Tuesday, February 05, 2008

BOBBY KNIGHT, ON PERFECTION

It's not for nothing that Bobby Knight retired the day after the Patriots' quest for a perfect season ended... Knight had the last unbeaten team in NCAA D-1 men's basketball at Indiana in 1975-76.

This is germane since Knight would later recount how people kept saying during that season that it might not be a bad idea if the Hoosiers lost a game somewhere along the way, to which his reaction generally was, "Who ever thought it would be a good idea to lose a game?"

This defeats any argument about how New England was riding for a fall... the Patriots just as easily could have lost the Super Bowl after a 15-1 regular season.

There's a couple Knight-related posts percolating; real life and professional duties are getting in the way, understand. Have a little patience.

2 comments:

Geoff said...

Man, you are all over my favorite people this week. First TJ, now Bobby. Next you'll be posting on Tom Coughlin's ability to build bridges and bring people together.

I was born and raised in Indiana, and grew up bathed in IU basketball and Notre Dame football. (Disclaimer: I'm a Purdue graduate - rebelling?) People in that state worshiped Bob Knight. And not in the sports cliche worshiped kind of way. They were unhinged in a drink the kool-aid kind of way. There was a dissonance in this idolatry that I couldn't grip when I was young.

I don't know if it's kosher to pimp other writers in blog comments, but I found this article by Pat Forde on ESPN.com. He is an actual professional journalist who is able to verbalize my thoughts far better than I could on the santimonious nonsense that is The General.

sager said...

Good stuff; without commenting on Knight leaving in mid-season, let me say that my comments will be mostly positive, but warts and all.