Gregorian Chants: Bill Self and ... Ben Franklin; old friends and a brown Batman

As far as we know, Kansas basketball coach Bill Self and inventor-scientist-legislator-statesman-diplomat Benjamin Franklin don’t have a lot in common.

But they both are known for a certain genius in relating to others and share a habit that seems eerily similar, a trait that you’ll pick up on about any time you’re around Self.

In any given interview, or even casual conversation, Self will use qualifying expressions along the lines of “you might want to check me on this” or “you may want to look this up” or “I’m not sure, but I think …”

Even when he is correct down to the hundredth on numbers or virtual precision on facts.

When I spent a few hours with Self a couple weeks ago for a column about how he gets away from it all, I asked him about why he does this.

“Well, a lot of times I do that because I want to mess with you,” he said, laughing. “So if I say, ‘Hey, check me on this,’ and you know I’m right, next time when I say something like that you’ll believe me that it’s true.”

More seriously, Self spoke to it in the context of recruiting.

“I do that all the time, because I don’t think that there’s an absolute best way to do things,” he said. “I think there’s a best way to do it that fits your personality and your skill set.

“When a school says that we have The Best, I have a hard time believing it. Because the best is in the eyes of the beholder, not the seller. Because you can have the nicest car you’re selling, but if it’s not what the buyer wants, it’s not the best to them.

“And so even though I have strong beliefs on what I think is best, and how we play or whatever it is, I think you should always be objective to the fact that not everybody sees it through your eyes.”

Which takes us to Franklin and a passage from his autobiography: how he learned to engage people upon being told by a friend he was considered overbearing and insolent (a pivot point Self apparently never had to encounter):

“I made it a Rule to forbear all direct Contradiction to the Sentiments of others, and all positive Assertion of my own,” he wrote in the work published posthumously in 1791. “I even forbid myself … the Use of every Word or Expression in the Language that imported a fix’d opinion; such as certainly, undoubtedly … and I adopted, instead of them, I conceive, I apprehend, or I imagine, a thing to be so or so, or so it appears to me at present.”

In denying himself the pleasure of contradicting others, Franklin found the dynamics of his relationships -- and ability to persuade others – changed profoundly.

“The modest way in which I propos'd my Opinions procur'd them a readier Reception and less Contradiction,” he wrote. “I had less Mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily prevail'd with others to give up their Mistakes and join with me when I happened to be in the right.”

In Self’s case, you can also see this in the way he tends to embrace most media questions agreeably … even if he always ultimately articulates (and almost always tactfully and colorfully) his own viewpoint.

In fact, all of this seems more natural in Self than Franklin, who would acknowledge he could not “boast of much Success in acquiring the Reality of (the) Virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the Appearance of it.”

While the mechanics are entirely different between Self and players as he’s coaching them, a story in itself, this is a telling aspect of Self’s winning way on and off the court.

“I’ve always thought that I’ve been pretty opinionated on what my thoughts are, and I can be dead wrong on certain ways in which I think and can be ridiculously stubborn at times,” he said. “But the reality of it is, the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.

“And it’s an inexact science, and everybody’s always trying to get better. And so just when you think you’ve got it figured out, that’s when you know that you’re in for some dark days.”

▪ Spent last Friday at the first full-fledged tailgate of my life, attending an impromptu University of Pennsylvania football reunion watching the Quakers plow Yale 42-7 in New Haven, Conn.

It was a beautiful thing, time spent with some guys I had hardly seen in probably 30 years and a few I see all the time … and still speaking a common language despite our divergent backgrounds and future paths.

Yale police approached us at one point and playfully said, “We’re getting reports of people having too much fun over here.”

One friend I’ve known since freshman football in 1979 said it best in a text message afterward: “I will always feel like a kid around you guys, my friends at a magical time in my life. No airs, no agenda, awesome time(s). Forever young!”

▪ Why did Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters leave the locker room at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday with a colorful sombrero?

He’d seen a fan wearing his No. 22 in the stands and gave the fan his gloves — and in exchange was handed the sombrero.

▪ It’s been well-documented that Chiefs receiver Chris Conley is into comic books and sci-fi, having produced his own Star Wars tribute, “Retribution.”

But it turns out his brother, Charles, also is immersed in all that, and he told a touching, thought-provoking story on Facebook about it the other day.

“So DragonCon this year was the first time I wore my Batman armor to a major con,” he wrote. “As many of you know I've had to deal with issues regarding bigots who can't seem to wrap their mind around the idea of a black guy cosplaying Batman, because ‘Batman is historically white, there are plenty of black characters you could do instead.’

“Well I cosplay batman because I love the character and because representation matters. When I say it matters let me tell you what happened on the Saturday of DragonCon this year.”

Charles was posing as the Dark Knight when a boy of about 5 or 6 approached with his mother “and stopped dead in his tracks, tugging at his mother’s hand.”

“I could see him point at his hand (the skin) and then pointing to me. I approached and he was a little intimidated at first as any little kid is when meeting a lifesized armored character. I knelt down and reached out my hand for a high five.

“With all the force he could muster he slapped my hand, with the biggest smile on his face.

“He told me he wanted to ask me something so, still kneeling I leaned in with my ear: ‘Batman,’ he said timidly. ‘You're brown, just like me! Does that mean that I can be a real superhero someday too? I don't see a lot of brown superheroes ...’

“If you know me, you know that I dont ever break character but I broke down when he said that. His words touched the deepest part of my soul. I then ignored my #1 batman rule and removed my cowl so he could see my face.

“His face lit up and I teared up even more. I looked this kid dead in the eye and said ‘you can be any superhero you want to be and dont ever let anyone tell you different. Being a brown superhero is a very special thing and I know you're going to make a great one.’

“For kids like this little boy, the idea that you can one day be a superhero, no matter what your skin color is, opens up a whole new world for them. This is why I cosplay. This is why I'm The Batman. #RepresentationMatters.”

This story was originally published October 27, 2016 at 11:52 AM with the headline "Gregorian Chants: Bill Self and ... Ben Franklin; old friends and a brown Batman."