Roy, Are there still some strong feelings for Kansas?

[teedubya]

Question to Roy from this article: http://northcarolina.scout.com/2/742213.htmlAre there still some strong feelings for Kansas?
"I gave some school, some basketball programs, some state, whatever you want to call it, and especially the players, 15 years of my heart, body and soul. So I'm never going to lose that. Some of the greatest memories in my life were at Kansas. I'm never going to lose that. I'm never going to lose their appreciation for basketball, their passion for basketball.


"I'll always appreciate that and love that. Each and every year it gets different because the players that I left there are gone. We recruited Jeremy, but everybody else is gone. And we knew Darnell, he used to come up to games. We knew Darrell used to come up for games. But this is Bill's team. This is the University of Kansas's team without Roy Williams.


"I can put it to you this way: In my summer camp we have a lot of little kids running around and they're instructed on the first day they can wear North Carolina stuff or they can wear Kansas stuff, but they can't wear anybody else's stuff.

"And that's the way I'm always going to be. I'm going to be always be a huge Kansas fan. There were some things said or done that hurt at first, but time has a way of healing things and I am hopeful it will heal with some people that still may have some bad feelings.


"But the good news is it's a wonderful Kansas team playing a wonderful North Carolina team on college basketball's biggest stage. And I wish it would be Monday night as opposed to Saturday."



I think I hate UNC a little bit less after reading that. He lets the little kids wear UNC and Kansas gear... that is cool.

[DeezNutz]

For me, it's not an issue about forgiving Roy. Sure, I forgive, but I sure as heck don't forget. The problem I had is that the day he left, he acted like a bitch. Stand up, be a man, hold a news conference IN Kansas, AT KU, to say you're leaving the program. Quickly boarding a jet, saying only that you'll talk later, is very weak. You don't end a long-term relationship over the phone.

I don't begrudge him for leaving, but the manner in which he left demonstrated that his "awe-shucks" attitude was little more than a facade. Worse yet, until these events, I believed it.

[ArrowheadHawk]

Originally Posted by ChiefaRoo

Shouldn't you be at the processing plant supervising Mexicans in Dodge or wherever it is you live in SW KS?

Not that it matters but I live in Garden City and work in the IT field.

[teedubya]

I hope it burns when Roy pees.

[Friendo]

Originally Posted by Laz

i blame Dean Smith for incessant need to raid his alma mater too.

everyone says "it's ok Deputy Dawg just wanted to go home ... go back to his alma mater"

well Dean Smith did nothing but try to raid HIS alma mater.

he can blow a goat ..... DS is dead to me.

this cake was baked just for you:


uesday, April 1, 2008
Kansas and Roy Williams

Journalists love stories that can easily be pegged to headlines in a way that is not complicated. In the week-end NCAA Regionals, most were hoping to see Davidson end up playing in-state rival, UNC, so that they could write Davidson versus Goliath stories all week. Davidson fell just short, so the journalists are making due with their next best story, which is the match-up between Roy Williams and the team that he led for well over a decade, the Kansas Jawhawks in the National Semi-final.

So, why should I be any different?

The two schools, North Carolina and Kansas have a fairly long history of trading favorite sons as coaches back and forth. Originally, UNC's Frank McGuire, fresh off an undefeated championship in which his team defeated Kansas, 54-53 in triple overtime, hired Kansas grad Dean Smith to be his top assistant back in the late 1950s. Kansas would later attempt to lure Smith back home, but would settle for one of his former assistants and players, Larry Brown, who took Kansas to its only championship since Smith had been a player at Kansas.

Brown decided to quit at the top and Kansas then hired Roy Williams, another Smith assistant and J.V. player, who had been expected to take the top job at George Mason(that certainly might have changed history). Smith, himself, during this period, requested that his former Kansas coach, Dick Harp take a position as UNC assistant coach. After Williams returned to Carolina, his coaching staff was made up of, you guessed it, primarily Kansas grads.

The two universities rarely play, due to the lack of inclination by Smith and Williams to face their alma maters, but have played 3 times in the Final Four previously, with UNC getting the better of it and defeating Kansas twice on the way to national titles in 1957 and 1993. Williams and Kansas defeated Smith and UNC in 1991 but then lost to Duke in that year's title game, something that was hard for both Kansas, as well as Carolina fans to swallow.

Roy Williams took Kansas to the greatest sustained period of excellence in its last 50 years, but could not quite win the championship. After spurring one attempt by UNC to hire him in the wake of Dean Smith's retirement, Williams then finally decided to return home to North Carolina.

