Good Riddance to Boorish Bobby Knight

I’m relieved to have Bobby Knight out of my life. I just hope Dad understands.

Indiana University--my alma mater--has always had an embarrassing blind spot when it came to Knight. Three national championships and all those Big Ten titles gave the IU basketball coach godlike icon status on the Bloomington campus.

But to many alumni like myself, he was never more than the town bully. We tolerated his outbursts from lack of choice. Because we loved our team, the cream and crimson, we were tethered to him for nearly three decades, like a bad case of appendicitis.

We winced at how it stereotyped us. Colleagues who learned I was from IU would say: “You must be a big Bobby Knight fan.”

Praise the skies, it’s no more.

After fair warning in May, Knight was fired this week for violating the “zero tolerance” status placed on his boorish behavior. Knight, the king of bad manners, had grabbed a student by the arm to make sure he stood still for a Knight lecture on manners.

Tuesday night on TV’s ESPN, Knight said no one at the university ever defined “zero tolerance” for him.

Now he knows. Keep your hands to yourself.

Knight has always been a special dilemma for me. You see, my father was his biggest fan.

To understand how he became so embroiled in our lives, I need to back up a step. . . .

You’ve all heard how Indiana is basketball crazy. Well, I lived it.

I grew up in small-town Southern Indiana in the 1950s. My father’s favorite entertainment on Saturday nights was to sit in our living room, in the dark, and listen to IU basketball on the radio. Barely school-age, I listened too, just to be near my dad.

We sat in the dark because it helped us envision the action of the game. We’d soak up each moment of the play-by-play, hardly a word passing between us. I loved it.

A couple years later, IU got a TV contract. No childhood thrill could match the electrifying excitement of hearing the pregame music (the theme for the sponsoring Chesty potato chips). My father built me a scoreboard by hand, with “IU” on one side, “Visitor” on the other. It made me feel closer to the game.

The late Branch McKracken was the IU coach then. My father revered him for his discipline and his emphasis on defense. Though I had no talent for basketball, there was no question that I would go to IU. Sometimes it’s all my dad talked about.

Along Comes Bobby Knight

My IU class graduated in 1969, in the last of the pre-Bobby Knight era. When Knight came along, he too emphasized defense and discipline; Dad loved him immediately. Though I no longer lived at home, Dad would call me often with his analysis of Knight’s genius.

But I saw a side to Knight that Dad chose to ignore. Knight the Arrogant. Knight was arrested and charged in 1979 with assaulting a guard during the Pan American Games in Puerto Rico. Knight simply left by plane; Indiana politicians protected him from being forced to return. Dad blamed Puerto Rico; I thought Knight should have gone to jail.

When Knight threw a chair across the basketball court in a childish temper tantrum during a Purdue game in 1985, Dad could not defend the incident. But he always emphasized Knight must have been right in whatever it was Knight had blown his top over.

In 1986, journalist John Feinstein wrote “A Season on the Brink,” in which he chronicled episode after episode of Knight’s arrogance of power. “See?” I’d say to Dad. Dad insisted Feinstein exaggerated just to sell books.

It was an Illinois game one year that soured me on Knight forever. He refused to let four of his five starters play to teach them a lesson. It cost us the game, and any chance at a Big Ten title that year. It was typical Knight: Look at my power over your lives. I can do this, and don’t forget it.

For me the saddest tale from the Feinstein book was one that got little attention. A young radio reporter asked Knight a question after IU had beaten Michigan State at East Lansing. Knight said the victory had a lot to do with IU’s zone defense. Everybody knows Knight would never run a zone defense in those days. He was simply belittling the inexperienced reporter, for no more reason than the fact he could do it.

In the last years of his life, Dad knew my opposition to Knight ran deep, and he didn’t want it to come between us. So he’d start off all IU conversations with a qualifier, like: “I know you don’t like Bobby, son, but here’s one thing you have to admit. . . . “

Dad, who died four years ago, was a liberal Democrat, and we shared an amazing agreement on most issues. Except Bobby Knight.

I never abandoned my love of the cream and crimson. But with Knight fired, the games will be more special now.

The taint is gone.

Jerry Hicks’ column appears Monday and Thursday. Readers may reach Hicks by calling (714) 966-7789 or e-mail to jerry.hicks@latimes.com.