http://www2.kusports.com/news/2008/m...hawks_tuesday/
By
Gary Bedore (
Contact) Posted Thursday, May 29, 2008
Bill Self was impressed with the focus of Kansas University’s basketball players on their postseason trips to Omaha, Detroit and San Antonio.
“You can ask our guys ... they didn’t have any fun at all,” KU’s fifth-year coach said of time spent outside of Qwest Center, Ford Field and the Alamodome, where the Jayhawks went 6-0 en route to the 2008 NCAA title.
“It was all business,” Self added.
Self was happy to report there would be absolutely no business to conduct on the final road trip of the 2007-08 season — next week’s junket to Washington, D.C., where the national champs/nation’s capital tourists on Tuesday will be honored by the president of the United States.
“Bill wants the guys to get a chance to see as much as possible in two days,” KU senior associate athletic director Larry Keating said.
The Jayhawks’ traveling party of 70 (players, coaches, support staff and family members) will fly charter Monday morning out of Topeka. The group will visit Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Monday afternoon and take a bus tour of Washington, D.C. on Monday night.
The Jayhawks will be honored by President Bush at 9 a.m. Central time, Tuesday, in the Rose Garden of the White House. Lunch is on tap at the Supreme Court Building, where some of the justices will meet the champs. A tour of Capitol Hill and meeting with Kansas’ legislative delegation will follow, and the Jayhawks will head home via charter Tuesday night.
“Everybody’s excited about going,” Keating said, adding, “there’s not been much red tape. We had to provide names and Social Security numbers of everybody. It’s been a fairly simple process.”
The process might be one President Bush winds up enjoying as well.
“I’m sure the team will present him with a shirt or something,” Keating said.
