February can’t come soon enough. In what may be a new pinnacle for reality
television—or maybe a nadir, I can’t decide—Bobby Knight has
been given his own reality show, called Knight
School, to air on ESPN this February.
The basic idea is that Knight will have
16 Texas Tech students competing for a chance to be a walk-on on the Red Raider
basketball team. The lucky 16 will be treated to the same boot-camp style drills,
wind sprints, and strategy sessions as the scholarship players, and perhaps even
a hidden-camera demonstration of the coach’s patented stranglehold maneuver.
I guess the producers (and his endlessly indulgent keepers at Texas Tech) feel
that Knight will be able to put a good face on camera, but he’s never done
so in the past, so what makes anyone think he’s going to start now? In fact,
one of the things people admire about Knight is that he doesn’t let a sense
of decorum, respect, or public relations concerns get in the way of a good Robert
Novak-style meltdown. Obviously, Knight will enjoy a measure of creative control
that live television doesn’t afford, but I think he vastly overestimates
his own charisma. (The show’s producers, on the other hand, are probably
secretly hoping for another one of his annual seasons on the brink.) Whatever
your feelings for Knight, this should be some riveting television—great,
awful television or awfully great television—and I for one can’t wait
to see the “lucky” winner rot away on the Raider bench, waiting for
his two minutes of garbage time during a blowout to make up for the hours of abuse
he takes at practice. That’s every kid’s dream, isn’t it?