KNIGHT TIME ISN'T THE RIGHT TIME

I thought I knew how to approach this. When I first heard of Bobby Knight's allegations regarding the entire 2010 UK starting five not attending school the second semester that year, I laughed a bit at the absurdity of it. Then I thought about it, which got me aggravated at what an egregious asshole he is. Next thing I knew, Matt Jones tweeted that it is the goal of Kentucky Sports Radio to force an apology from ESPN on Knight’s behalf. Then I wondered, if KSR was focusing on Bob Knight, who would tend to the children and young adults that aren’t reading? That’s when blog ideas started churning through my head.

Initially, I thought there is no reason to force an ESPN apology regarding Bob Knight. For starters, the comments weren’t even made on ESPN, they were made at a speech in Indiana. Secondly, everyone knows Bob Knight is a grumpy bastard on a good day. My thought process was this: Bob Knight is not senile; he knows what he says. The question is, who heard him say it? If a UK fan heard it, they know it isn’t true, and just another example of “haters hating”. If a non-UK fan heard it, that means one of two things: either they are impartial to UK and don’t care about the remarks, but perhaps frown on the negative happenings of college basketball, OR, they already hate UK, so it doesn’t matter whether the negative remarks were true or not. Therefore, I concluded that his words have no lasting effect either way, with the possible exception of being used against the school in recruiting battles. But then, recruiting is a slimy business anyway, and it’s hard to separate bullshit from lies in a recruit’s living room. So I didn’t think any more about it, other than to think that UK fans shouldn’t worry about it too much, because who cares what Bob Knight says?

But then I started thinking about it again.

And I realized who was saying it. Bob Knight. Class A, USDA-certified steaming asshole. Thrower of chairs, kicker of shins, cusser of students in grocery aisles. As CBSSports.com columnist Gregg Doyel put it, “Bob Knight is a bad guy. Great coach. Valued education. Didn't cheat. But a bad guy.” Pretty much sums it up. It also isn’t the first time Knight has had misgivings about John Calipari-related items. Plus, he got his lunch eaten by UK for the last 10 years or so he was at Indiana. And he had his undefeated season ruined in ’75, causing him to hit Joe B. Hall in the back of the head. He has good reason not to like Kentucky. But he has never done anything so blatant as to outright slander the school.

Yes, he slandered UK.

We all know what slander is: a lie, usually spoken, with the intent of character defamation. This is opposed to libel, which is basically slander, but in a more permanent, tangible form, such as print or recorded audio. Bob Knight defamed the character of John Wall, which is bad enough. But his remarks also defamed Patrick Patterson, who gave his sweat and blood and tears to graduate in three years while being a stud on the basketball court. That’s when I started getting pissed. (Patrick Patterson didn't seem to care for it either). Being slanderous is easy. Just say this out loud: “Bob Knight molests orphan children.” Did anyone hear you? If so, you just slandered Bob Knight. Now, a libelous statement would be if I said

BOB KNIGHT MOLESTS ORPHAN CHILDREN.

See what I did there? That was libel, because we know he doesn’t molest orphan children (or do we?), just as we know that 100% of the 2010 starting lineup went to spring classes. Here, I’ll give you another example of libel:

BOB KNIGHT HAS A TINY PENIS, AND THUSLY FEELS COMPELLED TO RUN DOWN ANYONE WHO DOESN’T LIKE HIM.

Got the hang of it yet? Good. (Bear with me, I have a point in here somewhere). Now, would you like to read a non-slanderous statement?

BOB KNIGHT ONCE SHOT A FRIEND IN THE BACK, AND TRIED TO COVER IT UP. THAT'S THE KIND OF ASSHOLE HE IS.

