Self Made: Two Decades of Titles and Triumph at Kansas

TWO DECADES OF TITLES AND TRIUMPH AT KANSAS SELF MADE

Credits

Authors: Gary Bedore, Jesse Newell, Vahe Gregorian, Sam McDowell, Rustin Dodd, Jason King, Bob Lutz, J. Brady McCollough, Sam Mellinger, Joe Posnanski, Bill Reiter, Wright Thompson

Editors: Jeff Rosen, Chris Ochsner, Scott Chasen, Maddie Hartley, Andale Gross, Greg Farmer

Foreword

BY MARIO CHALMERS AS TOLD TO THE KANSAS CITY STAR

Editor’s note: Mario Chalmers hit arguably the biggest shot in Kansas basketball history in the 2008 NCAA championship game against Memphis. He sunk the game-tying 3-pointer with 2.1 seconds left to force overtime in Kansas’ 75-68 victory down in San Antonio, Texas.

Chalmers, who played at KU three seasons, played in the NBA for a decade, winning two more championships as a teammate of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade with the Miami Heat. The former Jayhawk great was happy to provide this foreword about his college coach, Bill Self…

Ever since I hit what’s been called the biggest shot in KU basketball history, the 3-pointer that propelled us to our first national title in 20 years, people have asked me what I remember most about that night.

Coach Self’s pregame talk, the celebration after the final buzzer sounded, the parade on Massachusetts Street a few days later. They all were great.

But when I go back and think about it — I remember it like it was yesterday — something I’ll never forget occurred on the Alamodome court, an interaction that apparently failed to catch the eye of reporters and photographers.

After all was said and done, after we actually won, right after we shook hands with the Memphis players, coach Self came up to me.

Instead of giving me a hug, he actually smacked me in the face. He gave me one of those love taps. It kind of shook me. He was like, ‘You are a (bleeping) stud. You are a (bleeping) stud, and I love you.’

That was one of the moments you can have with a coach, like, ‘Hey Coach, we did this together.’ Because I know what that moment meant to him. He knew what it meant to me.

That’s what I knew in coming to KU: I was going to be playing for a national championship, and at that moment, being with coach Self, that’s when it happened.

He didn’t actually say I’d be famous for hitting that shot. He said, ‘You changed a lot of lives at KU. You changed your life at KU.’

That game my junior year was the last game I played under coach Self at KU.

Being a part of his first class at KU that he recruited — and to actually win a national championship — we have a lot of history and a lot of togetherness. I’m super happy for him and happy to be a part of that history he has. And I’m glad I was one of his favorite players to coach.

It wasn’t always like that. I don’t even think coach Self liked me from day one, but I came to KU with a different attitude. I wasn’t that humble coming into KU as I should have been (as a McDonald’s All-American out of Bartlett High in Anchorage, Alaska).

I thought I was the man and I should be doing everything, getting the ball and doing what I wanted to do. Coach Self felt like the team was bigger than one individual person.

My freshman year we went to Maui and I had that bad game (seven turnovers in a first-round loss to Arizona) and I was beating myself up. I thought about transferring. It was one of the few times I ever had doubt in myself. Coach Self came to me and said, ‘You are as good a player that we always wanted. We know what you are capable of. You’ve just got to buy into the system and just play.’ Everything clicked, buying into the system, buying into what he wanted to do, and I knew he’d take us wherever we wanted to go.

After Maui, coach Self and I began to click and get along, and then I finally started to understand why I really came to KU, why I really like coach Self.

During that freshman year, coach Self challenged me about buying into the team. I struggled in the beginning until Big 12 play my freshman year. The biggest struggle for me was just buying into the team and following coach Self’s steps.

My second year it was more about being a vocal guy, being that clutch player at the end, being somebody he could put the ball in his hands and realize he was going to make the

right play, to always be accountable.

My junior year, Coach challenged me to be more of a leader and do all the little things that can make me better as a basketball player, working on the court, working on my skills. He challenged me to take the weight room more seriously, get in the best shape of my life.

You know what? That challenge right there stuck with me, and the results paid off that year.

I trusted what Coach told me to do to help me become a better player, and it stayed with me. I trusted him during the recruiting process because every time I talked to him he looked me directly in the eye. He wouldn’t look away. You knew he was being direct and honest in what he was telling you.

One of the things I loved about him is he had an open-door policy. When I took one visit to another school, you had to schedule

a meeting to talk to the head coach. If I’m leaving my family and coming all the way over here, I wanted to be able to talk to the coach freely without any hesitation. Coach Self was definitely that guy.

