| | Associated Press
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Just down the street from Assembly
Hall, they gathered by the dozens around a bar's television to
nervously await the verdict.
Would Bob Knight stay or go?
When the news came Monday, the 100 people at Nick's English Hut
cheered. They even rang the bar's iron bell in honor of the Indiana
coach.
"What can you say? He owns the town," patron Ed Dyer said.
Knight, investigated amid accusations he choked a player in
1997, was allowed to keep his job, but was fined, suspended and
told to control his temper. The decision was announced by school
president Myles Brand at an Indianapolis news conference.
On a sunny day, in a college town devoted to basketball,
Knight's latest brush with trouble came and went with little
fanfare.
"Isn't he the coach?" asked Indiana graduate student Janet
Scott, with complete sincerity.
Scott, who pays a bit more attention to her harpsichord than to
sports, said she wasn't surprised Knight was allowed to continue
coaching: "I think sports people have different rules that they
live by."
Her husband, David Jensen, who happens to make harpsichords,
concurred: "What would happen if the president of the university
choked a student? That would be a different story because nobody
pays to watch the president."
Back at Nick's English Hut, people were happy for the coach.
"Yeah, we did ring the bell for good old Bobby," Dyer said,
adding that Knight is good for business. "He helps bring in a lot
of out-of-towners to basketball games. Without him, ticket sales
would go down, food sales would go down, liquor sales, who knows?"
Knight, who has won three national championships in his 29 years
at the school, did not attend the news conference. Leaving his
office in Assembly Hall shortly before the conference, Knight
declined to comment.
"Why talk now when so many things have been said without ever
giving me a chance to talk?" Knight said as he walked away.
However, Knight was repeatedly asked to comment on the events and
the investigation in recent weeks, but consistently declined.
Elsewhere on campus, where the student body is reduced to those
attending summer school, there were no great whoops of support, no
banners endorsing The General, and overall, no shock at the ruling.
"I don't think it was really a surprise that he wasn't asked to
leave," said Scott Witoszynski, a senior and the student body vice
president.
Steven Bierly, a junior, added that Monday's decision could be
the beginning of a new and improved Knight.
"This might be the perfect opportunity for him to change his
ways," Bierly said. "Everybody has said he's ready to change his
ways for so long, but there hasn't ever been a set of guidelines
forcing him."
Leaving the student union with Witoszynski and Bierly, senior
Gayle Wolski said the university had to punish Knight, but also had
to be practical.
"Things needed to be done to set an example," she said. "At
the same time, if he were terminated, we'd have lost a lot of local
and national support, not only for basketball, but for the
university."
In the end, Jim Sherman, psychology professor and president of
the University Faculty Council, said this latest chapter in the Bob
Knight story won't tarnish the school's image.
"The university is not defined by Robert Montgomery Knight,"
he said. | |
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