Vegas gig shines new light on dark Knight
Now I know why Bob Knight's eyebrows are all over the place. Poor little eyebrows -- they're just trying to find his other face.
Because he has two of them.
Knight is a fraud, OK? Enough with the silly joking about his overactive eyebrows. Let's be serious and call it what it is. Knight is a hypocrite. A liar. He's two-faced, and his latest business venture proves it.
It should prove it not just to those of you who don't like Knight, or are on the fence about the man. It should prove it even to you card-carrying Bob Knight Fans, although I know it won't. You people -- yes, you people -- turned in your logic and common sense years ago when you started worshipping at the altar of Bobby. You found your God, and you're standing by him. Fine.
But you're standing by a charlatan.
For his next trick, Knight will work alongside former CBS analyst Billy Packer -- who really should know better -- and analyze the 2009 NCAA tournament for Fox Sports Net.
From a Las Vegas sports book.
Knight -- who paints himself as one of the most noble, uncorrupted, incorruptible men in college sports -- will analyze March Madness from a Las Vegas casino.
Understand what this was, by understanding what it wasn't. This wasn't Knight shoving a cop into a garbage can or flinging a chair across the court or putting his hand on a player's throat. Those were acts of rage, yes, but they were acts of passion. They weren't planned. They just happened. You don't have to like those acts, and I don't, but they weren't done in cold blood.
This was.
Knight, with plenty of time to think about his actions, signed his amateur soul to a Las Vegas bookie.
|
|
| Analyzing college hoops from a gambling den? Now Bob Knight is really raising eyebrows. (Getty Images) |
Because it further illustrates what a fraud this guy is.
It started four years ago, when I heard about these brothers in Southern California who were exerting an enormous amount of pressure on college basketball by controlling thousands of Final Four tickets worth millions of dollars. These brothers had tied themselves into college coaches and athletics directors by working for an influential sneaker company, and then by running an enormous amateur program, and then by creating travel teams that played (paid) exhibition games against Division I schools. Basically almost everything these guys ever touched -- the ticket business and the exhibition games, for sure -- was shot down by the NCAA, because the NCAA felt these guys, whatever their angle, weren't good for college basketball.
I wanted to write about these guys, these power brokers, these brothers who held the puppet strings over college basketball by dominating Final Four tickets -- selling them at an enormous profit after getting them from coaches who felt they had to turn them over to the brothers, or risk losing the brothers' favor.
I needed someone to talk about these brothers on the record. I needed a coach. I needed someone strong enough, ornery enough and, most of all, honest enough, to talk about Dana and David Pump.
I called Knight.
He wouldn't touch it.
Turns out, two of his best friends are the Pumps.
I didn't know. Had no idea. Wouldn't have guessed it in a million years. But now I know better, and I understand. See, Knight isn't the paragon of virtue he and his supporters paint him to be.
|
|
|
Sir Rosis: Who cares where they do it? So they'll be in a casino... who cares? Broadcasting from a casino somehow makes it bad? I don't get it. And this stuff about "signing himself over to a bookie" is nonsense. He's not going to work for a sports book. He's watching the games and analyzing them from, I would submit, the most exciting place to watch the tournament - a sports book in Vegas
Vegas is flooded every year with people going to watch the tournament. It's fun, and having Knight there will only add to the fun. What is the problem? |
|
|
| Gregg Doyel: By being there, Knight is basically blessing the union between college sports and Las Vegas sports books. He's blessing the marriage of amateur sports and professional gambling. If you have to ask what the problem is, well, you're not as smart as you clearly think are. |
| Click here for more Community reaction |
Look, Knight is no worse than anyone else, so don't get me wrong. But he's no better than anyone else, either. And in a sport where the average guy is a bad guy, well, Knight fits right in. He's just like everyone else, shaking greasy hands and sleeping in dirty beds.
So now he'll be sleeping in Las Vegas. Gambling by itself isn't a sin or an evil, OK? I'm not a fan of gambling, because I've seen the destruction it can do to a player, a coach and an entire sport, but I'm not calling it a sin. But I am calling gambling the single biggest threat to sports in this country. Look at Tim Donaghy. Look at the point-shaving scandals over the years in every major sport. Look at Pete Rose.
Gambling isn't by definition evil. But it is, by definition, the biggest threat to sports in our country.
And Knight will spend March in Las Vegas, using his heft and his stature as the most successful coach in NCAA history to analyze the NCAA Tournament ... from a casino.
Knight, hopping into bed with a casino? Maybe that comes as a shock to some of you.
But not to me. I had this guy sniffed out years ago.
And he smelled bad then, too.