Besides winning, I’d say coach Self is a players’ coach. He cares about the players like they are family, and it shows. He’s always there. He’s always bending over backward for his players. He’s always going to be there for you, to take the fall if something happens and goes wrong.

That’s one thing I always loved and appreciated about coach Self: that he’s a players’ coach.

I still talk to Coach all the time, at least once a month. I spoke with him right after the Houston game (a 78-65 KU win on Feb. 3, 2024), and told him the team played a helluva game. I was proud of ’em and keep it going.

He is a competitor, a winner. I just remem-

ber after big wins he’d say, ‘Ooh, we kicked their ass.’ The one talk that stuck out to me the most will always be the one before the national championship game. What resonated with me the most was him saying, ‘Enjoy the moment. Enjoy that spotlight while enjoying the process. Go out there and be a dog. You know you got here, now let’s go out and take it and be a dog.’

I really think Coach has another 15 or 20 years in him. We’ll see. At least another 10 years. I’m just happy for him and what he’s accomplished.

He’s a legend. For coach Self to come to KU after the likes of Roy Williams, Larry Brown and a couple of the other famous coaches that have the longest tenure and winningest records, I’m sure that’s what he envisioned when he was coming to KU. I’m sure that was his goal.

FAR LEFT: Mario Chalmers puts up a shot against Kansas State in 2006. RICH SUGG / THE KANSAS CITY STAR

LEFT: After a trying offseason, KU coach Bill Self couldn’t wait to get back on the court and see if his highly touted recruiting class — Julian Wright (left) Micah Downs, Brandon Rush and Mario Chalmers — would live up to the hype. RICH SUGG

/ THE KANSAS CITY STAR

Bolt from the blue: Roy Williams leaves KU

BY JASON KING / THE KANSAS CITY STAR • APRIL 15, 2003

LAWRENCE — His eyes were red and puffy. That’s what gave Roy Williams away.

As he stood there, in the middle of the Kansas basketball locker room, Williams tried to find the words to tell his players he was leaving. In the end, though, he didn’t need to say anything.

The Jayhawks already knew.

“All you had to do was look at his face,” former KU guard Jeff Boschee said. “His decision was obvious from the minute he walked through the door.”

Williams’ 15-year career at Kansas ended in just 28 minutes Monday. That’s how long it took Williams to tell his players he was leaving KU for the head coaching job at North Carolina, his alma mater.

Tears welled in Williams’ eyes as he emerged from the KU locker room just after 4 p.m. After gathering some belongings in his office, Williams sauntered toward his maroon Lincoln Town Car in the Allen Fieldhouse parking lot. He backed out of his space and drove to the Lawrence airport, where a private plane whisked him away to Chapel Hill. Once in North Carolina, Williams — who turned down an offer to coach the Tar Heels three

years ago — explained his decision at a 9 p.m. news conference.

“The last time I decided to stay (at Kansas) because it was the right thing to do,” Williams said. “This time I decided to leave because it was the right thing.”

Williams’ return to North Carolina means he will be reunited with legendary Tar Heels coach Dean Smith, the man Williams calls his mentor. Now a special consultant to the athletic department, Smith tried to get Williams to take the job back in 2000. He pressured him even more heavily this time.

“I just couldn’t tell him ‘no’ twice,” Williams said.

Elated as people were on Tobacco Road, some people close to Kansas’ program were nothing short of disgusted with Williams and his decision.

Some parents of recruits that signed with KU last November had harsh words for Williams. Most of Williams’ current players refused to speak with reporters, and one of them threatened to transfer.

Asked to describe his future in Lawrence, KU guard Keith Langford said: “Not bright.” He was then asked whether Williams’ decision

came as a surprise.

“Hell yeah, I’m surprised,” Langford said. “I didn’t come here for this …”

Even so, once the tensions have died down, Williams will probably be remembered as one of the greatest coaches in the history of the Jayhawks’ storied program.

Williams was an obscure North Carolina assistant when he came to Kansas in 1988. Fifteen years later, his 418 victories rank second only to Phog Allen (590), and his .805 winning percentage is tops in the nation among active coaches. The Jayhawks averaged 27.8 wins per year under Williams, won nine conference titles and appeared in four Final Fours.

Williams’ most recent team advanced to the national title game before falling 81-78 to Syracuse last week in New Orleans.

“We’re sending you a treasure,” KU chancellor Robert Hemenway told North Carolina officials Monday.

Williams received an eight-year contract from North Carolina worth $260,000 a year in base pay. Kansas assistants Joe Holladay and Steve Robinson will be part of Williams’ Tar Heels staff, though Holladay could be a candidate to replace Williams at KU.

