Not afraid to divide

If pluralism is a modern watch word, Bobby Knight stopped watching years ago. He’s actually a nice person but anyone who has met him knows that “nice” doesn’t mean blindly cosigning for the status quo that has come to define the culture of NCAA basketball. Coach Knight, who won 902 games as a Division I college basketball coach, recently pulled no punches while giving a speech in Indiana where he is the very emblem of hardwood greatness. He takes the kind of shots most people are afraid to unless doing it anonymously on a blog. Some who know him say his outspokenness caused his tenure at Indiana University to time out prematurely but whatever the case, he’s not afraid to be a lone voice.

Regardless of coach Knight’s criticisms, today he’s made statements that challenge coddling, cheating and deference to economics. His message is not a platform, just plain Bobby Knight. He’s not a one man agenda but then again he is because of who he is. In spite of imperfections that the media has no problem reminding us of, coach Knight has spoken up even when it meant indicting personal acquaintances. The Bible speaks, in a much different context, of the world arriving to a point where even close kin are divided because of “The Truth”.

At day’s end, one thing I learned from playing basketball whether on the floor or on the bench was that you can’t be afraid to divide. You can wander far from sports to watch documentaries on various subjects and see that the power to transform culture lies in the courage to be divisive on behalf of truth. An example was when I recently saw the documentary Food, Inc. that brings to light the health dangers facing American consumers because farmers are being forced to produce genetically altered food. The movie ends with an appeal to consumers to essentially revolt by buying Organic when possible. The point is, neither gray hair nor assimilation makes the world more virtuous. The courage to be a lone voice on behalf of singular truth is what contends against a world riddled with shortcuts.