Ken Davis

Bob Knight has the itch to coach basketball again. Evidently, one year away from the bench was all he could take.

Knight has that special knack of surprising us. Just when it seemed he was growing comfortable in those lovely ESPN sweaters provided by the network, news surfaces that Knight would be interested in the Georgia coaching job — if offered.

Just like that, Georgia is supposed to jump at the chance and hire the man with the most men's D-I coaching victories in history. No questions about his bad behavior. No vetting process. No list of references.

And why is that? Well he’s Bob Knight, of course, and he’s ready. He’s trying to get back into coaching the same way he got out. He wants to do it his way. Cue the Sinatra music and give the man a Georgia red sweater.

But guess what? It’s time to say no to Knight.

Georgia should say no. So should Alabama and Arizona or any other school that might be searching for a new coach after this season. Knight has had his time. He doesn’t belong in today’s game. There isn’t one good reason for any decent athletic director to consider hiring Knight. But there is an entire list on the other side of the ledger.

Let’s start with the way he left Texas Tech. For those who don’t remember, the date was Feb. 4, 2008, and I remember it well. I had just attended a rally for a presidential candidate at the XL Center in Hartford, Conn. My wife and I went to check out some guy named Barack Obama.

At that point in the election, half the people were labeling Obama a rock star. The other half said he couldn’t get elected because he was black. A lot has changed in a year. There’s a new direction in America and quite often it seems we can’t deal with things the old-fashioned way.

Slide show Knight life Click to see images of Bobby Knight’s highs, lows and everything in-between while coaching at Indiana and Texas Tech. more photos

Sitting in traffic after the rally, I turned on the car radio and that’s when we heard the news Knight had retired. Of course, Knight cleared that up soon after when he said he was simply taking a break and might coach again. He never retired. He reiterated that Sunday in a statement that followed the original story from Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Furman Bisher.

Said Knight: “I have never said that I wouldn’t coach again. I’ve simply said in the past, if the right situation came along, I would be interested.”

And we know Knight is interested in Georgia because he is leaking all the information. Bisher has a “mutual friend” who says Knight “doesn’t want it to look like he’s pursuing the job.”

Now why would anyone think that? It wouldn’t be because it became the top story Monday on every ESPN platform, would it? He's reportedly not even on Georgia's candidate list, but Knight was treated as the only candidate.

Honestly, ESPN should have renamed Big Monday last night and called it “Bob Monday” or “Monday Knight Basketball.” The scroll known as The Bottom Line recounted every angle of the Knight story, almost overshadowing a terrific doubleheader featuring No. 1 UConn vs. Louisville and Kansas vs. Baylor.

There was a summary of Knight’s statement. There were comments Knight had made on ESPN Radio with Mike Tirico. There was Dick Vitale saying Georgia should offer the job to Knight “in a heartbeat” even though he didn’t “even know if he would take a job.” If you turned away to ESPN2, there was Knight working as the analyst for the Tennessee-Oklahoma women’s game. (Notice he was calling it “women’s basketball” Monday after several politically incorrect references Sunday to how much Pat Summitt had contributed to “girls' basketball.”)

It makes you wonder what is in Knight’s ESPN contract. Is there a clause there that says if Knight gets sick of his media job, everyone at ESPN will help him find another coaching job? And when he is coaching again, he can go back to his usual ways of berating the media — the media he now is part of.

Slideshow   The Week in Sports Pictures A kayaker flips out, a racehorse eyes the Triple Crown and more. more photos

When Knight is being interviewed by an ESPN anchorperson, why isn’t he asked about walking away from his Texas Tech players with 10 games remaining last season? Is that an example of strong leadership? Why don’t they ask him about leaving when his contract had just been extended three years, through the 2011-12 season?

If you were an athletic director wouldn’t you want to know? Or would you be OK with him walking into your office one day and saying, “I’m tired.” If he had four or five years left on his contract, would it be acceptable to you and your school when he got up one morning and decided to hang the “Gone Fishing” sign on the door?

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