OPPOSITE: Roy Williams waves to a small gathering of fans and well-wishers as he prepares to board a private jet at Lawrence Municipal Airport that would deliver him to North Carolina on April 14, 2003. SHANE KEYSER / THE KANSAS CITY STAR

RIGHT: Kansas Jayhawks head coach Roy Williams looks on during their 81-78 loss to the Syracuse Orangemen during the NCAA Championship game at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans on April 7, 2003. RICH SUGG

FAR RIGHT: In 2003, Roy Williams helped cut down the net after Kansas advanced to its second consecutive Final Four after defeating Elite Eight opponent Arizona in the NCAA Tournament. RICH SUGG

OPPOSITE: Andrew McKee, 16, and Noah McKee, 11, both of Lawrence, rode their bikes across the street to Lawrence Municipal Airport to watch Roy Williams board a private plane in Lawrence, Kan., on April 14, 2003. Andrew is a North Carolina fan and is excited about Williams’ move while Noah and their other brother Alex McKee, 13, (not pictured) are disappointed with the coach’s decision. SHANE KEYSER

Hemenway announced Monday that an “aggressive” search for Williams’ replacement would begin immediately. Illinois head coach Bill Self, a former KU assistant, is already being mentioned as the leading candidate to replace Williams.

Gonzaga’s Mark Few, Notre Dame’s Mike Brey, Marquette’s Tom Crean and Wichita State’s Mark Turgeon are also being mentioned as potential candidates.

“We intend to talk to the very best coaches in the country about this opportunity,” Hemenway said. “We will make a decision quickly.”

Hemenway, associate athletic directors Richard Konzem and Doug Vance and interim

athletics director Drue Jennings are expected to be the key members of the Jayhawks’ search party.

In a rather unorthodox move, Williams spent the first 10 minutes of his news conference in Chapel Hill talking about Kansas. He mentioned various boosters, administrators and alumni by name, thanking them for their friendship and support.

Williams then mentioned every member of this year’s team — again, by name — as well as the four high school seniors he signed last November. In describing Monday afternoon’s team meeting, Williams said: “Other than a serious injury or a death in my family, I’ve

never gone through anything more difficult.”

Speculation about Williams and North Carolina began to surface when the Tar Heels forced Matt Doherty’s resignation on April 1. That move came just four days before KU played Marquette in the national semifinals.

Williams declined to comment on the North Carolina situation throughout the Final Four.

“I don’t give a (expletive) about North Carolina right now,” Williams told a CBS reporter on national television.

Williams met with Smith in the hours after KU’s loss to Syracuse. And he had at least two talks with North Carolina athletics director Dick Baddour before flying to Los Angeles for

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the Wooden Awards last weekend.

Williams said he phoned Baddour around 9:30 a.m. Monday morning to tell him he would accept the North Carolina job if, in fact, the offer was on the table. It obviously was.

Williams informed Kansas’ staff of his decision about 1:15 p.m. before telling the Jayhawks during the hastily called 3:30 meeting in the team locker room.

During his news conference, Williams became emotional when talking about his former KU players. He also expressed discomfort over the fact that he had let down the four signees to whom he had made promises.

Still, Williams said he couldn’t pass up the

chance to return to Chapel Hill. Williams grew up in North Carolina. The parents of his wife, Wanda, are there, and his son, Scott, works there. Williams’ father and sister are North Carolina residents as well. And both are in poor health. Williams mentioned those factors to the Jayhawks during the team meeting.

Whatever his future holds, Williams said, he’ll always look back on Kansas with fond memories.

“I was Tar Heel born and, when I die, I’ll be a Tar Heel dead,” said Williams, a North Carolina assistant from 1978–88. “But in the middle, I have been Tar Heel and Jayhawk bred. And I’m so happy and proud of that.

“It was 15 years of fun at Kansas. We never won the national championship in those 15 years. But I’ve got to think it was as fun of a 15 years as they’ve ever had there.”

Maybe so. But “fun” is hardly the best word to describe Lawrence these days. Boschee recalled Williams’ final words to the Jayhawks.

“He just told us he loved us,” Boschee said. “I’ll never forget watching him walk out of that locker room. I never thought I’d see it. Things got so quiet.”

He paused.

“It’s one of those moments I’ll probably remember for the rest of my life.”

The Roy Williams file

• YEARS: 15 (1988–2003)

• RECORD: 418-101

• CONFERENCE TITLES: 9

• NCAA TOURNAMENT APPEARANCES: 14

• FINAL FOURS: 4

• NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS: 0

THE BILL SELF ERA BEGINS

Self made: Top candidate’s Midwest success has led to opportunity to become Jayhawks coach

BY WRIGHT THOMPSON / THE KANSAS CITY STAR • APRIL 20, 2003

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — This was just too much. The gushing never ends. Illinois assistant Tim Jankovich, who’s known his boss Bill Self for what seems like forever, had his feet propped up. He was trying to explain why Self might be the most sought-after coach in America, the man Jerry Tarkanian called the “best young coach in the game.”

