The Melo Backpedal

It was inevitable that one way or another, Roy Williams was eventually going to run into his former team, the Kansas Jayhawks, in the NCAA Tournament. Most of us just never anticipated it would be on the big stage at the Final Four. The school that widely believes they were betrayed by their former beloved coach now has a chance to get sweet revenge, and make no mistake, that’s exactly what’s on their mind.

It’s been five years since Williams shocked Jayhawk nation with his abrupt departure to return to his alma matter, North Carolina. Almost immediately after doing so, Williams went on to win a national title at North Carolina, something he was never able to accomplish in his decade and a half with the Jayhawks.

True, Kansas is still one of the elite programs in the nation, but to those who say Jayhawks fans are “over it,” or that this is “just another game” are kidding themselves.

“If we lose this game, then one, single man will never have inflicted so much pain on me as Roy Williams,” Dan Barker told ESPN, and wore a “Believe In Self” T-shirt to the Final Four this weekend.

Even Williams knows there’s still lingering bitterness.

“To me, if I go out there, and 37 people throw tomatoes at me, that will bother me a little bit,” Williams said.

Kansas fans will never forget Williams’ famous utterance five years ago, in the heat of the moment during a live TV interview after the Jayhawks lost to Syracuse in the national finals: “I could give a (bleep) about North Carolina right now,” he said.

Two weeks later, he was in Chapel Hill wearing Carolina blue.

To most, its not that he simply left, but that he said one thing and did another. He led people to believe that he would stay with Kansas and eventually end his coaching career there. That’s probably what hurts the most.

“When they offered him the job in 2000, and he said no, he said no because he didn’t want to leave KU,” Kansas alum Ryan Johnson recalls. “When they came calling again in ‘03, I think he looked at the KU bench, saw mediocre players, and looked at the North Carolina bench and saw McCants, May and Felton. That’s why he left. He made a big to-do about going home. Well, if it was that big a deal, why didn’t he go home when they originally asked him?”

Look Jayhawk fans, I realize Kansas fans are probably a little bitter about the way Williams left town, and that they probably want to get a little revenge. It probably doesn’t help the situation that he never won a title while at Kansas and went on to win one almost immediately after arriving in Chapel Hill. Having said that, Kansas fans simply need to get over it. After all, he only took his teams to four Final Fours and won nine conference championships, not to mention eighty-one percent of his games while at Kansas. Most teams would kill for those results. Sure, Kansas fans may think that they were betrayed when Williams repeatedly told them he was staying, only to eventually pack up his things and leave. When he said he wanted to stay, he meant it, and only took the Carolina job because he realized it could be his last chance to coach his alma matter. Ask Bob Huggins, who left an opportunity to coach Michael Beasley and Bill Walker, how important it is for a coach to return to his alma matter. Take solace in the fact that you currently have a great team with a great coach and that your program is where it is at largely due to a class act coach named Roy Williams.

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