Knight, for anyone who doesn’t know the story, is the longtime Indiana University basketball coach as legendary for his belligerence as for his won-loss record. After a videotape surfaced earlier this year which showed Knight grabbing a player by the throat, several other incidents became public — Knight assaulting assistant coaches, knocking one unconscious; Knight smashing a vase against a wall next to a secretary (happily, no glass got in her eyes). Even then, IU officials declined to dump Knight outright, but they declared a “zero tolerance” policy for confrontational behavior which the coach predictably broke, leading finally to his firing on Sept. 10.

Make no mistake, I think IU’s action was overdue. But that’s not what this column is about. In fact, it’s not mainly about Knight at all. It’s about me — and maybe you too.

Most of us, if we’re honest, have to admit there are people we love to hate. For me, Bobby Knight has been one of them. For one thing, he made it easy, what with his foul-mouthed temper tantrums and abusive bullying toward officials, players, coaches and practically any other sentient life form that displeased him. (He screamed at his own cheerleaders and kicked his own son, an IU player.) For another, I lived in a town where most other people I knew felt the same way I did (Urbana, Ill., home of the University of Illinois — a fellow Big Ten school in a neighboring state). You could express your disgust for Knight to any stranger at a bus stop, confident that you’d probably meet with enthusiastic agreement.

In those days (as recently as five years ago), I would’ve not merely approved of Knight’s fall but rejoiced in it. What changed this was my friend Rob.

Rob was a Knight admirer, convinced that he was not just a great coach but a great man: molding boys into men, running a clean program with high graduation rates, giving selflessly to charity. I never could share Rob’s view, then or now; to me, even by the most charitable interpretation, Knight’s vices overrode any virtues. But in deference to my friend’s feelings, I couldn’t just vent my spleen on Knight around Rob. I got in the habit of restraining myself, of trying to see his viewpoint even when I didn’t share it and framing my disagreements respectfully. And as I considered that Knight might actually have some virtues, his vices — though looming large as ever — began to look like tragic flaws scarring a man who might have turned out a lot better than he did.

Somewhere along the line, I realized that hating Knight wasn’t much fun anymore.

And then there were those nagging words of Scripture — all those recurring passages about loving your enemies and forgiving them and praying for them, about hating the sin and loving the sinner. Those were no fun either. And yet there they were, however much I preferred to suspend them when certain people were involved. God didn’t make any exceptions, and it wasn’t because He didn’t understand how unpleasant those people could be.

Though those commands were perfectly clear, they didn’t go down easily with me. And I’m not the only one who’s had that problem.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis confesses that he had a hard time grasping them, until “it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life — namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated the things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find I was the sort of man who did those things.”

We should see it the same way with other people, Lewis continues. That doesn’t mean we should let them off the hook for their actions: We may punish or even kill if necessary, he says, “but we must not hate and enjoy hating.” Instead, “even while we kill and punish, we must try to feel about the enemy as we feel about ourselves — to wish that he were not bad, to hope that he may, in this world or another, be cured. That is what is meant in the Bible by loving him: wishing his good, not feeling fond of him nor saying he is nice when he is not.” Indeed, Lewis reminds us, this is how God loves us — “not for any nice, attractive qualities we think we have, but just because we are the things called selves. For really there is nothing else in us to love: creatures like us who actually find hatred such a pleasure that to give it up is like giving up beer or tobacco. ...”

I don’t know who your equivalent to Bobby Knight is — the person(s) you not only hold in contempt, but relish holding in contempt. Maybe it’s a friend who betrayed you. Maybe it’s an ex-love. Maybe it’s Bill Clinton (I can relate to that one too). Whoever it is and however much they may deserve it, you can be sure of this: When you’re not just recognizing their sin but dwelling on it, savoring the sense of superiority to someone else, you’re pleasing Satan, not God. We’re never worse than when we feel most superior.

I said earlier that I don’t enjoy disliking Knight any more. It’s more accurate to say that I don’t enjoy it for long. Sometimes I get momentary pleasure from looking down on him, but as soon as I notice that fact, the pleasure is replaced by revulsion at myself. And that, in turn, drives me to the foot of the Cross, there to lay the sins that should most concern me — my own.

For the first time, I prayed today for Bobby Knight. It didn’t make me like him any better or think he should have kept his job. It did remind me that I’m a lot more like Knight than I am like Christ. And I find myself hoping that both Bobby and I one day become the men God would have us be, in this world or another.