Cards, letters, emails and faxes have poured into Roy Williams’ office since Decision Day — July 6 — when he announced he was staying at Kansas.
“It was so public. Everybody knew about it,” Williams, Kansas’ 13th-year basketball coach, said Friday, referring to his decision to decline his “dream job” at North Carolina out of loyalty to his current and past KU players.
“The Kansas people (and) people in the coaching profession — Bill Snyder, John Wooden, Pete Newell — those kind of people who would drop me a note. … they appreciate it more than say, prospects.”
High school basketball prospects still may, but haven’t yet, been knocking down the door to commit to KU just because of Williams’ show of loyalty.
“Kids at that age really don’t think that way,” Williams said.
“They think, ‘Coach Williams stayed at Kansas. He was recruiting me before for Kansas. He’s still recruiting me for Kansas. I’m glad I don’t have to think about him going somewhere else.’
“As far as my reasons for staying, I don’t think that has registered on the scale.”
Believe Williams when he says he and his assistants are working as hard as ever trying to fill five scholarships this upcoming school year.
“Bob Frederick made a statement that night (July 6) I probably would not have made. I don’t necessarily think it’s true,” Williams said. “Bob said it (show of loyalty to KU) would take recruiting to a new level or something like that. That’s not gonna happen.
“We never lost a prospect because of any rumors about North Carolina. It took up a few minutes of conversation in the in-home visit. That’s all. We have never even come close to it being a huge factor in a prospect’s decision.”
Williams said in order to sign five — KU has received one commitment from Leavenworth’s Wayne Simien — he’ll probably make “between 10 and 15” in-home visits in September. Ideally, he’d like to fill “all” the positions on the court.
Recruits interested in KU include Californians Josh Childress, Jamal Sampson, Andre Patterson and Chuck Hayes; Oregon’s Aaron Miles; Washington’s Erroll Knight; Kansans Dennis Latimore, Jamar Howard and Jeff Hawkins; Missouri’s David Lee and Minnesota’s Alan Anderson.
KU’s coach spent the recent 24-day summer evaluation period scouting those players and others. How’s KU faring?
“I used to try to determine each step how we are doing. It’s senseless. I try to not think in those terms any more,” Williams said. “So many things go into recruiting nowadays. If you try to judge beforehand how you are doing, you are setting yourself up. Look at the people we are recruiting. Our competition is not Southwestern Tech.”
It’s a plus the state of Kansas has some solid prospects this year.
“This is as good a year in this area in a long, long time,” Williams said. “I can never remember a year I’ve gone into four homes of local kids. I can remember a lot of years I’ve not gone into the home of anybody in the state of Kansas … but there’s still more people in California.”
California is KU’s happy-hunting ground in recruiting.
“For us, we have to go West. We don’t have a chance going East,” Williams said. “I am not dumb enough to keep beating my head against the wall. Every time we’ve tried to recruit somebody East we’ve not gotten him. …
“Nobody has ever tried any harder than we did on John Wallace (Syracuse) and Felipe Lopez (St. John’s),” he continued, referring to former Eastern prep stars. “Very seldom do I even call a kid (from East) anymore. They’ve got too many other options.”
He cited St. John’s, UConn, Syracuse, Temple, UMass and the ACC schools as options for players out East.
“Geography is the biggest factor in recruiting,” Williams said. “Why would somebody fly past St. John’s, Syracuse, Duke or North Carolina.”
Top players out West choose either UCLA, Arizona or Stanford.
“They can’t take all of them,” Williams said. “Kids we’ve had from that area say good things and high school coaches say good things. That all helps.”
Williams could have made recruiting much easier on himself by taking the North Carolina job and recruiting the many players out East.
“Outside the state of Kansas, 95 to 99 percent of people would say it’s easier (to recruit at UNC),” Williams said.
“It’s never easy … easier,” he stressed. “I had 100 reasons for going and 100 for staying. That one was not helping me come up with a decision.”
His decision to stay at KU was solely out of loyalty to his players. He is still operating under the same contract he had before Carolina came calling.
“David Robinson of the Spurs grabbed me this summer. He said, ‘I heard in making your decision you had to write down one biggest reason for going and the biggest reason for staying.’
“I said, ‘Yeah. The biggest reason for going was it was my dream. As a youngster I dreamed of playing there and as a high school coach I dreamed of coaching there.’ He said, ‘The great thing about life is dreams change.’ I thought that was pretty good.”
