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Sports: Once a bully …

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2005

With Texas Tech’s surprising run to the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet Sixteen, we’ve been shown images of a kinder, gentler Bobby Knight. Does such a creature exist?

When I was a kid, one of the hallmarks of a bully was his willingness to kick someone when he was down. While Bobby Knight has been known to head-butt, choke, and stomp on players’ feet, I’ve never seen a report that he physically kicked someone lying on the ground. But, as he proved this past weekend, he’s certainly capable of it.

Bobby wants us to believe that he was considering firing assistant coach Mike Davis when he himself was fired by Indiana University in September, 2000. Two days later, Davis was named Knight’s interim replacement. In Bobby’s twisted little binary world, there are only two kinds of people – those who are unfailingly loyal to him and those who aren’t. Anyone who didn’t climb onto his IU funeral pyre to be burned up alongside him was disloyal. Mike Davis chose not to burn, instead taking the interim coaching job. Disloyal. But in the following months of diatribes and denunciations, did Bobby ever mention his plan to fire Davis? No.

Four months after being named interim coach, Davis’ team won IU’s first-ever home victory over a top-ranked opponent – something Knight never accomplished. Did Bobby divulge his intent to fire Davis? No.

The next year, Davis took to the NCAA Championship game a team that Knight himself couldn’t get past the first weekend of the tournament. Did Bobby mention that he thought Davis should have been dismissed? No.

But on a day when he should have been celebrating his new team’s unexpected victory over Gonzaga, Bobby was back to grabbing headlines for himself. He was again acting the bully in a pathetic effort to settle an old score with an imagined enemy. Following a second consecutive mediocre season and an uninspired loss in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament, Davis’ Hoosiers had lost at home in the first round of the NIT. Rumors abounded that he would be fired, that he would go to the NBA, that he would take the head coaching job at Tulane. Bobby, seeing his disloyal successor under fire, couldn’t resist a swift kick.

It was vintage Bobby to seize a moment when Davis looked like an abject failure on his way out. What a perfect time to trot out this self-serving little tale of clairvoyance. Did he really consider firing Davis? Probably not. Bobby isn’t just a bully, he’s a liar too – always denying his own misbehavior, always making up stories to make himself look good. The irony, according to an IU fan I know, is that Bobby’s malicious little fiction probably saved Davis’ job for another year.

After all, the university that Bobby dominated for nearly three decades could hardly afford the appearance of being once again subjugated to his malevolent will.

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Sports: What is Temple U. President David Adamany afraid of?

Saturday, February 26th, 2005

In his life as a coach, John Chaney has accomplished much and perhaps suffered more. But like Bobby Knight, he has allowed his coaching prowess and good deeds to be overshadowed by a volatile temper. Chaney’s latest tantrum produced an outcome that exceeded everything in Knight’s legendary repertoire of rage. It ended the career of an opposing player.

Chaney’s behavior in the game against St. John’s reminded me of the 1978 Gator Bowl and the incident that let to the firing, three days later, of an honored and honorable football coach named Woody Hayes. His Ohio State Buckeyes were the only team that could challenge Michigan’s hegemony in the Big Ten Conference. Hayes’ offensive scheme was simple, “three yards and a cloud of dust” as he described it. He once remarked that when you throw the ball only three things can happen and two of them are bad. (For non-football fans, the three things are a completed pass – good, an incomplete pass – bad, and an interception – really bad.)

But it all ended when Hayes ran onto the field and struck Charlie Bauman, a Clemson player who had – what else? – intercepted an Ohio State pass. It’s safe to say that the enraged coach in his mid-60s did little damage to the tough young linebacker in his pads and helmet. But the injury wasn’t to the Clemson player; it was to The Ohio State University. The school president felt he had no choice but to dismiss Hayes whose famous temper had already produced a number of embarrassing incidents.

Chaney has produced embarrassments aplenty too, including a public threat to kill an opposing coach. And last week, he indulged a fit of rage similar to Hayes’. Rather than leave the bench and assault an opposing player himself, he dispatched a “goon” to even things up for what he considered poor officiating. Nehemiah Ingram did as he was instructed, committing five fouls in four minutes. One of them sent Saint Joseph’s Senior John Bryant crashing to the floor, breaking his arm and ending his collegiate career.

