Wednesday, April 6, 2005
As I sat on a barstool Monday night trying to remove that hand print on my face that is Roy Williams’ national championship, Bill Self kept popping into my mind.
On March 24, The Kansas City Star ran an article in which athletics director Lew Perkins was quoted saying he received a handful of e-mails demanding the firing of Self.
The same article said that Self received around 150 letters that would sit unopened until he returned from vacation. He assumed the majority of those letters were negative and he didn’t want to read them so soon.
Good fans would give him better. An opening-round loss in a coach’s second year with the team is no cause for firing. Especially in college basketball.
Here are five reasons why I’m glad Kansas has Self as its basketball coach.
No. 1 — First and foremost, my school and its prestigious basketball program wasn’t good enough for Roy, and the school deserved better. I’ve read many articles this week about how much he loved and still loves old Kansas. That’s crap.
If he loved it, he wouldn’t have said in 2001 that he’d never consider leaving again.
No. 2 — Self is a better man than the previous basketball coach. Comparisons are unfair to both men, I realize, but in this case they are necessary.
Does anyone else remember watching games in the fieldhouse and hearing the crowd roar when Roy took off his jacket? How lame for a man to perform rehearsed antics on the sideline to try and arouse the crowd.
Self is more real than that. He refrains from using the “doggones” and “gosh-darnits” in favor of more real lingo. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been watching a game on TV and seen Self cover his mouth and yell.
I’m pretty sure those aren’t gosh-darns. That’s more real than Roy’s good ol’ boy front.
No. 3 — Self is good enough for Larry Brown.
The benevolent LB produced a national championship in 1988 before he left for the NBA. That makes him THE MAN.
He’s had success at all levels, and at many different places. On Monday, he was documented as saying that Self is the right man for Kansas. He’s a man that knows transitional periods for programs as much as anyone. He said to give Self time; you have to trust LB.
No. 4 — Recruiting.
Judging by the McDonald’s All-American game, Kansas is in good hands. I don’t know what the hell Roy was thinking before he left, because after this senior class, he had no one to turn to. Moulaye and the gang would have probably been successful, but he left next to nothing compared to what there is now.
Self, on the other hand, appears to be able to sell a ketchup popsicle to a lady in white gloves (Julian Wright committed after one in-house visit). He has an easier sell than that because his popsicle is Kansas basketball and Allen Fieldhouse.
No. 5 — Last of all, the future national championship.
In the recruiting Mario Chalmers, Self told him that they would be in a Final Four in Chalmers’ sophomore season. Lofty expectations, but with the seasoning of the current freshman and the incoming group, the next four years should be fun.
Self, as you can see, is a better man. He’s more real, regardless of the Xs and Os, than Roy was. It turns out Roy is the opposite of honest and left with no integrity.
I’m confident Kansas will eventually get a national championship.
I won’t be around to see it, but I’ll be glad for Self. Those letters on his desk and all those nay-sayers will, in time, be proven wrong.
Regan is a Fort Scott junior in journalism.
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