A Public Figure's Verbal Responsibility

The next morning, before Xu Ling had even stirred from bed, the entire nation was already buzzing. The biggest headline in college basketball wasn't Texas Tech University capturing the Big 12 championship, nor was it any of the marquee matchups from other conferences. It was: *The General's Curse: Bob Knight Says He "Hopes Everyone at Indiana University Is Dead."* ESPN, CBS, NBC, *The New York Times*, *USA Today*, and even CNN reported on the story. A few of Knight's old friends from Indiana University expressed their disappointment. It was undoubtedly a massive uproar, but to a battle-tested veteran like Knight, it was nothing more than trivial noise. He wasn't affected in the slightest. Texas Tech University's official stance on the matter was likewise "no comment." As a result, the fallout was sharply divided. Outside of TTU, media outlets across the country were analyzing and debating his words, making Knight a fixture on the television news once again. On the TTU campus, however, the university was bathed in the joy of the men's basketball team winning the Big 12 championship. Xu Ling had transformed from a rising superstar into a sports hero etched into school history. His every move was scrutinized and even overanalyzed. For instance, on his first day back after winning the title, he carefully picked out two pieces of chicken breast in the campus dining hall. A fellow student who witnessed it immediately posted about it on the university's Reddit forum, remarking, "Don't you guys think that's the kind of choice only a pro player would make?" Meanwhile, ESPN's hit show *Draft Insider* was analyzing the latest draft trends. "We can basically say that after the Big 12 championship game, Eli's draft stock is locked into the top ten. As long as he keeps this momentum going in the national tournament, he has an extremely good chance of becoming a top-five contender in the 2007 draft." Another analyst chimed in, "No, if Eli keeps performing like this during March Madness, the question we should be debating is whether he or Kevin Durant should go number two overall." "And there's another piece of news: Isiah Thomas was fined by the league this morning for tampering with college players. But Isiah's attention is already entirely focused on the draft coming up in a few months." "Yes. According to my sources, Isiah has been trying to dangle future Knicks draft picks and anyone on their roster in exchange for a 2007 lottery pick. From what I hear, the Bobcats have already turned him down." "Good grief, Isiah again!" The analysts burst into laughter. Stories of Isiah Thomas's wild maneuvering were making the rounds across the league, and clearly there was no smoke without fire. Then, a scout on the ESPN broadcast heaped lavish praise on Xu Ling: "Eli's combination of size, wingspan, athleticism, and skill makes him a player capable of playing three positions at once. What he's doing at TTU looks like a hybrid of Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. If it were up to me, I wouldn't pass on a player like that for the world!" Naturally, where there was lavish hype, there were bound to be contrarians. Jimmy King, currently an analyst for Fox Sports, had been a member of the legendary "Fab Five" that took the college basketball world by storm back in the day. Yet despite the Fab Five's towering fame, the only ones who truly made a name for themselves in the NBA were Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, and Juwan Howard. That success rate couldn't be called low, but the disparity was stark. Those three guys made over a hundred million dollars during their NBA careers, while King was merely a journeyman in the NBA who spent most of his pro career overseas. Even landing his gig at Fox Sports had required pulling strings through Webber. A life path like that left King intensely skeptical of any college prospect who was hyped to the skies. On his Fox Sports program, he put it bluntly: "I need this hype around KD and Eli to stop. If I see one more person claiming they're the next MJ, I'm going to lose my mind! Get a grip, people. They're just young kids having a hot stretch. In my eyes, they're not even as good as I was back with the Fab Five. There's only one sure thing in this draft class, and that's Greg Oden. He's going to be this generation's Bill Russell." Comments like that were hardly uncommon. Some wanted to fuel the debate of "Eli or KD," while others felt Xu Ling wasn't even qualified to enter the conversation. Still, one consensus among them remained absolute: Greg Oden was the untouchable frontrunner for the number one pick. As for Xu Ling, he had felt plenty of the fallout over the past couple of days from Knight running his mouth to reporters about his old enemies. In class, classmates asked for his take on Knight making national television news, and a professor even called on him to speak about "a public figure's verbal responsibility." All of this demonstrated just how massive the shockwaves were from Knight saying he wished the people who fired him from Indiana University were dead. Within the team, however, the impact was virtually invisible. They had less than five days to prepare for the March Madness tournament. Two days had already slipped by. The national tournament bracket had been released. As champions of the Big 12 Conference and a top-five seed nationally, TTU was placed in the East Region. For them, it was an enviable bracket. The East Region held neither the defending champion University of Florida nor the formidable Ohio State University. Whenever anyone betrayed such thinking, Knight would