c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is publisher of RNS and the mother of two sons.)

(UNDATED) I don’t know much about coaching, but I do know something about mothering and from what I can tell, both jobs require similar skills.

A good coach, like a good mother, is an encourager. Neither a coach nor a mother should scream, threaten, abuse or inflict physical harm on a child. A mother who did those things would be charged with child abuse. A coach, if he is a winning coach at Indiana University, gets an outrageous salary and total job security.

I have seen the impact good coaching can have. My own sons have run farther, worked harder and excelled beyond their own dreams mostly because of good and decent coaching.

At times I have felt as if I handed the mothering role over to these men and have been proud to share it with them. They have cared for my sons in ways that made them not just better athletes but also better people.

As my oldest son begins to think about college I have already had conversations with coaches. I have been impressed by the kindness and dedication most have, not just to athletics but to making sure students also get to study and enjoy life.

And that’s why it is a mystery to me why any mother would let her son or daughter go to Indiana University. I don’t just mean as a basketball player. I mean as an athlete or non-athlete.

From what I can tell this is a school devoid of concern for students. This is a school that values scores over souls.

If the president and trustees of this institution can show more concern for Bobby Knight than for a string of students abused by him, what student is safe in Bloomington? If the bandleader wins national awards is he or she allowed to throw instruments at students and humiliate them if they miss a note? Would a Pulitzer Prize-winning teacher be allowed to hit a student over the head with a book for not grasping the imagery in a poem?

Are any of these scenarios more obscene than Bobby Knight’s? Can the university honestly expect to dismiss any coach or teacher for such behavior when they have not only allowed it but enabled it for years on the basketball court?

Bobby Knight is an insult to coaches everywhere. He is a thug and a bully whose behavior would have gotten him arrested and jailed in any other setting. But he’s not the most culpable person in this nasty situation.

The president and board have ultimate responsibility for coaches and teachers and they have given a clear signal that as long as you rack up wins, students are expendable. At least they have made their feelings very clear.

It seems to me the only way to deal with such a declaration of university approved child abuse is to simply refuse to let our children attend such an institution. Mothers and fathers should tell Indiana University that they will never entrust their sons and daughters to a school with such a low regard for students.

High school counselors should cross it off of their list. Foundations should consider what their money is going to aid and abet. And the government of Indiana should consider why this school is allowed to give the entire state a bad name.

If Indiana University wants their wins that badly, let them have them without the support of funds or families. Let Bobby Knight run Indiana University into the ground and then perhaps the president and trustees will remember what a university is supposed to be about.

DEA END BOURKE