TUESDAY, APRIL 15, 2003
4A = THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
OPINION
TUESDAY,APRIL 15,2003
TALKIOUS
Kristi Henderson editor
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A word about Day on the Hill being canceled: SUA, do you have any idea how far KJHK could have stretched $30,000? They could have put on a hell of a show, and it's my opinion that you people just don't know what you're doing.
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I was sitting in my apartment and there was a knock at my door, so I opened it, and there were two Mormons standing there. I talked to them for 20 minutes, but only because one of them was hot.
though Williams has defined my concept of basketball, Kansas means everything to me. Williams and the crimson and blue have always been inextricably linked in my mind. His legend belongs to Kansas. True, he may go on to build a new legend at North Carolina, but it has none of the meaning in my mind without the Jayhawk.
I am so proud of my mother. She was waving her palms of pride today during Palm Sunday. Way to go, Mom.
My friend has a phobia of drive-thrus
If I haven't seen it, and I haven't heard about it, and it's not in Minnesota, it doesn't exist to me.
Me and my roommate were just sitting around wondering if a pig would eat bacon.
It's approaching 1 a.m., and we have gone from studying for our anthropology test to taking pictures of ourselves making monkey faces.
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Goodbye, Roy
There are 114 episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer downloaded on my computer. Am I obsessed? Maybe. Maybe just a little.
Fallon, if you don't marry that other guy,
will you marry me?
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PERSPECTIVE
Kansas basketball not the same without Williams at the helm
There has never been basketball for me without Roy Williams. My dad a KU alumnus, brought
My dad, a KU alumnus, brought me up on Kansas basketball. I would sit on the floor next to his reciliner and halfheartedly doodle little drawings on computer paper while Dad pounded on the arm of his chair in frustration, rocketed out of the chair to pace the floor in anticipation or jumped up and down in jubilation. Before I even understood the basics of the sport, I knew Roy Williams. His face means basketball to me and has since I was 8 years old.
It was from Williams' great Kansas players such as Rex Walters and Adonis Jordan that I came to understand the rules of the game. It was from Williams' heartbreaking Final Four losses in 1991 and 1993 that I came to understand sportsmanship and graciousness. It was from Williams that I came to love Kansas basketball and everything it stands for.
I won't lie — I'm no sports buff. In fact, I only tune in to SportsCenter between early October and late March. Basketball is and has always been the only sport I give a crap about, and Kansas is the only team I've ever backed.
I didn't shed a tear when Kansas lost to Syracuse in the national championship game just over a week ago. It was only one game out of the 15 years I've cheered for the Jayhawks. Besides, Williams and his players' true class and dignity in the game's aftermath made me only more proud of the program and its history.
And Williams and his teams can boast an illustrious history. Here's a quick glimpse at some highlights for sports illiterates like me:
And that's why I knew I had to come to Kansas. It wasn't really a question. I couldn't have gone anywhere else.
Final Four appearances in 1991,
1997, 2002 and 2003
A landmark 400 career victories
GUEST COMMENTARY
Amanda Sears
opinton@hansan.com
Zach Stinson for The University Daily Kansa
It was from Williams' great Kansas players such as Rex Walters and Adonis Jordan that I came to understand the rules of the game. It was from Williams' heartbreaking Final Four losses in 1991 and 1993 that I came to understand sportsmanship and graciousness. It was from Williams that I came to love Kansas basketball and everything it stands for.
A 62-game winning streak at home from February of 1994 to December of 1998
Going 16.0 in the Big 12 Conference in 2001-02
■ Ranking in The Associated Press Top 25 poll for 145 consecutive weeks between 1991 and 1999.
Williams' greatness and the greatness of his players emerge even through this tiny sample of the outstanding statistics the program has compiled during the last 15 seasons.
But to see the coach who embodies the sport leave this program behind clogs my throat in a way cold numbers can't explain.
I don't know how to say goodbye to Roy Williams,but I have to.
Converting into a North Carolina fan simply is not an option. Because, even
I'm not sure remaining true to Kansas works for me either. Williams is the program, and by leaving, he takes what the program stands for with him. He will likely take his coaching staff with him to North Carolina. And he's cast the future of players such as Keith Langford and recruit Omar Wilkes into doubt. It's not that I'm a fair-weather fan. I just don't know if I can stomach rooting for a team that is without what has always been its linchpin for me. At this point in time, it seems empty, incomplete.
Maybe it's appropriate that, as I prepare to graduate and face having to act like an adult (by giving up drinking beer on Tuesdays, getting up before noon and keeping my checking account balance higher than $10), I give up this part of my childhood as well. Maybe it's appropriate that I let go of my soon-to-be alma mater more ways than one, by not only moving away from Lawrence, but also from the basketball program as well.
I'll still have memories of drawing basketballs and players on the court, screaming at the television along with my dad and celebrating trips to the Final Four with friends.
But without Williams, it just isn't the program I associate these memories with. It just isn't right.
As Lewis H. Lapham said, "a man without a company name is a man without a country." Without Williams at Kansas, I feel like a woman without a team, and the feeling doesn't sit well.
Sears is an Overland Park senior in journalism. She is Kansan opinion editor.
EDITORIAL BOARD
Williams' departure brings mix of emotion
If you can't figure out whether you've loved Roy Williams for the past 15 years or hated him for the last 15 hours, you're not alone. The announcement that should have seemed inevitable has somehow blind-sighted Lawrence just one week after Syracuse did the same.
With the fear of Lawrence residents finally the reality, Roy Williams' departure from KU leaves a mix of emotions.
Whatever our emotions about Roy's departure, Roy has felt them too; and whatever baffled emotional state campus has been left in. Roy Williams has been there for weeks.
Chancellor Hemenway told North Carolina chancellor James Moeser, "we are sending you a treasure." We couldn't agree more. And it's hard not to think North Carolina got the better end of the deal. KU is fortunate to have had Roy Williams for the 15 years that it did, but that fortune falls flat in filling the vacuum of coach Williams' departure. KU's basketball coach will be neither easily forgotten nor replaced.
But no real Kansas fan would mistake Roy's departure as the end of KU basketball. To suggest as much forgets that Kansas basketbal transcends even Roy Williams
the long history of basketball at the University of Kansas, from James Naismith to Phog Allen to Williams makes it melodramatic to assume the end. It does however make it all the more difficult to see him leave. Still, we wish Williams the best.
Greg Holmquist for the editorial board
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