To put it mildly, many of his former idolizing fans in Kansas were not happy with this development. I don't want to paint all Kansas fans with this brush. Some continue to be both Kansas fans first, and Roy Williams fans, second; and they are almost certainly the happiest and most psychologically well-adjusted among those interested in the outcome next week-end.

I am assuming that anyone reading this has a bit of background already, but even though coaches change jobs and universities all the time, for those disaffected Kansas fans, this was of a different order. Williams is known for wearing his emotions on his sleeve and this unusual vulnerability, together with the incredible triumphs and a few devastating defeats, had apparently resulted in a bond between coach, team and fans, almost unparalleled in college sports history.

While fans generally harbor some resentment when a coach leaves, I personally, have never seen bitterness to this extent. Some have mentioned Rick Pitino who left Kentucky and then took the job with Kentucky's chief rival as a parallel, but that is a bit different. Pitino seemed to be looking to deliberately antagonize his former school, as might have been the case with Frank McGuire taking the South Carolina job after leaving North Carolina.

Roy Williams, on the other hand, refused to schedule his former school and continues to profess his devoted affection to Kansas and its fans. To little effect--at least with respect to many of them. Virtually every Kansas newspaper that prints a story about UNC playing in the NCAA tournament every year since he left, carries the requisite quote from some unhinged Kansan with words to the effect of, "well I sure hope Kansas can win, but if not, at least, please God don't let North Carolina win."

The psychological issues present here are fascinating. Mack Brown, UNC's former football coach, and Bill Self, Kansas's current basketball coach, left programs that they never made any great pretense of loving, and although not particularly popular in the places they left , UNC and Illinois fans don't seem to have anywhere close to the animus that Kansas fans have.

My own feeling as a UNC grad is that Texas's Mack Brown is basically someone over whom it is not worth wasting much in the way of emotional resources.( not to mention probably the most likely current coach to join the guy from Miami as a national title-winner on the unemployment lines since he can't seem to beat Oklahoma consistently, but I digress. )

Roy Williams, on the other hand, essentially told the Kansas fans that "I will always love you and never leave you," and then did. I guess part of the moral of the story is never to make promises you cannot keep.

I think the other thing that is apparent, is that Roy Williams is worth it.

Unlike Mack Brown, Roy Williams is a truly remarkable coach and human being and not being wanted by him hurts and perhaps implies that Kansas wasn't good enough to keep such a stellar person, not to mention having him leave for the "younger, more attractive trophy wife. "

Kansas and Roy had enjoyed the years of unparalleled success and suffered the agony of coming so close so many times, and Kansans had grown affectionate of Williams' not inconsiderable idiosyncricities. Kansas wanted to win a title with Roy Williams, not some other guy, and Kansas definitely did not want to see Roy's new bride carry away the ultimate spoils of his success as he moved into the peak of his coaching prowess with one national title winner in his name, finally, at UNC, and top five finishes in three of his first five years. It also didn't help that UNC seemed to be on television virtually every time Kansans turned on their sets. Kansas, on the other hand, was in another time zone and while certainly featured more than most basketball programs, many of its games were only regionally televised.

Bill Self, the new coach, who has pretty much equalled Williams' success at Kansas, has certainly had his own share of coming close and not quite getting over the hump, but it will never quite be the same with him and Kansas. He hasn't shown the same vulnerability as Williams, the kind of uncomfortable and yet, endearing vulnerability that most of us only share with our closest friends and relatives.

Roy Williams is basketball's version of Sally Field, shouting to the Academy, "you like me! You actually like me." Field has been laughed at and lampooned for years for basically losing control over her emotions in front of her professional peers upon receipt of her Oscar. And yet, I would submit that she may very well be the most popular actress of her generation, precisely because once people get over their discomfort from having someone let down their guard in front of them, many of these people will form a psychological attachment due to the shared intimacy of such unguarded actions.

Williams made no secret during his tenure at Kansas of his less than affluent upbringing and his generally absent, alcoholic father. Like many such children, he doesn't drink alcohol at all and some may see classic, pattern attributes in him as a child of an alcoholic.

Unlike so many coaches who strive to be seen as generals, both on the floor and off, Williams, always the general on the floor, was known for crying in public after some of basketball's tough knocks. You've probably never seen Bobby Knight cry in public, but then again, Bobby Knight, owner of the most wins in history, has a winning percentage that is mediocre compared to Williams' career winning percentage. There is probably no fiercer competitor in basketball among coaches than Roy Williams.

