“Juno,” I offered.
“Juno! Good one! What’s the last, though?”
“C’mon man, you know this one. It’s the easy one.”
Knight shook his head, perplexed.
“Omaha!”
“Nah, that’s not it.”
“Yes it is man, that was the beach. The heaviest fighting, Saving Private Ryan and all that.”
“No, mm-mm, that’s not it. It’s not Omaha.”
Then he said something as Eagle Eye Fred fired up the engine to move us somewhere else, but I lost it in the wind.
“What did you say?” I shouted, my hand cupping my mouth.
“I’m not repeating it, you shoulda been listening.”
“The wind was blowing!”
“Well, anyone can listen when the wind’s not blowing!”
As we buzzed over the clear blues and soapy greens of the Bimini flats, Knight went back to World War II, expressing amazement that the Germans did such horrible things under the guise of following orders.
I asked him if he was familiar with the psychologist Stanley Milgram, and his theories on the authoritarian personality, which typically shows great respect and even blind obedience to authority but can be demanding, even cruel, toward subordinates. I was drawing a not-so-subtle line for the famous disciplinarian, if I’m being honest.
“Never heard of him,” Knight parried. “And if you ask me, most psychologists need psychologists.”
The conversation went on as we wove our way through the canals that lace the inner Bimini mangrove forests like so many capillaries. It’s really beautiful in there. Twenty-foot-wide passageways twist and turn through the thick green leaves, and the water is as clear as the air. I got out my GoPro and started filming the scenery as the conversation between Knight and I jumped through centuries of military history, with Knight deftly recounting strategies and battles from Pickett’s Charge to Pointe du Hoc. I turned the camera around on us to record the conversation, because the scene was just so surreal and interesting.
But the topic veered quickly, as it often does with Knight, and soon he was no longer talking about military history but instead about something rather personal to him. It was true insight—honest and searching. And it was sensitive. I glanced at the camera in my hand two feet in front of our faces. A thought flickered across my brain. Does he know I’m recording this?
Five seconds later, Knight stopped abruptly and leaned his whole huge body over mine. “Are you f**king recording this!”
This was not Bobby Knight busting my balls. This was Bobby Knight being capital “F” Furious. He lit into me, eyes blazing, curses flying. “I don’t like you people, the media,” he roared. “I never know what you’re up to! And I don’t like being around ya!” (Incredibly awkward in retrospect, since we were in a tiny boat out in the middle of the water with a man named Eagle Eye Fred standing three feet behind us pretending he didn’t know what was going on—but I digress.)
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