Bobby Knight, Guitar Hero

Bobby Knight enters the video game age.

Raise your hands if you thought you'd see the day when former Indiana and Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight slid across a floor in socks and underwear to promote a video game? 

Put your hands down, liars.

If it was weird to see Knight become a member of the profession that he regularly professed hatred for during his coaching career, seeing him become a pitchman for a product he's certainly never heard of or used is downright surreal.

A couple of thoughts came to mind when that commercial rolled out during Elite Eight coverage this weekend. While it's understandable that Activision couldn't get the four coaches in the same place at the same time, shouldn't a video game company be able to edit things together a little better than that? 

The pairing of Knight and Metallica is also interesting. Knight lost his job at Indiana because he refused to tone down his gruffness into a persona with fewer rough edges. Metallica lost a lot of fans when they did tone down their music so that it was more acceptable to the masses. That subtext probably didn't have anything to do with the marketing people who wanted to tie the new Metallica game to the NCAA Tournament in a commercial, but it's an interesting illustration of being damned if you do and damned if you don't.

And, finally, some enterprising game designer should really find a way to substitute Knight for Donkey Kong in a new iteration of that classic. If you're always gonna have the guy throwing something, why not a barrel?

Josh Alper is a writer living in New York City and is a contributor to FanHouse.com and ProFootballTalk.com in addition to his duties for NBCNewYork.com.

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