He was also a known "mama's boy." Williams never denied the truth of the Coca-Cola story published in Sports Illustrated in 1997, and even later did an advertisement which kiddingly reflected upon his deep devotion to his mother who ironed shirts so that he could drink a Coca-Cola after school with his friends, spending the few extra dimes she earned doing so.

Just to make the point crystal clear, friends says that Williams is known for always having cases and cases of Coca-Cola in his home, lest he run out at an inopportune time.

That story might even have been enough to embarrass Sally Field, but for Williams and Kansans, it just bound them even closer together, as did the crushing defeat to Arizona, just a few weeks after the SI article.

Williams, who had been on the way to a season, even his mentor Dean Smith had never quite had, seemed destined for both a national title and a new record for wins, becoming the first team to win more than 40 in one year. Unfortunately, 37-1 Kansas ran into eventual National Champion and highly underrated Arizona, which went out to a double digit lead in the last minutes. Probably most teams would have been done at this point, but Kansas put together a remarkable comeback, erasing ten points off the deficit and possessed the ball with just seconds to go, in a position to tie.

It was not to be and in some ways, the valiant comeback just made it worse--just that much more of a tease and obsession for Williams and the Kansas fans who wanted that to be his year. What had gone wrong? What could Williams have possibly done differently to prevent the upset? Ultimately, Williams took refuge in the notion that there wasn't a single thing he would change.

The NCAA tournament's one and done format is a harsh mistress and a beguiling mistress, but most of all, she is a mysterious mistress, often favoring the less worthy and the weak as she spurns the Sampsons and Chamberlains who would seek to enjoy her whims, while extending her favor to the Lorenzo Charles's and Harold Jensen's of the world.

There would go on to be two more such disappointments as Kansas would lose in the Final Four in 2002 and then in the National Final in 2003, when his team uncharacteristically could not make any free throws, resulting in a bitter loss to Syracuse, after once again another great comeback that fell just short.

But maybe even more agonizing to the Kansas fans was the rumor that Roy had been in renewed discussions to take the UNC job. This was after previously turning down his alma-mater in 2000, in another of his almost patented public displays of insecurity during which he wavered back and forth between going and leaving and then ended up turning down UNC during a nationally-televised "I'm Staying!" pep rally that seemed to cement his fortunes in Kansas, while kicking dirt in the faces of his North Carolinian suitors and particularly angering his former colleague Bill Guthridge, Dean Smith's successor.

But people in North Carolina, apparently, are are quite forgiving, especially when it comes to basketball, and in 2003, on the eve of the Final Four, with the once hallowed UNC basketball program in almost total chaos, UNC came again bidding for Williams' services. Torn between two sick family members back in North Carolina and his love for his alma mater, and his "oath" to Kansas, Williams opted this time to take the job, leaving Kansas in the immediate wake of a defeat, perhaps almost as painful as the loss to Arizona back in 1997.

Kansas continued in its basketball tradition without almost no change after Williams' departure. Kansas has been in the top ten virtually every week since Williams left and has also suffered the same crushing losses that have been a state tradition going back to the loss by Wilt Chamberlain and the Jayhawks in triple-overtime to UNC in 1957.

Unique among the so-called five top programs in college basketball, which include UNC, Duke, Kentucky, UCLA and Kansas, only Kansas has not won multiple championships since the demise of the UCLA dynasty in 1974, winning only as an upset winner in 1988, when little was expected of them. Each time that Kansas has been touted as the best team in the nation, or at least, arguably the best, the Jayhawks have gone down in smoldering flames, since Dean Smith played 29 seconds for them when they won the title in 1952.

Now Kansas is arguably the best in the country and Kansans have shot at Williams in a competitive game for the first time since he left five years ago. With a win, Kansas might win a title for the first time in 20 years and perhaps finally put to rest the demons of its former beloved son's infidelity. But I don't think so. Sure, it would be fun for some to stick it to the wayward son and even more fun to finally garner another title.

But this thing goes too deep. For many, I believe that what these "haters" unknowingly hope for is that UNC will once again thwart their Jayhawks, allowing them to continue to brandish their anger against the Prodigal Son who this time is never destined to return, because they actually get more emotional return this way, and Williams is more than happy to accomodate them, because as much as he might have wanted them to "like me," there is only one thing that Roy Williams looks for more than acceptance, and that is victory.

[Bearcat]

The only coaching link I'm interested in is the styles of play... I like both of them, but I'd love to see Self's style and balance beat Roy's style. It's not really even about making sure we got the better deal.

