Just received an advance copy of the March issue of Playboy -- the one featuring Bob Knight -- and quite frankly, I'm surprised the exiled coach agreed to any of this. Yes, his "Men of the Big Ten" pictorial was done tastefully and, yes, the airbrushing was first-rate, but some of his remarks in the Playmate Data Sheet were shocking:

Name: Robert Montgomery Knight
Bust: "Anybody's chops."
Waist: "My last five years at Indiana."
Hips: "Don't know -- haven't seen them in years."
Height: "With or without my soapbox?"
Birthdate: Oct. 25, 1940
Birthplace: Massillon, Ohio
Ambitions: "To teach the young kids the importance of teamwork, of commitment, of loyalty, of a college degree -- because, after all, that's what I am first, a teacher, an educator ... to [expletive] stick it to all those [expletive] who [expletive] screwed me at [expletive] Indiana ... to learn inner peace."
Turn-ons: "Connie Chung calling me 'The General' ... whips ... Roy Firestone.
Turn-offs: "Jeremy Schaap ... rude people ... Puerto Rican extradition laws ... IU practice videos".
If I had time I would: "Is that some kind of [expletive] joke? One more [expletive] question like that and this interview is [expletive] finished!"
Favorite subject in school: Revisionist history.
Favorite sports: 50-meter chair hurling, windpipe constricting, trash can stuffing.
If I could live anywhere in the world, it would be: Tallahassee, Westwood, Ann Arbor, or Raleigh.
Favorite snack: Clarence Doninger.
Words to live by: "Don't sweat the small stuff."

Okay, they're cheap jokes, but so is Knight's continued assertion that he is somehow the victim of IU's -- what did he call it in the actual Playboy interview? -- dishonesty, deceitfulness and "enormous duplicity."

Says Knight of IU's trustees and administration: "They put a spin on everything they can in an attempt to explain why I've been dismissed as the basketball coach. The people who have made these decisions are the most dishonest people I've ever dealt with."

Three questions:

Did Knight use a chokehold on Neil Reed at practice? Yes.

Did Knight agree to IU's last-chance "zero tolerance" provision? Yes.

Did Knight grab freshman Kent Harvey by the arm and offer an ill-advised lesson in etiquette? Yes.

Now Knight says "anybody with any intelligence knows that zero tolerance is a prelude to failure. Nobody can operate on zero anything." Well, then, why did he agree to IU's terms? And when exactly will he learn the value of silence?

Someone needs to show Knight the scene in Austin Powers, where Dr. Evil quiets his son with an assortment of pre-emptive, Shhhs! ("When a problem comes along, you must zip it.") The more Knight talks, the less he sounds like a guy you'd want to give the keys to, say, UCLA's hoops program -- that is, if Bruins athletic director Pete Dalis is done letting Steve Lavin twist in the wind.

But first Dalis might want to read the Playboy interview and ask himself if Knight is worth the trouble. He wins games. His players almost always earn degrees. He fills arenas. He doesn't cheat. He helps underwrite libraries and professorial chairs. But he also has zero tolerance for anyone who questions or defies him. He is prone to monumental and very public meltdowns. He is vindictive (who else makes public his decision not to donate $5 million to IU?). He is petty (his verbal attacks on Doninger border on vicious). He is in denial.

"I want better final memories than I have right now," says Knight.

Then start by shutting up. Start reaching out, rather than reach for excuses. Start to understand that a legacy is a terrible thing to waste.

Gene Wojciechowski is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at gene.wojciechowski@espnmag.com.