Self pledges support to Houston: “Anything we have we are going to send down that way”

Kansas’ basketball program, in conjunction with the entire university, will be shipping gear to residents of the flood-ravaged city of Houston on Thursday.

Bill Self’s Jayhawks are responding to University of Houston coach Kelvin Sampson’s Twitter request for all of his coaching counterparts to donate 10 pairs of shoes and 20 shirts to those who lost their belongings in Hurricane Harvey.

“We’ve got every old camp shirt, shoes, shorts. Anything we have we are going to send down that way,” 15th-year KU coach Self said Wednesday night in an interview with The Star. “We’ve got boxes upon boxes. Certainly we are looking forward to putting that together and I believe we are trying to ship it off tomorrow.”

Self was speaking shortly after returning to Lawrence from the two-day National Association of Basketball Coaches Board of Directors meeting in Kansas City. Self began his two-year term as board president in May.

“We are trying to figure out if there’s something big we can do,” Self said of his program and others supporting Houston. “We are going to run some stuff by the NCAA to see if there’s anything we can do that’s a little bit outside the box. We are all aware of the situation there (in Houston).

“We talked about the efforts of so many in the Houston area. Certainly what Kelvin is trying to do … and from what we understand there’s been so much response to his request. I know we have responded at KU and I believe all the coaches on our board will as well.”

Self knows several individuals who live in Houston.

“We all do. Everybody does. Houston is a huge city,” Self said. “We know people. But the connections I have, from what we understand at this point in time, everybody seems to be safe — certainly affected, but safe.”

Self has found himself watching a lot of TV monitoring the developments in Texas.

“So much on television in Houston is so hard to comprehend and put your head around that,” Self said. “I watch CNN a lot, FOX or MSNBC. I’ve watched quite a bit. It’s hard to imagine the devastation with all the water.”

Self has two children who live in Texas.

“Lauren is in Dallas. Tyler is in San Antonio (working for the Spurs as basketball operations quality assurance assistant). Lauren hasn’t been affected at all. Tyler … all they’ve gotten is some rain, not anything close to creating problems. Tyler’s area is fine. It’s just wet.

Board president speaks

Self said the two-day NABC Board meeting went well.

“There were a lot of topics,” he said, “ranging from transfers to one-and-dones, minority hirings to hurricane relief to how to promote our game. We covered a lot of topics. I thought it was a very productive meeting. I thought we got a lot done. One of the big things was announcing Jim Haney had agreed to an extension to remain our executive director.”

Indeed, the board announced Wednesday that Haney had accepted a multiyear contract extension. Haney has served in the position since 1992.

“In 25 years as executive director, Jim Haney has provided strong leadership, built solid relationships in intercollegiate athletics, and has made significant contributions in growing the game of basketball and the coaching profession,” Self said in a release.

This story was originally published August 30, 2017 at 9:47 PM with the headline "Self pledges support to Houston: “Anything we have we are going to send down that way”."