For the sake of the program, Knight needed to return

Fans should not expect they've seen the last Bobby Knight tirade. Officials should not expect they've heard the last Knight obscenity. Reporters should not expect him to speak to them with respect.

Even if the evil side of Knight's personality is contained by Indiana University's new zero-tolerance policy, it cannot be anticipated he no longer will conduct himself as a basketball coach routinely does. Knight is not likely to morph into some lobotomized, catatonic, Stepford coach.

"I think he's still going to be a very tough coach to play for," says IU forward Jarrod Odle, who will be a junior next season. "I don't want him to change completely. I knew what I was getting into when I got here."

There were many impassioned, overzealous criticisms of the sanctions delivered against Knight for what IU president Myles Brand termed "a lengthy pattern of troubling behavior." Among the most common assertions was the zero-tolerance policy left too much of a gray area for the judgment of Knight's conduct.

Really, now: Since when has Knight ever operated in shades of gray?

When--or if--he violates his code of conduct by embarrassing Indiana, we will know as quickly as Brand. Putting his hands on players, charging the court to challenge officials and berating journalists or administrators who simply are doing their jobs are actions almost certain to lead to Knight's dismissal. Those performance art pieces he unveils each year at the pre-NCAA Tournament press conference (remember the bullwhip?) will have to go.

"Coach Knight said he wanted to coach at Indiana, and he would do whatever is necessary," Brand says. "The kinds of incidents that took place in the past would not be acceptable. He has given me his word he will take extraordinary steps to change his behavior and represent Indiana University with honor and dignity. I believe him."

The decision to place Knight under strict behavioral guidelines was almost universally trashed by a media culture seeking not justice, but retribution. No one has done more to demean the art of sportswriting than Knight. He may take a perverse pride in having so greatly offended so many journalists that few bothered to listen to the reasoning presented for the sanctions against Knight.

Brand admitted Indiana created an atmosphere "that allowed this persistent problem to exist." In a sense, IU bought the beer all evening for Knight, so it reasonably could not be outraged to find him drunk. The only just means of dealing with the problem is containing it in the future.

Even if Indiana had not been guilty of facilitating Knight's unbecoming conduct, there still was the need to manage the basketball program's future wisely.

After the announcement of Knight's sanctions, veteran guard Dane Fife reiterated he would have left Indiana had his coach been fired. He claimed several players were ready to join him. Incoming freshman forward Jared Jeffries, the highest-rated Hoosiers recruit in a decade, said he would have played one year to satisfy the requirements of his signed letter of intent, then transferred.

Those player losses would have been damaging. The civil war between Knight loyalists and the Indiana administration would have been devastating.

In spite of the program's recent decline, Knight still has an army of passionate supporters. It is smaller than it used to be but still large enough to paralyze whatever coach would have been chosen to succeed their General.

As it stands, the decision about who will coach Indiana rests strictly with Knight. If he acts properly, he will keep his job. If not, his minions will have witnessed his self-destruction the same as everyone else, and only the most unreasonable will attempt to undermine his successor. There will not be enough of them to make a difference.

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