He’d been through the recruiting, through the X’s and O’s proficiency, but there was still something left unsaid. It’s hard to put a finger on it: Who is Bill Self? Finally, he figured it out.

“They need to call the movie: ‘Everybody Loves Bill,’” he says.

Everybody definitely includes the University of Kansas, which appears close to hiring Self as its next men’s basketball coach. Like Jankovich, the rest of the Illinois basketball office has been in a holding pattern for the last few days. FedEx packages sat on a desk, ready for pickup. Envelopes were stuffed and stamped. There was a kid running around; this staff is big on having their families nearby.

It’s nothing for the whap-whap of kids playing basketball on the court below to provide meter to a long night of work. The Illini players go over to the coach’s house — even when he’s not there — to jump in the pool or play with his children.

This weekend, though, the assistants have been sitting in their offices. They laughed about the coincidence: The last time Self went to Florida on vacation, he left Tulsa for Illinois. They can’t go on the road to recruit; what would they tell the families? Look at Norm Roberts, who’s been with Self since the beginning. His phone is ringing off the hook. Everyone wants to know.

“No, no,” he says to one caller. “I haven’t heard anything. He just said to me, ‘Torn.’” Self is back in town; he got in late Friday night. On Saturday morning, the hoops office was closed, locked up tight. The parking lot was mostly empty, the barns and grain silos across the street rising silently in the background. This part of campus, if the wind is right, smells strongly of cow manure.

As Self tries to make up his mind — stay here or go to Kansas — those close to him know he’s making a decision for keeps. Everything he’s done, from Kansas to Oklahoma State to Oral Roberts to Tulsa to Illinois, has been for this decision. For this moment. What was it Robert Browning wrote? Indeed, life’s business is just the terrible choice.

“If he goes to Kansas,” says Self’s high school coach, Mike de la Garza, “it’s probably going to be his last job.”

As Self goes over the plan once more, just to make sure, Jankovich remembers them doing laps around Stillwater just 10 years ago, as Self tried to decide whether to go to Oral Roberts. He had lists of pros and cons, and they went round and round, sweating the decision. That’s just one snapshot, one picture in the album of Bill Self’s life.

The game winners

He laughed out loud just thinking about it. Oh, de la Garza’s got a lot of memories of Bill Self, but one stands out. First,

OPPOSITE: Illinois head coach Bill Self directs his players in the second half of their 2001 NCAA Tournament second-round game in Dayton.

RANDY TOBIAS / THE WICHITA EAGLE

Relief at last for Self (and a Final Four)

BY JOE POSNANSKI / THE KANSAS CITY STAR • MARCH 30, 2008

DETROIT — Bill Self watched the last shot on both knees. It was that sort of ending. Someone should have passed around a collection plate.

Self watched Davidson’s Jason Richards catch the ball at the top of the key and shoot it in an off-balance way. As the clock dropped to 0:00, the ball lofted toward the basket: It looked no good, then good, then not so good again — victory, then defeat, then …

Then the ball hit the backboard. Bounced away. The buzzer sounded. Kansas beat Davidson 59-57. Bill Self, in his fifth chance, will take a team to the Final Four. Self dropped his head. He slapped the floor with his hand. He walked toward the Davidson bench in a dazed way — like a boxer walking back to his corner after a crushing punch. He hugged his family. He cut down the final strands of the net. He got doused with water in the locker room.

“Relief,” he would say when asked his feelings as the last shot did not go in.

Well … relief works, too. Sometimes breakthroughs don’t come with ticker-tape parades. This game had not played at all the way Bill Self had imagined. Oh, he fully expected this Kansas-Davidson game to be close, very close,

painfully close. But he did not expect it to be this kind of close. His Jayhawks played scared. Self had not seen that coming. His Jayhawks played as if they were wearing Buick-sized ankle weights.

“You have to go take what you want,” Self would remember telling his players before the game. “You have to go into attack mode.”

This is Self’s speech. This is what he tells his players all the time. You have to take it.

They did not. Maybe they could not.

“Attack the attacker,” Davidson coach Bob McKillop had told his players, and the Wildcats came at the Jayhawks, pounded inside with the bigger players, pressed them full court, defended Kansas with gusto. Of course, Self knew that Davidson would do those things; the Wildcats had upset Gonzaga, Georgetown and Wisconsin by doing those things, by attacking the attacker.