I'm convinced that this Kansas team is tougher and knows how to win any game... up and down, defensive, when they aren't play well, etc... and we all questioned that about Roy's teams. So, after slugging it out with Davidson, I'd love to turn around and win a 90-86 (no more last second shots ) up-and-down game.

Originally Posted by DeezNutz

For me, it's not an issue about forgiving Roy. Sure, I forgive, but I sure as heck don't forget. The problem I had is that the day he left, he acted like a bitch. Stand up, be a man, hold a news conference IN Kansas, AT KU, to say you're leaving the program. Quickly boarding a jet, saying only that you'll talk later, is very weak. You don't end a long-term relationship over the phone.

I don't begrudge him for leaving, but the manner in which he left demonstrated that his "awe-shucks" attitude was little more than a facade. Worse yet, until these events, I believed it.

I agree with your first paragraph, but I think it's because of his awe-shucks attitude that he did it. I think it's much easier to believe he handled it the way he did because he sincerely loves KU, but just didn't have the guts/personality to handle it better; than to think he was actually just an asshole all these years.

It wasn't a "FU Kansas", it was Roy not being able to deal with his own emotions. JMHO.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by Ari Chi3fs

Oh man, this game is getting to me.

Heh... I'm trying really hard not to let it get to me, especially since it's Tuesday, but I really think this game and the FF could live up to the hype. I hope so anyway, because the EE was disappointing.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by markk

after all Roy did for KU, coming in after the cloud of scandal enveloped the university, bringing them back to respectability and everything, i dont understand why most ku fans are like 'piss on him'. is no one who works for the uni ever allowed to work anyplace else again?

On the off chance that you actually 'don't understand' it.

First off, not sure how you bring something 'back' to respectability a couple years after a national championship. By that reasoning, I guess Florida's on the lookout for someone to bring them back to respectability about now.

Second, this is a matter among the 'elite' programs, those that have been high quality for decades, basically the Kentucky's, UCLAs, Dukes, UNCs, and KUs of NCAA. And UNC gained it's entry into this hall through the efforts of a KU alum, who is now walking around with the attitude that what we grounded him in and what he exported to UNC, now ORIGINATES in UNC.
And while he did the most with his chance, we did give him that chance when he was totally unproven, and we bought in to everything he was selling, and we said our legacy is your legacy, and he was on track to bye our modern John Wooden, then he hears Dean Smith's bullshit, and says 'your legacy is nice and all, but UNC's legacy, now there's a REAL legacy, I think I want THAT legacy.'

Basically, he wasn't a gun for hire. He wasn't a microwave oven to rev us up and send us in a new direction. He and KU formed a marriage, each ostensibly pledging full, unadulterated lifetime support, then he found out his old flame was available.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by ArrowheadHawk

Im not mad at Roy. I would much rather have Self, he is the better recruiter and is younger. Hopefully the NBA or OSU won't snatch him away and he can spend 20-30 years at KU.

See, we're already looking to lock up another lifemate. KU fans like their coaching decisions made like old timey royal weddings.

[Monty]

Just saw this T-shirt at joe-college.com

[Mr. Plow]

Here's another good one.....

[Monty]

Originally Posted by Mr. Plow

Here's another good one.....

Heh...I just ordered that one for the game on Saturday.

[Lzen]

Originally Posted by Friendo

this cake was baked just for you:


uesday, April 1, 2008
Kansas and Roy Williams
.....

Sheesh, you UNC fuggers are full of yourselves. The article wasn't bad except for the obvious UNC arrogance. And next time provide a link, please..

[DeezNutz]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

I agree with your first paragraph, but I think it's because of his awe-shucks attitude that he did it. I think it's much easier to believe he handled it the way he did because he sincerely loves KU, but just didn't have the guts/personality to handle it better; than to think he was actually just an asshole all these years.

It wasn't a "FU Kansas", it was Roy not being able to deal with his own emotions. JMHO.

Agreed about the guts/personality part. I don't think Roy's a a-hole necessarily. I think the awe-shucks is a rhetorical construction--the naive country boy is a hard image for the media to paint as a villian. The problem is that I bought all the "youngster" crap, and Roy exposed himself with the manner of his departure. Awe-shucks doesn't = .800 winning percentage. On another level, he's as cold blooded as they come.

Now when I hear him talk, I immediately call bs on just about everything. Many UNC fans on the other hand, think he's sincere, honest Roy.

[Mr. Plow]

Originally Posted by DeezNutz

Now when I hear him talk, I immediately call bs on just about everything. Many UNC fans on the other hand, think he's sincere, honest Roy.

