Because We Are Selfish

I got this from  pages  173-175  of one of my favorite books Season On The Brink. It is a non-fiction book yet I get stressed out reading this. Bobby Knight has that effect on people. Bobby Knight was also a gifted teacher. These three pages always contained so much for me. Including:

• Be in the game even if you are not "in the game".
• Be supportive of any teammate 
• The best thing a sport can teach you for the rest of your life is how to compete. 
• If you are selfish on the court then you are also selfish in life. 

If somebody doesn't like something to the degree you like  that same thing then the tendency is to say " they don't get it" .   Well when I was looking up the Goodreads link to this book I read a bunch of people who " don't get it." When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. You might learn a lot from this book. What to do and what not to do. It is very real. If you get something from the following three pages , who knows what you can get reading the whole book? 

Ed

"I want to tell you people about Todd and about Stew," he 
said. "I'm not sure anyone in here gives us more than Todd does. 
He's got bad knees, so bad he maybe shouldn't even be playing. 
I looked down the bench at him at the end of the game, he's got 
tears rolling down his cheeks — and he didn't even play. 

"Andre, I looked at you and you were no more into the game 
than someone sitting in a home for the mentally ill in Northern 
Indiana. We've got guys like Todd rooting like hell for you, and 
when it's your turn to root, you just sulk. I think there are people 
here in this room who resent that." 

Knight paused. "If any of you disagree with my assessment, 
say so. I'll respect the hell out of you for standing up and dis- 
agreeing." Knight waited. No one said a word. He went on. 

"I want to tell you something else, Andre, you too, Todd Jad- 
low. Stew has been here four years. He's helped us win some big 
games. He's started, he's come off the bench, he's not played at 
all. He had no idea Sunday how much he would play, if at all, 
and there was no one more into the game than he was. If we had 
fifteen guys like that, this team would be a lot different than it 
is." 

More than anything. Knight was philosophical. "You know, I 
tell you all the time that basketball is thinking and playing smart 
and working hard. You hear that so much from me you probably 
stop hearing it after a while. But I was thinking this morning 
about Scott May. I can remember Scott May coming in here on 
Sundays, his one day off, and working for two hours on not 
walking with the basketball. He ended up a two-time All-Amer- 
ican and player of the year as a senior. And I'll tell you something, 
he didn't have any more athletic ability than a lot of you do. But 
he wanted to compete so much, he made himself better. 

"See, boys, basketball should be your favorite class. Because 
what basketball has done for teams here in the past is taught those 
kids how to compete. That's a great thing to learn. I guarantee 
you we've had players who have sat in the classroom with people 




who had 3.7 cums, who they no way should have been able to 
compete with after college, and have gone on and done much 
better than those kids did. 

"Why? Because they knew how to compete. They knew how 
to stay after something. They knew how to get knocked down 
and get up. Those other guys, 3.7 and all, some of them couldn't 
sell handwarmers to eskimos. But until this team, or the last two 
teams, we always had players who wanted to play and wanted to 
compete. I feel like with you guys that you are required to play. 
And I hate using that word — required." 

The lights were off in the locker room, the tape machine was 
frozen right behind where Knight stood. He hadn't raised his 
voice once, but he certainly had everyone's attention. "Let me 
take a wild guess at something here," Knight went on. "On 
Christmas night, all of you had dinner at Dr. Rink's house. I 
would imagine that Mrs. Rink spent the better part of three 
days cooking that dinner for you. What did you, as a team, do to 
thank her for dinner? Tell me. Did you all kick in a dollar to 
send her some roses? Did anybody write a thank-you note? 
Anybody? Speak up, anyone who did anything to thank Mrs. 
Rink." 

He looked around the room. No one looked back. He turned 
to Alford. "Steve, why do you think I was able to ask that question 
with absolute and complete confidence that no one had done any- 
thing?" 

"Because we're selfish." 

"Exactly. And that is reflected in the way you play basketball. 
The most selfish thing in the world is only worrying about guard- 
ing your man or only worrying about boxing out your man. If 
Winston helps me when I lose my man, you better believe I'm 
going to try like hell to help on his man when he needs it. But 
you don't do that. You just worry about yourselves. And as long 
as you do that, you'll continue to play selfish basketball, you'll 
continue to make the mistakes that cost us this game and you 
won't be able to beat anybody. Think about it." 

This time, when Knight left his players alone, they did have 
something to think about. As the coaches followed Knight out of 
the locker room, Kohn Smith said softly, "Now that was coaching." 



The next morning, Mrs. Larry Rink received two dozen roses, 
courtesy of the Indiana basketball team.