chew them out mercilessly. He wanted his players to understand that in the single-elimination crucible of March Madness, anything was possible. In more than forty years of coaching, Knight had witnessed far too many improbable Cinderella upsets to count. Today, practice went on as usual. The man running the session was Chris Beard, Knight's right-hand man. In the eyes of many, Beard was the team's associate head coach. Because Knight was notoriously short-tempered and liable to blow his lid whenever a player messed up in drills, he often delegated the running of practice to his assistants. Beard shouldered nearly all the on-court training duties and also served as the offensive coordinator. He was widely regarded as the elite assistant on Knight's staff most likely to achieve major success in the future. Xu Ling interacted with Beard more than anyone else during practice. He had a sneaking suspicion that Beard might actually be better suited to be the head coach than Knight. "Eli, do you know what the issue with your post-up game is?" Beard asked like an enlightened sage. Xu Ling looked at him with a puzzled expression. "You rarely use your body to feel out the defender's intentions the way Kobe does." Beard gave an authentic imitation of Kobe's movements. "You have to know how the defender is leaning before you can counter effectively. Otherwise, your post-ups won't be consistently reliable." Xu Ling then joked, "You've got a point, but Coach won't let me watch Kobe's game tape." Beard gave a helpless shrug. "Watching MJ's tape is the same thing. All these moves lead back to the same fundamentals in the end." Just then, a student manager responsible for daily team affairs jogged over, panting as he spoke to Xu Ling: "Eli, Coach wants you in his office." Xu Ling nodded. Glancing back at Beard, he said, "I'm guessing he's about to lay into me again." Beard merely chuckled without saying another word. In the coaches' office at the Womble Center, the West Region March Madness bracket was already pinned to the wall. In a few days, TTU would tip off its March Madness opener. On the television in the office, ESPN was airing an interview, the audio drifting out in fragments: "...overhyped by the media. We all know those numbers were padded against weak teams." Knight didn't pay Niagara University much mind. Even though he constantly preached to his players that "no game in the tournament is easy," the Purple Eagles were, in truth, an easy matchup. If they somehow tripped up against the Purple Eagles, Knight really ought to consider retirement. It was a loss he could not stomach; a humiliating upset like that would crush his coaching soul. What truly caught Knight's attention was the team positioned directly below them in the bracket—Duke University. According to the schedule, if both TTU and Duke won on the first day of play, they would collide in the second round. Duke. Mike Krzyzewski. "Coach..." Pat Knight looked at his father with reverence. "This is a great opportunity. We can prove to the world that a disciplined, cleanly recruited program like TTU—one that plays by the rules without a single violation—can still achieve the same kind of success as Indiana under your leadership. Especially to prove something to the media members who think Mike has surpassed you..." "Pat." Knight glared at his son with a dark expression. "I have nothing to prove." Pat knew he had stepped out of line. Just as he was about to backtrack, a knock came at the office door. "Come in." The door swung open, and Xu Ling walked in. His eyes immediately landed on the television facing him, where ESPN was playing. At a nod from Knight, Pat picked up the remote and pressed rewind, taking the broadcast back to the start of the interview. On the screen, University of North Carolina freshman star Brandan Wright faced the camera, his tone smug and disdainful: "I know Eli. Sure, he played well in the Big 12, but I think the media is blowing him way out of proportion. We all know most of his stats were padded against weak teams. He's got an unlimited green light at TTU. It's really nothing special. I hope they last a little longer in the tournament so I get the chance to take him down myself!" Knight pressed pause, freezing the picture on Brandan Wright's sneering face. "Coach, did you call me in here just to listen to this?" Xu Ling asked, curious. "Aren't you mad?" Knight stared at him, his voice low and laced with suppressed fury. "If this were Michael Jordan, he'd put on a performance that Brandan Wright would remember for the rest of his life!" "Is UNC in the West Region too?" Xu Ling asked with a faint smile. "Yes. If you can lead us all the way to the fourth day of March Madness, we'll have a shot at facing them." "That's all?" Xu Ling cocked his head, a hint of defiance in his voice. "What else were you expecting?" Knight asked, visibly displeased. "I thought someone was feeling guilty after running his mouth on the night we won the Big 12 title, bringing the wrath of the national media down on our team, and had called me into his office to apologize. Guess that wasn't it?" Just as Knight was about to explode, Xu Ling added, "Thanks to you, my professors have spent the last few days lecturing me about how grave a public figure's verbal responsibility is." At that moment, Knight looked like a growling hound on the verge of snapping. "Looks like you're not the only one who needs a remedial lesson," Xu Ling said, his smile broadening. "Someone needs to teach Brandan Wright a lesson too." Xu Ling walked to the door, tossing one last line over his shoulder before leaving: "And I'd be more than happy to be his teacher."