From what I remember, there were more than a few UNC fans in our same position after he "rejected" them in 2000.

[Lzen]

http://cjonline.com/stories/040108/haw_263818139.shtml
It begins: Kansas vs. Roy, finally

By Tully Corcoran
The Capital-Journal
Published Tuesday, April 01, 2008
Saturday in San Antonio, everybody is going to be wearing crimson and blue or baby blue and white.
It's going to look an awful lot like one of Roy Williams' basketball camps.



GERRY BROOME / The Associated Press
Roy Williams is still 'a huge Kansas fan.' For many Jayhawk fans, the feelings aren't reciprocal after Williams left KU for North Carolina five years ago.


"In my summer camp, we have a lot of little kids running around, and they're instructed the first day, they can wear North Carolina stuff or they can wear Kansas stuff, but they can't wear anybody else's stuff," Williams said Monday. "That's the way I'm always going to be. I'm always going to be a huge Kansas fan."
So stretch out your little pinky fingers and sharpen up on your dadgummits, for with that, Roy vs. Kansas week begins.
Saturday will be a day Williams has dreaded. Five years after he left Kansas, five years after the "Benedict Williams" T-shirt hit the streets of Lawrence, and five years after Kansas' last Final Four appearance, Williams finally faces the girl whose heart he broke, and he's hoping she's forgiven him but isn't sure.
"There were some things said or done at first, but time has a way of healing things, and I'm hopeful it heals with some people who still may have some bad feelings," he said. "The good news is it's a wonderful Kansas team playing a wonderful North Carolina team on college basketball's biggest stage."
That it is. And it is remarkable, said Kansas coach Bill Self, that it took so long, not only for North Carolina and Kansas to meet, but the Self still hasn't met his old flame, Illinois. After all, Self is the one with the true perspective in all this. He not only left a school where he was beloved, he took over for a legend at his next stop.
"Although Roy leaving here certainly has garnered more national attention, me leaving Illinois was a big, big deal there," Self said. "It's an emotional time. You want the timing to be right on those sorts of things, but the timing's never right. It was tough."
So tough that Self's replacement, Bruce Weber, held a bizarre mock funeral for Self in an attempt to make fans forget, which, of course, they haven't. Illinois and Kansas fans still engage in Internet flame wars, the same way Kansas and North Carolina fans do. They are perhaps the only rivalries in the country in which the teams never play each other.
That's how intense this all is.
Williams will never schedule Kansas, because that would mean either UNC or KU would have to lose.
"The reason I say I wouldn't schedule them, it's very easy for me because they're my second-favorite college team," Williams said. "Those people gave me a chance. It's a place that I loved for 15 years. I never scheduled North Carolina when I was at Kansas because, for those 15 years, North Carolina was my second-favorite team. I have too many great memories to consider somebody a foe on the other end of the court."


They are now foes, and it's tempting to say that this will be Self's chance to finally escape from Williams' cloud, to end the comparisons once and for all. Essentially, to get this all over with.
Self doesn't see it that way.
"We knew following a guy that had as much success as Roy, we knew the first couple years were going to be years that there'd be comparisons," he said. "It's tough to live up to a guy that went to back-to-back Final Fours and wins 80 percent of his games. But certainly I think we've gotten past that and enjoyed our time here."
Finally, Kansas has gotten past that. But it didn't happen overnight. Self said he felt like it was his team from day one. But his system, his motivational tactics, his personality are all so different from those of Williams, combined with the fact that the roster Self inherited had just finished four points shy of the national title, made it a hard sell.


"The players wonder, 'Why do we want to play that way? We know this other way works,'" Self said. "That right there to me was the challenge, getting everyone to buy into what was best for us. The kids, they did a good job with it and everything, but still they've heard two voices. And one voice was very, very, very successful. Subconsciously, they could still hear those two voices."


Meanwhile, Williams was a hero in Chapel Hill, N.C. He saved a desperate program. He won the national championship, something he never could quite do at Kansas.
As the game approaches, Williams and Self are both hoping all of this talk will die down. They want people to talk about the players.
Williams wants people to move on.
"There's no question that I hope so, because it is something that's bothered me," Williams said. "I gave my heart and soul for 15 years. I loved that place. I always will love that place.
"People pass me in the airport and say, 'Rock, Chalk, Jayhawk,' and I say, 'Go, KU.'"
Tully Corcoran can be reached at (785) 295-5652 or tully.corcoran@cjonline.com.