Do you remember Murray Sperber? You do remember Bobby Knight. It’s more important to remember Sperber.

He’s an English professor at the University of Indiana. Sperber is the one who had the audacity to speak out against Knight when Knight was coaching basketball at Indiana. The most recent Atlantic Monthly caught up with Sperber, who is now back at Indiana teaching after having to take a sabbatical from the death threats he received for having dared to speak out against America’s coach.

The hate mail keeps coming. Sperber keeps teaching. Knight got fired for his holier-than-thou act, only to be hired to coach at Texas Tech University. Knight will make headlines in the upcoming basketball season. Sperber will make Profiles in Courage.

One is reminded of the truism, often repeated, but too rarely used in everyday life, laid forth by the former Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie:

“Throughout history it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to triumph.”

When Sperber spoke out against Knight he knew the wrath he would incur from the ubiquitous Indiana basketball fanatics. He believed Knight’s antics, that included physical abuse of a player, had to be exposed and that the university hierarchy owed it to the educational institution to bring Knight’s actions back within limits imposed on other university employees.

Sperber is fighting the neverending attempt to keep college sports in some sane perspective. It is an ongoing battle never to be entirely won, but if no one speaks up, the likes of Knight will continue to exceed the bounds of appropriate action.

It’s like a helium balloon. So many in college sports (fans, coaches and even administrators) want to push through the skin of the beast and break out into their own warped world of “college sports is everything.”

Sperber and others who seek a balance for sports in the college equation push the balloon the other way to keep it from exploding. The tension created is positive in that it keeps the issue in the public eye and the discussion ongoing.

The Sperbers of the world empower others who might be reluctant to speak in the face of sports fanaticism to voice their beliefs and become part of the process. It’s called having the guts to be heard.

If Knight had a shred of decency or conscience, he would have spoken, too. He could have ended the hate mail and the death threats by saying, “Sperber has a right to his opinion. I don’t agree with it and will say so, but hate mail and threats have no place in this discussion.”

I have seen no such comments from Knight. That is the silence of destruction.

It is well to remember that the vast majority of people in this country care nothing for sports of any kind. It is, therefore, imperative that those who do care take some active interest to preserve what is good in the games.

It’s not that the answers are easy or that the continuum of opinions isn’t broad. That’s all the more reason for the full spectrum of thoughts to be out front and ongoing. Silence is the friend of the despot and tyrannical.

Better to be heard when the debate is hot than after the evil is done. Such a thought is easy to conceptualize, but difficult to actualize.

Sperber acted and for that pays an unfair price, a price that continues as long as there is silence.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and NBC sportscaster.