No, Self’s surprise came when the Jayhawks backed down. They scored one basket in the first 5 minutes of the game. They short-armed shots they had made all year. At one point in the first half, they were so flustered they called two timeouts on the same possession. They looked lifeless — no, they were trying,

it was something else. They seemed frozen with stage fright.

Self sat on his stool on the sideline, and his face was flush with disbelief. This was his nightmare. He could take losing. But he could not take his team playing timid basketball.

“What’s going on out there?” he screamed more than once.

It was, frankly, hard to tell what was going on. The only thing that was clear was that Kansas did not look at all like Kansas. The Jayhawks’ offense — so smooth, so crisp, so lethal all year — seemed to be running in slow motion, as if under strobe lights. The Jayhawks had real trouble just getting the ball in bounds. Their fast break was virtually nonexistent. The Jayhawks’ alley-oop, a specialty all year, did not oop once the whole first half.

“Go! Go! Go!” Self screamed at his guys, and he made helpful hand gestures, but something was wrong. The Jayhawks would not go. It was strange.

And then again … maybe it was not. Pressure will do strange things to men. The pressure on this Jayhawks team was immense. First, none of them had ever been to a Final Four. The seniors had lost in the first round twice,

OPPOSITE: Before celebrating, Kansas coach Bill Self had to endure a game in which Davidson valiantly fought to the last second. “There was definitely some hoping and praying going on there late,” he said. RICH SUGG / THE KANSAS CITY STAR

RIGHT: Davidson had one last chance for another upset when Jason Richards put up a 3-point shot, but it bounced off the backboard as time expired.

RICH SUGG / THE KANSAS CITY STAR

FAR RIGHT: After a nerve-wracking ending, Jayhawks coach Bill Self and Russell Robinson could finally relax and celebrate their win against Davidson.

RICH SUGG / THE KANSAS CITY STAR

OPPOSITE: Kansas 59, Davidson 57. The final-second drama was forgotten. The Final Four hats were on. Moments earlier these four Jayhawks, (from right) Russell Robinson, Sherron Collins, Brandon Rush and Mario Chalmers, sweated out the final seconds of Kansas’ Midwest Regional championship victory at Ford Field in Detroit. RICH SUGG / THE KANSAS CITY STAR

they had been beaten down by UCLA in the Elite Eight last year — they knew the score.

“I really feel like without a win today,” Self would say, “their careers would be incomplete.”

Second, they were playing America’s darling — a team that seemed to be touched by magic this whole tournament. Everyone was rooting for Davidson. Third, this was the last regional final — and the first three No. 1 seeds had already made it into the Final Four. If Kansas lost, then the Jayhawks alone would be seen as a No. 1 failure.

And fourth, probably the most important factor, everyone wanted so much to win this game for Self. Nobody wanted to see him go through the suffering of another Elite Eight defeat — especially to a tiny and feisty No. 10 seed like Davidson. Self is a good guy. Everyone likes him. Players respect him. Nobody wanted to see him lose again.

“This game has a different feel to it than a lot of other games,” Self would say. “I thought we were loose. I thought everything was great. Warmups, everything was great. But … everyone knows the stakes are so high.”

Whatever the reason, the Kansas players were not themselves. But here’s one thing that’s special about this team that Self has built: These Jayhawks can beat you more than one way.

And while the Jayhawks seemed to play shellshocked offense, they still did play ferocious, Bill Self defense. They sent a wave of defenders at Davidson’s brilliant guard Stephen Curry, and they managed to do what no other team could do. They wore him down.

Curry still scored 25 points and made some breathtaking plays, but he missed six consecutive 3-pointers in the final minutes, and he would admit that the defensive deluge did exhaust him. That’s what kept the game close and intense. Maybe that’s only justice; Self often talks about how, as a coach, he prefers the slow, grind-it-out kind of games. Well, here it was. Neither team ever led by more than six points. It really was a Self kind of game.

And there would be no easy ways out. With 36.3 seconds left, and Kansas up by two, Self called a timeout and set up a play. If the Jayhawks could just score, they could more or less put away the game. Instead — as they had all game

long — Kansas could not get any rhythm on offense, and the play ended with Sherron Collins taking a desperation 3-pointer just as the shot clock was about to expire. The ball banged off the side of the rim and ricocheted out of bounds. That gave Davidson one last chance, one more glass slipper. That’s what led to Jason Richards’ final shot, the missed 3-pointer that Bill Self watched on his knees.

“I just wanted to make sure that I hurried up and shook hands and the officials left the court so they couldn’t put any more time back on the clock,” Self would say.

