Bobby Knight's last losing legacy

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Were coaching genius hereditary, James Wooden, Allie McGuire and Adolph Rupp II would be heralded throughout the land.

It isn't ... and they aren't.

Pat Knight isn't heralded, either. He's just another ex-coach, having been canned by Texas Tech after his Red Raiders compiled the second-worst record in the Big 12 during his three-year run.

Ten years ago, Bobby Knight came out of forced retirement to energize the Texas Tech program and put Lubbock on the map. Short term, the hire was a resounding success. Knight, truly one of the great coaching minds in sports history, worked wonders with the decent group of basketball players he inherited.

In his fourth season, the Red Raiders advanced to the Sweet Sixteen -- something his Hoosiers couldn't do in his final six stormy seasons at Indiana. Texas Tech fans, who had been apathetic for decades, turned out to games. ESPN even found Lubbock a few times.

Knight seemed to get bored, however, and the year after the Sweet Sixteen -- when his first full recruiting class was in -- the Red Raiders went 15-17. Two years later, his program flagging and attendance waning, he resigned midseason.

As part of his employment, he had arranged for Pat to take over when he stepped down. It turned out to be the coaching version of a fraternity legacy: an ill-equipped kid being invited to pledge only because his old man had been frat president.

Unlike Bobby, Pat actually is a reasonable fellow. There are no known cases of him having strangled players at practice or throwing chairs across the court. He handled his firing with class.

Unlike Bobby, Pat can't coach a lick.

His Red Raiders were rotten, and empty seats outnumbered filled ones at home games.

Maybe now he'll follow his pop to ESPN. There, he wouldn't have to do much to eclipse Bobby, who has trouble putting consecutive coherent sentences together.
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UConn't deny that 89 wins is amazing

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When I was at Marquette, one of my fellow students was a female basketball star named Kathy Andrykowski. She was a prolific scorer whose feats were touted by the P.R. department every time she surpassed one of the men's stars on the Warriors' all-time points list. At the time, I considered every such mention to be beyond ridiculous.

Men were men and women were women and to compare the two was dopey. One of the starting guards on our women's team was a good friend of mine and I beat her several times 1-on-1. And I pretty much sucked. So, in my immature mind, that proved a female's athletic accomplishments shouldn't be mentioned in the same breath as those of a male jock.

So here we are, some three decades later, and UConn's women's hoops team just won its 89th straight game. Which, of course, is one more victory than John Wooden's early-70s UCLA team's storied record of 88.

And while I still think it's kind of an apples-and-oranges deal, I truly do appreciate the amazing accomplishment of Geno Auriemma's Huskies.

I don't care if it's men, women or hermaphrodites. Eighty-nine wins in a row is 89 wins in a row. The Huskies deserve to be celebrated ... and if it all engenders some discussion of gender roles in sport and society, all the better.
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