Bobby Knight works himself into a hell of a competitive lather. But then, so did General George Patton, another field commander with a winning record who came close to destroying his own career by slapping shell-shocked soldiers in Army hospitals. The university might have fired Knight outright, as Dwight Eisenhower and George C. Marshall might have fired Patton. If Knight had been losing basketball games, of course, he would have been cut up for bait long ago. Forbearance follows the money.
Knight dramatizes an ethical dilemma in the longer term.
We are approaching the day when we will be able to engineer personality traits into, or out of, the human makeup. Forget coaching basketball. The English essayist Thomas Fuller composed a lovely sermonette on anger in 1642. Samson's hair grew again, but not his eyes. The world is divided between those who consider anger to be a form of temporary insanity and those who believe it to be a sign of strength of character, a weapon in the hands of the righteous, an instrument of justice.