Sports Valley- It took practically 40 years for Lenny Bruce to earn a pardon for obscenity. How long do you think it’ll take Texas Tech basketball coach Bobby Knight who has been named national coach of the year four occasions, been announced as conference coach of the year six times; has won eleven conference championships, three national titles, one National Invitation Tournament title, and 829 individual victories?
Over the years, Bobby has made many colorful comments to the press. On a player’s good performance, Bobby once had this to say, “We put his dick in a vise. I twisted it. We stuck a red-hot poker up his ass and poured hot water down his mouth and I told him if he promised to play well, we’d quit all that.”
On rape, Bobby once astutely observed, “If rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.” Bobby, among other things to his credit, has also berated both players, cheerleaders and officials with language more colorful than his sweaters and created a near international incident once by hitting a Puerto Rican police officer. But this week found Knight having to apologize to ESPN reporter Fran Fraschilla.
Throw in the Joe Willie Namath and the Nicole Richie incidents and it was not a good week for the media, depending how you look at it. For his part, Knight had to officially apologize for berating reporter Fraschilla when he attacked Fraschilla, a former head coach in his own right, with an obscenity laced tirade.
Knight in tendering his apologies said, under the circumstances, he might have used a different choice of words. What prompted the Knight tirade which included more uses for the word fuck than Billy Bob Thornton’s script in Bad Santa? It was about Iowa coach Steve Alford and Knight’s alleged feud with Alford who formerly played for Knight but is now seen as a competitor for talent and title. Knight among other things in his remarks this week called the media a bunch of twits.
With Knight’s Texas Tech team facing Alford’s Hawkeyes, the media began resurrecting comments made by Alford a couple of years ago when he wondered aloud what he had done for Knight to start giving him the leper treatment.
Knight’s interview with ESPN was aired this past Monday, during halftime of the Red Raiders-Hawkeyes game, and proceeded with an amazing tapestry of obscenity. Knight even dared the network to not bleep his words.
With Fraschilla questioning Knight as to his alleged feud with Alford, Knight replied saying something to the effect that it was an absolute crock of shit. “You know you fuckin’ people in the news media all you fuckin’ dwell on some negative piece of fuckin’ shit like that … and you don’t have to bleep one single fuckin’ word of this.
“Because we went to a thing at the Big Ten and Steve and I didn’t even see each other at a Big Ten thing and then it comes out of it that we don’t talk to each other,” he continued. “So all you of media people can go fuck yourselves when it comes to something like that.”
Meanwhile, Texas Tech Vice Chancellor Richard Butler condemned his coach’s barrage. “We don’t think that kind of language helps the university.”