In keeping with the March Madness theme, here’s a Bob Knight story from my college days at Indiana University (not the University of Indiana) in Bloomington.  If you don’t follow college basketball you may not know who the “The General” is although he is fairly well-known outside the basketball world too.

He’s a polarizing figure to say the least.  You’ll quickly have an opinion about him.  It might be good and it might be bad but you’ll have an opinion.  He’s the winningest coach in the history of college basketball and in over 30 years of coaching has never even been accused of cheating (unlike Kelvin Sampson but that’s another story).  In addition, the graduation rate of his players is very high, and the list of his proteges is long and distinguished including Coach K at Duke.  But he’s probably more famous for his tirades ranging from throwing a chair across the basketball court to allegedly choking one of his players to chewing out reporters with “colorful” language.

I don’t know the details but he must have made a small fortune in endorsements.  He was on an inordinate amount of local tv and radio commercials which isn’t that unusual for college coaches but he has also done several national television commercials which not many college coaches do.  He’s also working for ESPN as an analyst during the NCAA tournament this year and I don’t doubt he’s making top dollar for all the viewers he draws.

His success in making money for endorsing products and as a basketball analyst reinforces the maxim that the biggest sin in marketing is to be boring.  He is definitely not boring.  Even people who hate him probably tune in to see what antics he might pull today or what he might say.  His pay is certainly influenced by how many people tune in, not on how many love him; not unlike Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh.  Not everyone likes them either but tons of people tune in to hear them and they make millions for their ability to attract eyeballs or ears as the case may be.  Similarly, your ability to attract an audience (i.e. visitors to your websites) will have a large impact on how much money you make.

Coach Knight used to address the student body before every season.  IU is a huge school with over 30,000 students and thousands of us would flock to hear what “The General” had to say every year.  He’s an entertaining speaker.  One year I remember an atmosphere not unlike “The Who” concert in Cincinnati where several people were trampled to death in the rush to get a good seat.  The doors were locked until a few minutes before Coach Knight spoke and there were thousands of people waiting outside.  When the doors opened, I remember literally being swept off my feet by the crowd.  Luckily I didn’t fall down or I may have been trampled to death.  It was a bit scary.

Coach Knight always took questions and one guy mentioned the chaos that had taken place when the doors opened.  The guy (his name was Tony London if I remember correctly…but I didn’t find that out until a year later) was obese and “The General” (who’s not exactly thin himself) had a field day chastising this poor guy.  He needled and ridiculed Tony about his size until the guy finally just turned around and walked away…and Coach Knight made another unflattering remark as Tony walked away.  I left that evening thinking Coach Knight was a big jerk.  It shattered my image of him but there was no denying what had happened.  I witnessed it with my own eyes.

Flash forward 12 months to Coach Knight’s next “state of IU basketball” address.  He always had a guest speaker.  It was usually another coach or player.  He had Bill Mallory, the football coach, one year and Anthony Thompson, the Heisman Trophy runner-up the year Andre Ware won it, the next.  That year Coach Knight said he had a special guest and brought the guy out.  It was Tony London…minus 100 pounds or more.  I couldn’t believe it.

This was almost 20 years ago so forgive my memory but from what I recall Tony had written Coach Knight a letter saying that he didn’t appreciate the way Coach Knight had berated him.  From there Coach Knight invited him to the basketball facility and he started working out and they put him on a diet.  It was hard to believe how much weight this guy had lost.  He looked great and he got a big ovation when he was done talking.  So maybe Coach Knight isn’t such a bad guy after all, who knows?

This is a real-life example of how quickly things can change when you find the right person to motivate you.  It doesn’t have to be losing weight either.  Expand your thinking to include building a business.  You’ll have to put the time and effort in just like Tony did to lose all that weight but if you find the right person to motivate you and coach you to do the right things and you stick with it until you succeed, you might be shocked at how quickly your life changes for the better.

It could also serve as example not to judge people too quickly.  That certainly is not the way I would have gone about helping someone but Coach Knight’s detractors love to criticize him and his methods.  He makes himself an easy target.  It’s easy to be critical of people when they do things differently but as easy as it may be to criticize Coach Knight’s motivational tactics, it’s nearly impossible to question his results.  He’s won more games than other coach in men’s college basketball history (Pat Summit, the women’s coach at Tennessee has won more games) and with few exceptions (Neil Reed might be one), his players seem to love and respect him.

What more can he do?  You can’t please everyone and he makes no effort whatsoever to do so.  Good for him.  Maybe we’d all be better off if we stopped caring what our critics thought of us.  Those are a few lessons to be learned from “The General”…Robert Montgomery Knight.  We’ll see who the next IU basketball coach is but whoever it is, he’s got some big shoes to fill and two successors have already failed.  It’s not unlike trying to replace John Wooden at UCLA or Tom Osborne at Nebraska.

Tags: Success, Monetization

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