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Randy Boyd is a sports playa and big-time fan. He is also the author of two acclaimed novels, Uprising and Bridge Across the Ocean. For more on Randy, visit the website of the publishing company he started to be the master of his own destiny.

Knightmare: Over

By Randy Boyd

Now that we’re done with the tape-delayed Olympics and USA Basketball’s Vancouver Grizzly-like performance, relatively speaking (what did they expect from a team featuring Vin Baker, Antonio McDyess and crybaby Ray Allen?), it’s time to think about real basketball.

Okay, maybe not really think about it (the NBA purposely schedules its season openers to take place after the World Series), but we at Ballin’ With Randy Boyd Corporate HQ thought it high time for a few roundball wassups. After all, pro training camps have opened and the collegiate court is now a much safer, saner place thanks to the recent coup in Bloomington, Indiana (the one where the people who were supposed to be running the school in the first place found spines and fired their abusive general).

Okay, okay, we might as well get discussion of the EX coach out of the way now.

I’m from Indiana. I actually have a toddler’s faint memory of a time BK (before Knight). It’s of former Pacer and 76er George McGinnis sinking a full court Doug-Flutie-style Hail Mary to send a game into overtime (I think). At any rate, I’ve been a Hoosier fan since before I can remember. And because that meant dominance over and reverence by the rest of the NCAA and Big 10 more often than not, I was also a Bob Knight fan because let’s face it: he did take a lukewarm program and make it worthy of national titles and headlines.

Like much of the rest of the basketball crazy state in which I grew up, learned and played the game, I forgave him his trespasses and explained away or simply ignored the times he trespassed way too far across the line of decency (the "women should lay back and enjoy rape" comment??? Puh-lease!).

But when the sweater-wearing, foul-mouthed head of state lost former high school Mr. Basketball Luke Recker (the umpteenth IU escapee—er—transfer), something happened to me. I woke up from a deep banner-induced coma. I realized that what many people in the other 49 states were saying all these years about Knight—make that Mister or Coach Knight—must be true. I realized there was a reason that the chair-throwing incident is still in the forefront of people’s minds some 15 years after it happened. I realized I was tired of defending IU and Knight whenever I ventured out of the state and mentioned to people that I was from Indiana (Bob Knight and Gary, Indiana—can’t non-Hoosiers think of anything else about us?).

Knight lost me when he lost Luke. I mean, if you can’t teach/coach/keep happy a white homegrown hoop god (and quite possibly the hottest jock to every don a cream and crimson uniform), what are you there for?

Exactly.

Time to hang up the red sweater (or burn it à la George Michael in the Freedom video) and take back the state. Time to get rid of state employees who work with kids and abuse them in the name of making them "men."

Sure the school handled the whole thing with the finesse of Ace Venture: Pet Detective, and sure the last few months (if not decades) have been an embarrassing testimony as to how hysterical Hoosier Hysteria can be. But the end result is undeniably for the best. To all the blind nay Sayers: would any other coach or teacher getting paid by the state be allowed to do what Knight has done? Get real. Get over it. Buy a clue to the 21st Century. We don’t need no stinkin’ generals no more.