LAWRENCE | Bill Self has a way that he saunters — which is slowly, with his eyes looking attentively around him and his shoulders slightly slumped — and it’s a style probably attributable to the Kansas basketball coach’s many social requirements.
Such is the way he walked as he tried to head from his office to his car last week, a trip that should take no longer than five minutes. Unless you’re Bill Self, in which case it takes much, much longer.
At every turn were fans, students and school employees who wanted a moment — and when they saw him, appeared completely comfortable around one of the state’s richest and most famous men.
“Hi coach!”
“Hi there, how you doing? How you hitting that ball? You swinging that club well? … Good, good!”
“Hi Bill!”
“High five!”
“Hey Bill!”
“Hey, I haven’t seen you in a week …”
With every greeting, Self stopped, made eye contact, recalled the person’s first name and found a version of himself to fit the moment: The buddy, the coach, the icon, the face of the program.
He makes everyone at ease with his politician’s charm, but not everything he touches turns to gold. That’s the Bill Self paradox: He has used his extraordinary people skills to build a basketball program that rivals any in America — and is the favorite this year to win Self’s second national title.
That very skill has lured a slew of talented players, yet their divergent backgrounds, egos and expectations have sometimes created distractions. Some have transferred for lack of playing time. There’s more attention when things go wrong. And, strangely, Self, who’s so concerned with what others need of him, has a void in his own personal life.
“Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of real close friends in this area,” he says. “I don’t go to dinner with folks. Not because I don’t want to. I just don’t know from a standpoint if I have time. I make connections with people, I’m a big believer that whenever there’s functions you go to those functions and work your tail off at those functions so you can touch as many people as possible. But not close friends.”
In ways more necessary and nuanced than for other area and Big 12 coaches, Bill Self’s many masks are a steady component of Kansas basketball. They have also been in especially high demand lately, including the off-the-court issues that included multiple fights that broke out between his players and members of the Kansas football team and Brady Morningstar’s arrest for suspicion of driving while intoxicated.
This is the price of reaching the pinnacle of his career: Bill Self is not Bobby Knight. Self succeeds not through anger and intimidation, but by making sure everyone gets along, everyone is happy, everyone feels good about themselves. Which means always being on.
“It has nothing to do with what people expect out of me,” Self says. “I just enjoy people. I really do. Maybe the platform has changed more, but I’m still trying to be that guy. It’s just who I am. If I wasn’t in this job, I’d find something to do that would let me interact with people in the same way.”
Self is more than a people person. He is, where possible, a people pleaser. It is a social ambidexterity that comes in handy when you rule Allen Fieldhouse.
Finally free of the politician’s walk, he slips into his car and smiles.
“You like burgers?”
***
Self steers his blue Navigator slowly through campus, one hand on the steering wheel, a bit slumped, the picture of cool. He’s in mid-sentence when he slams on the brakes, rolls down his window and shouts.
“What’s up, numb nuts!”
To reach Bill Reiter, call 816-234-4856 or send e-mail to breiter@kcstar.com
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