Still Despicable

Last night, Duke University men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski became the winningest head coach in Division I men's basketball history when his Blue Devils defeated the Michigan State University Spartans 74-69 at Madison Square Garden. Since the game--and indeed, even before the game--the accolades have been pouring in. I, however, will not be joining in the chorus celebrating Krzyzewski, and it's not because he defeated one of my alma maters and rooting interests to get his 903rd, record-setting win. Frankly, after their participation in the Carrier Classic last Friday night, I'm not sure I care that much about how the MSU Spartans perform.

Rather, as I wrote about on this blog in March 2010, I find Krzyzewski rather despicable because of his response to the actions of Abar Rouse, who, while serving as an assistant coach for Baylor University's men's basketball team, recorded Dave Bliss concocting a detestable cover-up for the shooting death of one of his basketball players. I'll point you to that post rather than rehashing it here again.

What I find particularly interesting here is the juxtaposition of Krzyzewski's win against the situation unfolding with Penn State University football. As USAToday reported today, 59% of respondents in a poll suggested that the football program had become too powerful at Penn State. Meanwhile, as some have suggested, recently fired head football coach Joe Paterno may have become so big as the head of that football program that he arrogantly thought he called his own shots. Yet, in Coach K, we may be seeing the same kind of pattern developing. Now, that's not to say that Krzyzewski has been directly complicit in the kind of horrible situation in which Paterno has been. However, the kind of lack of sensitivity and moral judgment reflected in Krzyzewski's comments about Rouse lead to me think he is very complicit in the broader culture that helped produce the situation at Penn State. Meanwhile, given Krzyzewski's lack of good judgment in the Baylor situation, I'd want to be really careful about perpetuating the sense that he and his program are more important than the university for which they work and more important than the many other individuals who are affected by what happens at that university. Still, that's exactly what the commemorations of Krzyzewski's 903rd victory appear to be doing.

I don't blame Coach K for what happened at Penn State, but I do think that, especially given his reponse to the situation at Baylor, the kind of adulation that puts his college basketball program on a level akin to Penn State's football program shows that we haven't learned much from what happened at Penn State.