Now, Self and Kansas go to the Final Four and a whole new kind of pressure. There will be no time to celebrate. It isn’t just that Self is taking a Kansas team to the Final Four and a shot at the national title. No, he will have to prepare his team for North Carolina and Roy Williams and a whole week’s worth of stories and ghosts.

Of course, Self wouldn’t trade it for anything. He made it. They made it. A reporter asked Self whether he felt as if an 800-pound gorilla had been removed from his shoulder.

“I thought it was 1,200 pounds,” Self said.

Three days after winning a championship, Self turns down a bid from his alma mater

BY J. BRADY MCCOLLOUGH / THE KANSAS CITY STAR • APRIL 10, 2008

LAWRENCE — Kansas fans worried that he would jump jobs like Larry Brown, or that he would become enchanted by the lure of home like Roy Williams.

But Bill Self showed that he’s his own man on Thursday by announcing he’d stay at Kansas after turning down an offer to coach his alma mater, Oklahoma State.

Self, who has spent five years at the helm of one of college basketball’s most treasured programs, is finally ready to settle down.

“I really want to enjoy being somewhere,” Self said. “Five years is a long time for me.”

It appears that Self will make Lawrence his home for much longer than that. While Kansas was not ready to announce the length or amount of Self’s new contract — Self said they had only agreed on “ballpark” figures — KU chancellor Robert Hemenway declared Self would be the Jayhawks’ coach “for a long time to come.”

“Bill is going to be compensated to the highest level,” KU athletic director Lew Perkins said.

The numbers tossed around between Self and Perkins must have been enough for Self to politely let down Oklahoma State athletic director Mike Holder around 12:30 p.m. Thursday.

Holder had flown from Stillwater, Okla., on Wednesday night to meet with Self at a hotel in Johnson County. The old friends talked for two hours and Self said Holder did not discuss money. Ever since former Oklahoma State coach Sean Sutton resigned under pressure April 1, the Cowboys were expected to offer Self a megadeal backed by the big bucks of Oklahoma State booster T. Boone Pickens.

Crazy numbers were flying out of Oklahoma in newspaper reports —

$3.5 million a year with a $6 million signing bonus, or $40 million over 10 years.

Self returned to Lawrence after meeting with Holder and slept on the offer. He woke up with the same feeling he’d had all along. He wanted to stay at Kansas, even though he acknowledged that winning the national championship on Monday would have made it easier to leave with a clear conscience.

This is where we want to be.

Home called, we love home, but this is home now.

BILL SELF

“Even with that being the case,” Self said, “it’s just not happening. The timing is not right. This is where we want to be. Home called, we love home, but this is home now.”

Self’s family — wife Cindy, daughter Lauren and son Tyler — call Lawrence home, too.

Self said that he did not

OPPOSITE: To the delight of KU athletic director Lew Perkins (from left) and Chancellor Robert Hemenway, Bill Self announced in April 2008 that he would remain a Jayhawk. MIKE RANSDELL / THE KANSAS CITY STAR

want to break up his family; Lauren will be a senior in high school next year, and he said he would not have asked her to move with him to Stillwater.

But mostly, Self’s decision was about basketball. Brown and Williams may have left their chances to be mentioned in the same breath with legendary KU coach Forrest “Phog” Allen — it’s called Allen Fieldhouse for a reason — but Self is aware of the legacy that he could create here.

“When you really stop and think about it and how humbling it is, we say that Phog Allen won three (national championships), technically he won one (NCAA championship),” Self said. “Coach Brown won one, and now we’ve won one. And how cool would it be to win two? That, to me, is a great motivation and something we’re going to work very hard to get accomplished at a place that is as passionate about ball as anything.”

With Self, it usually comes back to the “ball.” He listed three experiences from this year that had helped to cement his feeling that he could finish his coaching career in Lawrence.

First, there was the 110-year celebration of Kansas basketball back in February. Hundreds of former players returned to Lawrence, and Self realized even more what it means to play the role of caretaker.

“You saw how much it meant for them to

be connected to this place,” Self said, “and how much honor there is for me to be heading the program.”

Second, there was Senior Night with Self’s first recruiting class. It was the first time Self had stuck around any school long enough to have been there for a Senior Night with a class he had recruited.

“There won’t be another Senior Night in America like that next year,” Self said.

Lastly, Self recounted a gathering of his friends from high school and college — mostly Oklahoma State alums — at the team hotel after the win over North Carolina on Saturday.

“Even those guys that had no connection to Kansas told me, ‘I’m amazed that people don’t understand the pride that exists at your place,’” Self said.

Throw all of those emotions together with Perkins’ and the university’s assurance this week that it would improve KU’s facilities — a basketball-specific practice facility and renovations to Allen Fieldhouse are in order, among other things — and Self said he never seriously considered leaving.

