FRIDAY, MARCH. 29, 2002
FINALFOUR
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN = 5B
JILLIAN THORPE/KANSAN
The men's Final Four game between Kansas and Maryland is "the best of both worlds," said David Gottlieb, professor of law, pictured with his wife, Rita Sloan, who is an instructor in the music department at the University of Maryland. The couple is thrilled to have both of their teams in the game.
Kansas-Maryland game is win-win situation for couple
By Ryan Wood Kansan sportswriter
When two of the titans of men's basketball, Kansas and Maryland, do battle in the Georgia Dome, one will leave empty handed.
But for David Gottlieb and his family, the semi-final matchup in Atlanta will leave them winners either way.
Gottlieb, a professor of law at Kansas since 1979, is married to Rita Sloan, who took a job as an instructor in the music department at Maryland in 1999. Tomorrow night's matchup between the Jayhawks (33-3) and the Terrapins (30-4) is a game they had been hoping for since
Selection Sunday.
"It was kind of like the best of all possible worlds would be that they meet in the Final Four," said Sloan, who is in Lawrence during Maryland's spring break. "But it was so far away at that point, and anything can happen with upsets and all."
When last Sunday's Elite Eight matchups confirmed what the couple had been anticipating, the excitement came a bit late.
"Frankly, I was so relieved that Maryland won that game," Sloan said. "It took a little while to sink in."
Sloan, decked out in a red T shirt with big letters reading "Fear the Turtle," and Gottlieb, wearing a Kansas shirt
recognizing the team's undefeated Big 12 Conference season, seemingly shouldn't be getting along too well this week. But, the couple claims that is hardly the case.
"We love both teams," Gottlieb said. "Both of my boys are going to Atlanta. I think one of the reasons they're going is because they're going to have a team in the final game, no matter what happens."
Gottlieb and Sloan have three children, all of whom grew up in Lawrence and graduated from Lawrence high schools. With their hometown ties, the children became big lavihawk fans.
"But when Maryland went to the Final Four last year,"
Sloan said with a smile, "they did all get 'Fear the Turtle' shirts."
Having ties with both schools might make Gottlieb and Sloan, who have been married for 30 years, a couple of experts when it comes to tomorrow's showdown. In Las Vegas, Kansas is a narrow favorite, and Gottlieb said he wouldn't be surprised if the game was close.
"On paper, it is one of the closest games that I can ever remember," he said.
Contact Wood at rwood@kansan.com. This story was edited by Brooke Hesler.
COACH
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1B
"I thought that team stood for what was best in college athletics," he said. "In Pictionary, beside the word student-athlete there would be a picture of those two guys. They were both Academic All-Americans, Jacque was Academic All-America Player of the Year. To me that was a perfect team and the right thing to happen was for them to go to the Final Four. Then when they didn't, it really bothered me. I felt so badly for those guys and I knew that I was going to, hopefully, have some more chances because I wasn't going to quit. At that point, I didn't want that to be the only way they could feel they were successful or not."
That's not to say Williams' drive to win a national title has lessened. It's just that the coach has learned what is most important.
"I think as the years go on there's no doubt in my mind I want to win one," he said. "But as the years have gone on I have come to the realization that my relationship with these kids is more important. That's what I'm going to judge Roy Williams on."
Williams reached that conclusion in 1998, he said. It took Kansas' coach 16 years to fully comprehend something mentor and legendary North Carolina coach Dean Smith told Williams deep in the bowels of the Louisiana Superdome in 1982 after the Tarbeks coach won his first national championship. Williams said he told his boss "how happy I was for him" that he claimed his first title and "shut those people up" who said Smith couldn't win big games. Smith had been at Chapel Hill, N.C., for more than 20 years before he won a championship and suffered from many of the same criticisms that Williams does today.
"He's so much more intelligent than I am," Williams said. "But he said, You know, I'm not really any better coach than I was two and a half hours ago."
Title talk
In the "win now" world of college sports, Williams has won more college basketball games (388) in his first 14 years of coaching than any other coach has in their first 14 seasons. His teams won more games (283) than any other school in the 1990s. He has directed the Jayhawks to 13straight NCAA Tournament appearances and 20-plus victories seasons. He has won eight conference championships and this weekend he will lead his third team to the Final Four.
But individual accomplishments and records merely whet the palate of Kansas' fans. The Jayhawk faithful hunger for nothing less than national championships and if Kansas fails to win the title this season, even the unprecedented 16-0 Big
12 Conference regular season mark won't squelch talk of a disappointing year.
That kind of elitist and quick-to-criticize attitude annoys Collison, he said, because people don't understand how much of himself Williams pours into his program.
"When people talk bad about coach, it upsets you," he said. "Those people don't see that every single day he's either on the road or with us. On off-days he'll fly to Vermont or wherever to see a kid and come back for practice and stay up to watch tape. People don't realize that he puts his whole life — maybe even ahead of his family — into this basketball team.
"People feel like just because it says 'Kansas' on our chest we should be in the Final Four and win the national championship. They don't realize what all goes into it."
Williams has admitted he cares about what people
think of him to the point where it might be a fault. But he's grown to realize that he can't please everyone and no matter how bad Kansas' fans want a national title, no one wants it more than he does.
"I tell every Kansas person," Williams says, "that I've got more desire in my little finger than all the Kansas fans in the world to win a national championship."
Williams has a chance to capture his first title this week, but if he never gets to cut down the nets in college basketball's most glamorous game, Williams can live with that.
"I've decided that my number one goal in life is to coach my grandchildren in Little League baseball and basketball — and they haven't even been born yet," he said. "My second dream in life is to win a national championship."
Contact Doug Pacey at dpacey@kansan.com. This story was edited by Justin Henning.
Roy Williams gets upset with his team after a bad play.
CHRISTINA NEFF/KANSAN
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