I’ll leave you with this clip of the Top-10 Bobby Knight soundbites. And in the immortal words of Robert Knight, “When my activities here are over, and my time on earth has passed, I hope they bury me upside-down, so my critics can kiss my ass!”