“The emotion that was involved with everything going on and those things are priceless,” Self said. “Those things meant so much to me, I just couldn’t see leaving those things.”

OPPOSITE: Kansas head coach Bill Self announced he would stay as the head coach at the University of Kansas.

RIGHT: A Kansas fan had a message for coach Bill Self during the homecoming celebration for the freshly crowned 2008 NCAA champion Jayhawks. JIM BARCUS / THE KANSAS CITY STAR

MIKE RANSDELL / THE KANSAS CITY STAR

This is Bill Self’s finest hour, at the 2012 Final Four

BY RUSTIN DODD / THE KANSAS CITY STAR • MARCH 31, 2012

NEW ORLEANS — Here in the land of jazz clubs and voodoo, a basketball coach walks through the Superdome, composed and cool.

Bill Self moves away from the horde of cameras and microphones. In a moment, he’ll disappear down the hallway to prepare his Kansas Jayhawks for tonight’s Final Four matchup against Ohio State.

But first, a golf cart appears, seats filled with KU players and officials. Freshman guard Merv Lindsay, a player who never sees the floor, takes up a spot in the back.

“Can I get in?” Self asks in his familiar Oklahoma twang and with a sly smile.

Why wouldn’t Self be happy? Four years ago, he won the NCAA title and signed a 10-year, $30 million contract. This is a coach taking in the satisfaction of a job well done in a way that he hasn’t experienced before at KU. This season, Self redefined himself and conducted a magnum opus in the most challenging of times.

Before the season, former KU coach Larry Brown, the man who first brought Self to Lawrence as a graduate assistant more than 25 years ago, checked on his protégé. Brown

saw a roster that had three freshmen ruled ineligible for academic reasons, a seemingly crippling blow to the team’s depth.

“When I saw us practice early,” Brown says, “I didn’t know if we’d win 15 games.”

Self and KU also faced problems more pressing than basketball. In recent years, a multimillion-dollar ticket scandal infected the athletic department and sent five people to federal prison; two rounds of conference realignment threatened the Jayhawks’ athletic status; and an inconceivable tragedy struck one of the program’s most promising players.

“You had a cloud that just kind of hovered above us for a while,” Self says.

But somehow these conditions were perfect for Self to carve out his most comfortable groove on the sideline.

“He has shown a patience and a calmness this year that seems pretty new to him,” says Jay Davis, a friend since junior high.

Until 2008, when he won it all, Self had never gotten to the Final Four. Now he’s back, the unflappable coach in his proudest moment, two victories from another championship.

“Oh man,” Brown says. “I’ve never seen anybody do a better job than this.”

The stories are legend by now, apocryphal tales that are dug up each basketball season in Lawrence.

Brown remembers Self calling him in the summer of 1985, a fresh-faced graduate of Oklahoma State looking to kickstart a coaching career. Self had worked at Brown’s camp the previous summer. One day, Self was on the court, and he appeared to seriously injure his knee. Brown felt the weight of guilt, and he told Self if there was ever anything he could do, well …

Self asked for a job. Could he be his next graduate assistant?

“That very next year,” Brown says. “… I kind of chuckled about it, because it took a little courage.”

After KU, Self was trying to get hired as a full-time assistant coach at Oklahoma State. He promised Cowboys coach Leonard Hamilton that he would bring a top recruit — but told him he’d need to be hired to make it happen.

Then Self phoned Davis looking for a favor. He was a former standout high school point guard who had settled into a normal college life in Stillwater. Davis would be the top

OPPOSITE: Kansas coach Bill Self was all smiles during the Jayhawks’ shootaround in preparation for the 2012 Final Four in New Orleans.

RICH SUGG / THE KANSAS CITY

STAR

For KU’s Bill Self, Hall of Fame is ‘as good an individual honor I’ll ever receive’

BY GARY BEDORE / THE KANSAS CITY STAR • SEPT. 5, 2017

LAWRENCE — Hall of Fame basketball coaches who have not yet retired must complete their share of mundane tasks, just like the rookies in the business.

“I just passed my NCAA certification test. It took me a little longer than I thought,” Bill Self, Kansas’ 15th-year head coach said with a grin, explaining why he was about a half hour late for a noon news conference Tuesday in the Allen Fieldhouse media room.

“Proud moment, proud moment,” he added jokingly of acing the exam that allows him to hit the road recruiting high school athletes during the 2017–18 season.

He spent the next half hour speaking to the local media about what is truly a proud moment for the 54-year old Self : Friday’s enshrinement into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

“Being in the presence with so many other people who have done, honestly, so much more for our sport than what I have … it’s very humbling and certainly something I’m very proud of,” Self said. “Even though it

doesn’t trump team performance, I do think it’s probably as good an individual honor I’ll ever receive in my lifetime.”

