Good Knight, Bad Knight

Soon after that, Knight was at a summer camp and noticed the kid dominate a game. "Why in the world," he asked his assistants, "aren't we recruiting that kid?" (This happens frequently with Knight. His vaunted memory is very selective, especially when it comes to his mistakes).

"Coach, you told us to back off him and he's verbally committed now."

Of course the kid was still interested in Indiana, and he eventually reneged on his commitment to the smaller school and signed with Indiana, where he became a very good player. When the coach who had lost the player confronted Knight, Knight responded by citing all the ways he had helped the coach's career.

That may very well have been true. It also didn't make Knight's actions less wrong. In fact, it can be argued that Knight would have publicly ripped another coach for not respecting a verbal commitment made to an opposing school. In this case, the wronged coach still doesn't talk publicly about what happened, not because he's afraid of Knight's wrath but because he knows Knight will never understand why he was wrong.

Like so many other hugely successful people, Knight is surrounded by people who tell him he's done nothing wrong; who listen while he explains why it was Krzyzewski's fault that the two men didn't talk for most of 10 years; Steve Alford's fault that they were estranged for just as long; Myles Brand's fault that he was fired at Indiana; all of Puerto Rico's fault that he had the confrontation with the cop in San Juan; and Jeremy Schaap's fault that he blew up during his Indiana exit interview six years ago.

The world is littered with people who have done misdeeds to Knight.

Of course, there also is an impressive list of people who have cared greatly about Knight: Pete Newell, Henry Iba, Joe Lapchick, Red Auerbach and Fred Taylor -- just to name five coaches who are in the Hall of Fame. All of them saw greatness in Knight. All of them worried about him because of his penchant for self-destruction.

The question that is asked most often about Knight is whether he will have an ending similar to Woody Hayes, another of his mentors.

The sad truth is this: He's already had it. Knight can talk all he wants about how happy he is in Lubbock cobbling together good teams at Texas Tech, a place where basketball will never be as important as spring football. He can talk about how much he likes the people there and how little he misses Indiana.

It simply isn't true. Knight belongs in Indiana. It is where he should have broken the record and finished his career. Imagine Wooden not finishing his career at UCLA; Smith not coaching at North Carolina; Rupp at Kentucky; Krzyzewski at Duke. How is it possible that a man who coached three national champions and an Olympic gold medal-winning team and did so without cheating while graduating his players and standing for all the right things about sports ends up fired?

It can't happen to an icon. Unless he slugs a player on national TV during a bowl game. Or refuses to believe that zero tolerance means zero tolerance for him. It can only happen to someone who simply refuses to understand that, even for icons, there are some rules. Knight never has understood that. Rules have always been for everyone else but not for him.

One day in practice 20 years ago, a frustrated Indiana player let loose with several profanities. Knight raced over to him, got in his face and said: "I don't want to hear that kind of [expletive] language in here. I here it again, you'll be running from now until [expletive] dawn."

He was completely serious. Profanity, for his players, was strictly off-limits.

Those were the rules. Knight's rules. He has always lived by them. They have served him well.

And not so well.