It’s true that Chaney did not himself hurl Bryant to the floor; he did something worse. He sent a young man who trusted and obeyed him to do the dirty work for him. I don’t know how Ingram feels about his actions that night, but I hope he doesn’t take pride in the fact that he will forever be known not as a basketball player but as an enforcer. Indeed, Chaney harmed two players that night, injuring an opponent and hanging the “goon” label on one of his own. The damage was far worse than anything Woody Hayes did to Charlie Bauman.

Woody Hayes was fired. Even Myles Brand, then President of Indiana University, finally summoned the courage to fire Bobby Knight. Temple President David Adamany has suspended John Chaney for three games. What is David Adamany afraid of?

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ACLU Follies: Opposing careful study and critical thinking in schools

Saturday, January 22nd, 2005

In Georgia, the ACLU opposed a school district’s advice to students that they approach the material in its textbooks with an open mind, study it carefully, and consider it critically. Huh?

In their hysterical attempts to turn back scientific challenges to their world view, the fanatics of the ACLU diligently suppress references to findings they consider disagreeable. And there is no more cherished theory than Darwinian evolution, the very centerpiece of the world view they struggle so relentlessly to impose. Within the scientific community – in fields as diverse as astrophysics and biochemistry, Darwinian evolution is far from a settled fact. For many scientists, publishing in respected scientific journals, it is all but dead.

The ACLU, however, does not want students in Cobb County Georgia (or anywhere else) to be exposed to this heresy. As scientific challenges mount, the ACLU lawyers are reduced to such pathetic measures as silencing a school’s admonition to its students to carefully scrutinize the content of their textbooks. Like most bigots, the high priests of the ACLU seem to fear critical thinking, preferring instead that students blindly accept the views they work so diligently to impose.

The ACLU has often served well to safeguard rights guaranteed by the Constitution. Yet now they routinely pursue – with true religious fervor – the suppression of thought and information. The ACLU has gotten into the business of violating the very rights they once upheld.

The case itself is very simple. The Cobb County School District had previously used science textbooks with blank pages where the material on evolution would have appeared. This, of course, was silly; science books must present current scientific theories and findings. Unfortunately, most textbooks – following the lead of many in the scientific establishment – ignore the principles of science and falsely portray Darwinian evolution as a fact that is beyond question or dispute. To overcome this bias, the school board mandated stickers on the science textbooks it adopted. The sticker said:

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with a open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

In its pretrial brief (PDF), the ACLU disingenuously implied that an alternative (and marginally better) sticker* might have been acceptable to them. They went on to argue that to survive a Constitutional challenge, the sticker that was adopted would have to meet a well-established legal standard: It would have to “have a valid secular purpose, not have the effect of advancing or inhibiting religion, and not foster excessive government entanglement in religion.” So how does the sticker actually fare?

The sticker obviously passes the test. I’m confident that the ACLU lawyers knew that because they did the next best thing; they focused instead on showing that the motivation for applying the stickers was religious in nature.

This religious motivation could probably have been stipulated by the Defense because it is both true and irrelevant. What motivates a legislator to produce a statute that outlaws child abuse? It does not matter; no Constitutional line has been crossed. What motivates a community to prohibit the sale of liquor on Sunday? It does not matter; no Constitutional line has been crossed. What motivates a college to restrict access to dorm rooms by members of the opposite sex? It does not matter; no Constitutional line has been crossed. The Constitutional standard applied in this case is relevant only to the governmental practice being challenged, not to the reasons the practice was initially advocated.

But I confess to the reader that I have misled you. There was indeed a religious component in that sticker. It expressly challenged a religious doctrine that is dear to the fanatics of the ACLU – that Darwinian evolution is a settled fact. The ACLU will not countenance the public establishment of any religion. Except its own.

* This textbook contains materail on evolution, a scientific theory, or explanation, for the nature and diversity of living things. Evolution is accepted by the majority of scientists but questioned by some. All scientific theories should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully and critically considered.

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