Self spent most of the time Tuesday crediting others for making his Hall of Fame induction possible. He revealed that 55 of his former players and 15 of his former assistant coaches are expected to attend Friday’s induction ceremony in Springfield, Mass.

“I probably had the best three mentors anyone has ever had coaching this game,”

Self said of former KU coach Larry Brown, who will present Self for induction, as well as former Oklahoma State coaches Eddie Sutton and Leonard Hamilton. Self was a graduate assistant on Brown’s 1985–86 Final Four KU staff and a full-time assistant at Oklahoma State for both Hamilton and Sutton.

“Coach Brown … Hall of Fame, won both an NBA and college (championship). Leonard Hamilton is known as one of the greatest college basketball recruiters ever. He’s been an NBA coach and is a program builder. And coach Sutton, who in my opinion should be in

the Hall as well. How I lucked out into being around those three people has just made my career. It’s pretty ridiculously amazing that just because of contacts and being at the right place at the right time that doors have opened.”

Self said he texted Sutton in April upon learning he would be a member of the Hall’s class of 2017. Sutton has yet to be inducted despite his own highly successful career.

“I said, ‘Coach this is uncomfortable because you deserve this far more than I do,’” Self said. “The thing with awards like this … this is sad to say, but the reason I have a chance to go in the Hall is because I coach at Kansas. Let’s be real. You are at this place where there’s so much attention and history. Everybody that has coached here has had unparalleled success just about. Coach (Ted) Owens goes to two Final Fours. Dick Harp plays for the national championship. It’s unbelievable of the eight coaches (at KU) the success all have had and what they’ve meant to our sport.

“If you are at a place maybe that hasn’t

OPPOSITE: Kansas coach Bill Self addresses the media during a press conference at the Ford Center in Oklahoma City. RICH SUGG / THE KANSAS CITY STAR

quite had the history or interest level of a Kansas, you can do just as good a job or better job and not get attention for it. People don’t get put into the Hall or win coaching awards in the postseason if they go 18-15. It doesn’t mean they don’t do just as good a job. It just means for whatever reason people identify with records. They identify with exposure. They identify with history, things like that. That’s made it easier. That’s made it possible. With coach Sutton, even though he spent the lion’s share of his time at Arkansas and Oklahoma State, nobody did a better job coaching those two programs than what he did. I learned so much from him. It’s a little embarrassing, to be candid, I’d be doing this on Friday night when he hasn’t done it yet.”

Self, who has been head coach at KU, Oral Roberts, Tulsa and Illinois, said he’s thinking more about people than specific victories heading into Friday’s ceremony, which will include a speech from Self limited by the Hall to eight minutes.

“If you are just talking about games, the top memory would be San Antonio in ’08, not ’11,” Self said of KU’s 2008 Final Four semifinal win over North Carolina and the national title victory over Memphis. KU lost to VCU in the Elite Eight in 2011, also in San Antonio.

“We’ve had a lot of great memories and a lot of great games,” Self continued. “I’m not looking at this as these are my favorite moments as a coach competitively. I look at it more (as) I get a chance to see Blake Moses (Oral Roberts player). I get a chance to see Earl McClellan (Tulsa player). I get a chance to see Sergio McClain (Illinois). I look at it more the people and what they’ve done in my life to assist me more so than actually a big game or a big moment.

“I do think 2008, Mario’s shot, still is up there pretty high, though,” he added with a smile.

Mario Chalmers, whose late 3-pointer sent the

Memphis title game into overtime, will be at the Hall ceremony along with many of Self’s other players, including KU’s Sherron Collins, Darrell Arthur, Brandon Rush, Cole Aldrich … the list goes on.

Self is grateful that current coaches are allowed entry into the Hall so he can enjoy sharing this with his friends. Players are not eligible for induction until after they are retired.

“I felt like when they told me I was going in that meant I was probably on my last leg. Certainly I don’t feel that way,” Self said. “As a coach I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it mean more if I was retired?’ But the reality of it is, (if you) coach ’til 70 … I think it’s a little premature. Certainly I understand why they did it. I’m not going to give it back. I’m proud of it.”

OPPOSITE: Kansas basketball coach Bill Self holds onto a trophy he received during his enshrinement into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 2017. GARY BEDORE / THE KANSAS CITY STAR

LEFT: A quote from Kansas basketball coach Bill Self’s father is engraved at the base of a statue of Dr. James Naismith at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass., in 2017. GARY BEDORE / THE KANSAS CITY STAR