Mersmann: Roy Williams rigged championship game
It was the same end-of-season scene I had grown accustomed to. But something was missing: his tears.
By Dennis Mersmann (Contact)
Thursday, April 17th, 2008
The Jayhawks are finally NCAA champions.
Being a life-long Lawrence resident, no one in this town is happier than I am. Maybe the actual basketball team, but for the sake of hyperbole, I’ll claim to be happier.
Still, something about the whole ordeal feels a little empty, and I know why.
The Final Four was rigged, and it was Roy Williams’ doing. He intentionally lost to make everyone at the University stop hating him.
It was clear that something was amiss even before we ripped the championship from Memphis’ claws. But after we beat North Carolina, I knew something was wrong. And yes, I refer to the basketball team as “we.”
Maybe I’m not on the actual team, but I have been living vicariously through them for more than 20 years. I am a student at KU, and KU students are Jayhawks. Who won the national championship? The Jayhawks. WE won.
I am Wilt Chamberlain. I am Jared Haase. I am Mario Chalmers. Don’t kill my buzz just because you can’t find joy in a sports team you’ve attached your identity to. Some of us have souls.
But I digress. I knew something was askew when we trampled UNC because UNC is not a team that gets trampled. They have multiple NBA first-round draft picks and the best player with the worst nickname, Tyler “Psycho T” Hansbrough (maybe we can change it to “Please, Mr. Aldrich Can I Have the Ball?”). Dark forces were clearly at work.
Initially, I was happily stunned by our comfortable victory. That is until the post-game conference.
There was Roy with his normal, end-of-season, droopy-dog face. It was the same scene I had grown accustomed to during his 15 years at Kansas, but this time something was missing. His tears.
Roy is known for his bleary-eyed, end-of-the-season press conferences where he explains how much he loves his players and how he let them down.
Roy is a crier, but on this night he was not. His eyes were dry.
Was he not sad about losing this game? No, he wasn’t, because he had thrown the game.
He was facing his old team. Being the emotional guy that he is, Roy was flooded with memories of coaching here: the good times, the bad, the guilt of not winning a championship here, leaving amid turmoil only to win two years later at UNC.
Then there was the media attention of him facing his former employer.
Roy started to think that maybe Kansas needs this national championship more than he does.
He already has one. It’s been 20 years since Kansas won a national championship.
This was the perfect opportunity for him to heal a community by giving it a cathartic moment. So he threw the game and lost on purpose.
During his press conference, Roy said that he had not prepared the teams as well as he should have.
That’s the key. He intentionally under-prepared his squad. He didn’t expect the Jayhawks to jump on UNC like they did early on, but he knew UNC would lose. He made sure of it.
My suspicion was confirmed that fateful Monday night when the now infamous shots of Roy sporting a Jayhawk sticker flickered across my television screen. He needed us to beat Memphis for his altruistic move to be completed.
Now you may think that he was just there to cheer on the school where he spent 15 years.
Yes, every other living coach that KU has had was in attendance, but Roy is the only one whose team crumbled under the weight of expectation two days earlier.
That sticker represents a conspiracy born in the depths of a guilty heart.
Mersmann is a Lawrence senior in creative writing.
Discussion
All comments are moderated by Kansan.com staff. For our full user policy, click here.
Tell your Student Senator.... Cut the UDK's funding from student fees! It's not fair! I shouldn't pay for it!
The UDK doesn't receive any money from The University, so it won't do any good.
The UDK does receive student fee money at a tune of about $95,000 per year. However, it is just a drop in the bucket compared to the overall budget. I think that the current students need to stop complaining about fees they do not like. This seems to be a trend. Thankfully, the organized efforts to complain about the fees has been severly lacking and unsuccessful. This whole it's not fair I shouldn't pay for it argument has been used against seemingly every fee this year. Hey ya know what...if you want to go to KU you have to pay for stuff you don't like...same goes for living in any organized society.
Also I think the UDK deserves the little amount of money they get from fees. I mean come on students also pay for other newspapers and I am sure they do not always agree what is printed in them. How is the UDK any different.
How does this have anything to do with the article?
It's doesn't, but at least no one's telling me I don't deserve to write for a free paper.
Sorry, dude. Roy didn't throw the game. The Jayhawks just kicked their a**.
Share your 2¢
Requires free registration.