 |
|
| Thursday, March 8 Dickey deserves better; so does Knight By Ray Ratto Special to ESPN.com |
|||||||||||||
|
Texas Tech basketball coach James Dickey just wants to be told if he's being replaced by Bobby Knight.
And Charles Durning wants to be taller, and Dick Cheney wants cleaner arteries, and Juliette Binoche wants to win the Stanley Cup. And yet at last look, according to several sources including the Lubbock paper, the coach who has been left to twist slowly in the wind by his athletic director, Gerald Myers. Dickey said he asked the boss three times, the most recent being Wednesday night, if he is about to be shoved down the elevator shaft, and has gotten no answer whatsoever. Now that's no way to start a new job, let alone end an old one. This isn't about Bob Knight, in case you Indiana recidivists started feeling your neck tighten. Bob Knight is a coach out of work, and as near as anyone can tell, Texas Tech called him, not the other way around. And that has always been the trick with Knight -- knowing what he has done wrong without blaming him for things he didn't. Both lists, after all, tend to run long. So let's move past Knight, and get back to Dickey. He is an alum, and a loyal employee. Texas Tech has reached the NCAA Tournament under him, most recently in 1996. In short, the man is not a coaching slob. On the other hand, his last four teams have had losing records, and that sort of thing doesn't go over well in Texas, whether it's Dallas, Lubbock or Godforsaken Junction. Not only that, Dickey knows how "that sort of thing" works. Thus, it isn't the potential firing that ought to be grinding at him, although it probably isn't putting much spring in his step. It's not getting a straight answer from a man who owes him at least that. If Myers wants Bob Knight, fine, and if he has to fire Dickey to get him, fine again. But to say nothing at all is unreasonable. I mean, what are the options here?
None of those sentences take more than a few seconds, and Myers doesn't even have to offer Dickey much beyond that, although a beer and a tear might be nice. And it isn't the burdens of the Big 12 Tournament that stand in the way, either. Denny Crum was gently muscled out the door at Louisville, but he knew it was coming, and even though it was unpleasant, he feels comfortable enough with the process to stay in the athletic department. Sad? If you're a Louisville fan old enough to remember the two national titles, sure. But not as unpleasant as it could have been, not unfair, and quite nearly dignified. Stuff happens, but it doesn't have to happen with a sandbag to the nethers. It doesn't have to happen that way for James Dickey, either. He has earned a better sendoff than "We'll get back to you," or its corollary, "Can you get off my porch?" And as far as that goes, Bob Knight deserves better than to resume his coaching career with the sentence, "Yeah, the guy before him got a raw deal at the end." He'll be sufficiently reminded of his sins while at Indiana that being saddled with even the indirect criticism of James Dickey's last days on the job. One good thing did come of this, though. We learned that Lubbock's daily newspaper is called the Avalanche Journal, the coolest name for a paper until someone sends us a copy of the Medicine Hat, Alberta, Daily Snowstorm and Influenza Outbreak. Ray Ratto of the San Francisco Chronicle is a frequent contributor to ESPN.com. |
| ||||||||||||
