Bob Knight is in the headlines stemming from a dove hunting incident. They are trying to find out if he was hunting birds and doing badly or was hunting a human. I have mixed emotions and opinions on this. The first time I saw the video on ESPN I thought that Knight was back to his old irritating ways. His coaching results have never been questioned, but he always seems to be at the center of a hostile situation. He is another guy (along with Kobe, Jerry West, and Dennis Rodman) that you either love or hate.

After some digging around I was able to find the full video version where a guy comes up tells Bob Knight to move further down because pellets were landing on his pool. I thought this was the arrogant Bob Knight that didn’t want to be bothered. It initially seemed to be a reasonable request for Bob to move.

Then it became apparent that the guy was looking for 5 minutes of fame and a little money. The guy (Thomas Mikunda) has filed a lawsuit now against Knight. Here are a few things that I find very fishy about the video : 1. He quickly accuses Knight of pointing a gun in his direction. 2. He only accuses Knight of firing at his house even though the other hunter with Bob says he accidentally did. 3. The video only shows Knight which shows that he was attacking his celebrity. 4. His video is at 9am and he accuses Bob of being too loud at 7am. If I was that irritated at 7am and wanted to video I would have done it then to make it look unreasonable. 5. The guy tries to act like a nice guy about throwing comments in about how good of a coach Bob Knight is, but if he was truly upset then he wouldn’t be thinking of axillary topics that are not related. 6. He keeps saying that Knight wouldn’t like this at his house, but Knight openly invites him to and the guy acts like that is crazy. 7. Knight has a permit, while the guy may not like him being there, (I don’t like it when my neighbor plays bass guitar at 1am either, but it’s life) it is not illegal.

Here is an alternative view of the video from Deadspin.com.

Now I’m not a hunter or an animal activist so I won’t get into that. Yes Bob Knight has earned most of his reputation. But this is stupid. I hope they don’t give into a plea agreement and decide to steam roll that guy for a blatant attack on someone of celebrity stature.

Here’s a link to the uncut version of the video in case you haven’t seen it.

Just for fun I wanted to add this video because it was the first thing I thought of when I heard about Knight.

One of my readers pointed out that I am only talking about the NBA. While that’s not entirely true (I posted about the WNBA and Team USA), I have neglected college basketball. I blame this on my obsession with the HoopStar Fantasy Basketball league.

Anyway, I found this great article about Rob Jones, a freshman at the University of San Diego. While San Diego is not known as a basketball powerhouse and the talents of Rob Jones most likely will never be featured in the NBA, he does have a unique legacy.

Most people are born into this world without a great advantage. The average person’s parents are lucky to garner local fame. Very few are privileged with parents that have established a legacy for one to follow. Rob Jones fall on the opposite end of that spectrum. His family’s legacy isn’t for being famous, its for being infamous. Rob’s father is Jim Jones Jr. If you are up on your history then that name should sound an alarm. Jim Jones Sr. (known as Reverend Jones) founded a socialistic society known as Jonestown. This society later became infamous under Rev. Jones’ rule and committed one of the largest mass suicides in the history of mankind.

The Jones family (with a name like that, it probably isn’t important to “keep up with the Jones”) was featured in a recent Outside The Lines episode. There Jim Jones Jr. credited basketball with saving his life while his father was ordering the deaths of almost 1000 people. Jones Jr. claimed that basketball was his mental escape. It later proved to be a much greater escape than that. Jones Jr. was a part of the National Jonestown Basketball Team (a team his father put together to gain positive attention and press about the strength of his society). The team was playing in a regional tournament set up in Guyana in Georgetown. While in Georgetown a tragic series of events eventually lead to the organized mass suicide offering to the cyanide gods. Jones Jr. was miles away from harm’s reach.

Fast forward to today. Jones Jr. is involved in Rob’s success on the basketball floor. While he takes great joy in seeing his son succeed, he also experiences relief as people identify him as Rob’s dad and not as Rev. Jones’ son. He was able to use basketball as a healthy outlet for his frustrations as a child He also used it as an avenue that not only saved his life, but also made a future possible for his son. This legacy has very little to live up to. Instead Rob is paving a new legacy for his future children to follow. Good luck on your journey Rob.