Columnist Dean Juipe: Wins more vital than character

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4084.

Character isn't all it's cracked up to be.

If it was, Reggie Minton would still be coaching at Air Force and Bobby Knight would have been fired at Indiana.

Minton was relieved of his duties with the Falcons' men's basketball team this week, while Knight, after what seems to be a lifetime of fending off similar accusations, is once again dismissing another round of hideously grotesque claims against him.

Minton is a likable man who was in Las Vegas last weekend for the Mountain West Conference tournament. Even then, the ax that was poised above him was clear for all to see.

It fell Monday, the same day Knight was back in the news for choking one of his former Indiana players and for allegedly standing in front of one of his recent teams with his pants down and a roll of toilet paper in his hand.

Tasteless behavior is routine for Knight, a boorish, egotistical man who seems to have but one saving grace: He's 661-239 in 29 seasons of coaching the Hoosiers. His current Indiana team is 20-8 and is once again in the NCAA Tournament.

Minton, a man of greater principle, hasn't been as lucky on the court. Despite the fact he shared conference coach of the year honors with UNLV's Bill Bayno, Minton's Falcons were 8-20 this season and 150-295 during his 16 seasons.

But his colleagues and their generous support couldn't save him. Minton's out despite the fact Air Force has high academic standards, doesn't recruit junior-college players and requires a five-year military commitment from those who complete school.

Neither Minton nor anyone who agrees to succeed him will win at the Academy, which can't fit many 7-footers into a high-tech cockpit.

Considering the inherent hardships, Air Force should be happy to have a man whose teams routinely played hard and to the best of their abilities.

In truth, aside from football and head coach Fisher DeBerry, Minton wasn't doing much worse than anyone else who coaches at Air Force. The school simply is not an athletic powerhouse and wouldn't be in the Mountain West if not for football, where DeBerry's offensive creativity has led him to a 126-69-1 record over 16 years.

For instance, here's Air Force's most recent record in every team sport as of Tuesday: women's basketball, 4-24; baseball, 13-9; men's soccer, 9-8-2; women's soccer, 11-10; volleyball, 17-12-5; hockey, 19-18-2; water polo, 21-12; men's fencing, 8-4; women's fencing, 6-6; men's gymnastics, 5-2; women's gymnastics, 5-4; rifle, 5-2; men's track, 2-3; women's track, 0-5; men's swimming, 8-3; women's swimming, 9-8; wrestling, 7-5; men's tennis, 16-4; women's tennis, 10-2; and lacrosse, 0-5.

Given those records, the fact that Minton's typical team went 9-18 doesn't seem completely out of line. At least his Falcons were competitive, which hasn't always been the case with some of these passionless Air Force teams.

For comparison's sake, if he had to coach at the Academy it's likely that Knight wouldn't have won any more games than Minton. But because he coaches under far more enviable circumstances at Indiana, Knight's loutish and abhorrent behavior has been tolerated by his weak-kneed superiors.

He's the one who should have been let go.

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