I’ve pretty much always been of the thinking that peoples’ minds are going to be made up about something, and outside evidence won’t really affect their opinion; that is, if I think Bob Knight is a shitbird, his donating $50,000 to an orphanage (not that he did, but if he does, it's probably to hide the molestation) won’t change my opinion of him. Likewise, anyone who is looking for a reason to dislike Kentucky and Calipari will latch onto the first thing they can, not letting the fact that Calipari and his team washed the feet of underprivileged children in Detroit tell them otherwise. As Jerry Seinfeld (I think; it was either him or George Carlin) once said, “You can take away all the drugs in the world, and people would spin around on their lawns until they fell down and saw God.” That applies here, since we are dealing with reality vs. perception, through the eyes of a man who obviously needs some kind of medication to even his bitter, delusional ass out.

Still with me? Wow, I’m surprised. Now, after all that, here’s the deal: ESPN should either force an apology from Knight or send him packing, if for no other reason than it has to be a serious conflict of interest regarding the SEC TV contract for mouthy pricks such as himself to go around spewing derogatory nonsense. I’m glad Mitch Barnhart got in on the action, because that may help force the network’s hand. At best, Bob Knight is eaten up with petty jealousy, and can’t help himself trying to piss off Kentucky alumni and fans. At worst, he is a hypocrite and a coward, an old man trying to tear down one coach with nothing on his record, while building up another who is serving a suspension next season. He is a coward because, for starters, he won’t set foot in Rupp Arena, since he knows that would be the equivalent of walking into a lion's den wearing pork chop pants. And for this: someone on Twitter noted that Bob Knight has never said anything negative regarding UK unless he is in Indiana. This means he doesn’t have the enlarged guts to go with the enlarged asshole.

Here is my advice to Robert Montgomery Knight. Go away, while you are still at least somewhat relevant. Go away, and spend the remainder of your years shooting friends on hunting trips, and wondering why your eyebrows didn’t grow all the way across your eyes. You aren’t willing to say anything (truthfully) useful on TV, and apparently your speaking engagements reek of shenanigans and bullshit. As much as you have to offer the world, with your coaching intellect and storied past, you instead choose to continually take the low road by being a yellow-bellied coward, a hypocrite, and a shit stain on the silk underwear of life. Oh, and you are a pompous, arrogant asshole. Have I said that yet?

Bob Knight was once lauded for getting a high percentage of his students to finish classes. It’s just too bad that class isn’t a word he knows anything about these days.

LODI DODD-Y

I guess most of you have heard by now about the question asked of John Calipari at the Final Four, which went "How does it feel to coach in your first Final Four?" Once you quit slapping your knees at the overwhelming originality and humor of the question, you may have gotten pissed off. Well, the man responsible, Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com, has written a post about it. He basically says he stands by the question. I decided to comment, since I'm trying to get out of writing an argumentative essay for an online class, and was somewhat proud of what I wrote. If you don't feel like reading the article, here is my comment:

I'm as big a Kentucky fan as any other, so I've heard pretty much every insult, slight, and "he said she said" there is to hear, especially regarding the ethics of John Calipari, and for that matter, the University itself. Honestly, I'm past the point of caring or getting upset at someone trying to ruffle the feathers of a particular fan base, be it for hits in an online column, or any other reason. In that regard, I have no problem with you asking, facetiously or not, Calipari about the vacated Final Fours. What bugs me is that you chose the most sophomoric, frat house, "that's what she said", beaten-like-a-dead-horse phrase about it, and tried to pass it off as professional journalism. Hell, I have a nephew in 6th grade who could've come up with the same thing. I get that you guys are paid to be a watchdog of sorts, and that's all fine and good. But I also thought you were paid to tell me something I didn't necessarily know before. In this case, you failed miserably. To me, that particular question, in that format at least, was the equivalent of an average Joe meeting someone whom they had always wanted to meet, just to ask them a burning question. Then, once they meet that person and have a chance to ask, they make a fart noise with their mouth and run off laughing, saying "Haha, I got you good!" It also makes me wonder what kinds of chuckleheads are writing the things I usually enjoy reading, because apparently enough of them agree with you for it to warrant a mention in this column. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you are going to make a point, and aren't terribly concerned about taking the high road to make it, at least come up with something better than "How does it feel to coach in your first Final Four?" Surely there is a journalism degree somewhere in your office/den which proves you are capable.