Image v. Results

What Bobby Knight's passing can teach us about the 2024 presidential election

    Sadly, the world became a little smaller place this past week with the passing of legendary NCAA basketball coach, Bobby Knight.  Bagholder has always been a college basketball fan, as it is one of the last true meritocracies left on the planet. You don’t get to play point guard for the Duke Blue Devils because you have the right connections, the right last name, or the right preferred pronouns. You get that gig on merit and merit alone. Either you can play, or you can’t.

  Just as cream poured into a cup of coffee will always rise to the top, the best college coaches will also find their way to the top. If there were a Mount Rushmore for NCAA basketball coaches, it would be hard to argue with Wooden (UCLA), Smith (North Carolina), Krzyzewski (Duke), and the late great Bobby Knight (Indiana). If we were going to have an image contest among those 4, Bobby Knight would lose badly. If, however, we were to discuss which of the 4 was best as a coach, in Bag’s opinion, Knight would dwarf the others.

   Unlike the other 3, Bobby Knight did his winning without routinely attracting the best high school basketball talent in the country. Knight was loyal to his roots and recruited only locally, prioritizing smarts over athleticism. He was the last college coach to lead his team to a perfect season (32-0) in 1976 - and he did it without household names. He stressed team defense, fundamentals, precision passing, and hustle - four things most coaches today don’t bother teaching. His teams regularly beat more talented competition because his players were smarter, better conditioned, and routinely out-hustled opponents. Knight was detail-oriented and hard-working, demanding the same from his players.

  Despite winning multiple national championships, Olympic gold medals, and 11 Big Ten titles, Bobby Knight will forever be remembered for his brash, polarizing, and militaristic manner, often bordering on abuse. He was regarded by many peers and players as a complete A-hole. Did he once throw a chair across the court in the middle of a game? Yes. Did he grab one of his players by the throat while screaming at him with a profanity-laced rant? Yes. Did he often make players run laps until they collapsed, vomiting from exhaustion? Yes.

Know what else he did?  …. Win games, precisely what he was hired to do.    

  It speaks volumes on just how far we have fallen as a society that when most folks read of his passing, their first thought will be: Good riddance, the guy was an A-hole.

   Judging people, not on what they achieve, but on their image, is one of the many reasons this country is falling apart at the seams.  Anyone who has worked for a US corporation in the last few decades could attest to the fact that the “likeable incompetent employee” will get promoted, long before the “unlikeable competent guy” who gets things done. Society is more likely to reward the manner in which results are produced, than the actual results.

  There is no better modern-day example of this phenomenon, than Donald Trump.  Consider this: He is the only president in Bag’s lifetime who didn’t get us into a war. He also lowered Bag’s taxes, gas was barely $2 a gallon,  inflation was tame, we had sub 4% mortgages, our southern border was secure, and the Dow Jones rose 15% per year on his watch, compounded. But none of that matters, because of his bold, obnoxious manner.

And so, because we live in a cancel culture world where personality is paramount, in November 2020, the A-hole was voted out.

   What did we get for choosing image over results?  A senile incompetent who has given us $4 gas, soaring inflation, 8%+ mortgages, multiple wars, and a Dow Jones that has risen less than 3% per year on his watch. Oh, and let’s not forget we now have a southern border with 76,000 illegals crossing every day, many of whom have criminal resumes that make Hunter Biden look like a saint. The results of the last three years are abysmal, but hey, … lol … at least he’s not an A-hole.

  For those who care to listen, history has repeatedly demonstrated that sometimes an A-hole is the right man for the job. General George Patton routinely excelled at war, winning battles his contemporaries thought were un-winnable. Was he an A-hole? Absolutely.  Steve Jobs, the visionary who brought the world IPods, Iphones, and steered Apple stock through a 600-fold increase during his tenure, was another complete A-hole. History is littered with successful people who were also pitiful human beings in their private lives. Walt Disney, Charlie Chaplin, Isaac Newton, and Charles Dickens are just a few. Today, most of those folks would have no chance at success. They would be de-platformed and ostracized by our cancel culture, which insists on judging people by their image rather than accomplishments.

Theoretically, the way Bag sees it, if we were trying to fight a war, Patton would be a no-brainer choice as General. Run a tech company, Steve Jobs is the guy. Win a Basketball game, Bobby Knight is the man. With the 2024 presidential election only a year away, it seems this nation will be presented with a rematch of the 2020 election between the obnoxious A-hole and the senile incompetent. In stark contrast to modern-day cancel culture, Bag believes accomplishments matter far more than personality. And so, if the 2024 presidential election is Trump v. Biden, and it appears at this time that will be the case, Bag is going with the A-hole.