They never say, you know. Coaches who change their minds after accepting a job never give a definitive reason for their surprising flip-flops.
Kansas University’s all-time leader in the about-face category is Glen Mason, with Larry Brown and Roy Williams sharing second place.
Brown told UCLA he was coming in 1988, and Williams promised North Carolina in 2001, but both canceled. Brown did wind up with the San Antonio Spurs six months later, and Williams finally opted for the Tar Heels two years hence, but the Mason incident was different.
Mason went the route. He not only told Georgia he would become the school’s new football coach, he appeared in front of a press conference in Athens, Ga., on Dec. 18, 1995, and amid a background of UGA logos, proclaimed, “I think I got the best job in the world. I want to be here for a long, long time.”
Hours later, Mason left Georgia to coach the Jayhawks for the last time in their Aloha Bowl date with UCLA exactly a week later. Then, just a few hours before kickoff, word leaked out that Mason had decided to remain at KU.
What had happened in those seven days to make Mason change his mind? Whatever the reason, it has never been made public. Mason was vague, saying only that his decision was based on “a gut feeling.”
Asked to be more specific, Mason would not be pinned down. He denied it was because KU had made him a better offer. He refuted speculation his recent divorce from wife Sally was involved. And he said, “It wasn’t anything negative on Georgia’s part.”
Or was it? Vince Dooley, Georgia’s athletic director at the time, didn’t sound crushed. Dooley, too, declined to reveal Mason’s reasoning, but Dooley did give a hint when he said, “Obviously, there were some personal things involved.”
At the time, it wasn’t a secret the most personal of those “personal things” involved Mason’s relationship with Kate Wilkerson, a soon-to-be divorced Lawrence dentist who had joint custody of her three children and could not take them out of state.
In other words, if Mason and Wilkerson were to wed, as was rumored at the time, she would not be able to join Mason in Georgia. And yet a year later, after Mason and Wilkerson were indeed married, Mason left Kansas for Minnesota, admitting he would have to do a lot of commuting to be with his new wife.
Sure, Athens, Ga., is a longer commute than Minneapolis, but the difference is less than two hours. Not a big deal.
In retrospect, it’s possible Dooley did not know what was going on in Mason’s private life until after the press conference and, when he did learn, the Georgia AD realized Mason’s marital situation would be a tough sell to his genteel Southern constituents.
Mason certainly had no professional reason not to go. He had taken Kansas as far as he could. In ’95, the Jayhawks compiled a 10-2 record and a top-10 ranking, and Mason had been named Big Eight coach of the year.
It was Mason’s time. He had nothing left to prove. He could take his pick of the inevitable job openings, and when Georgia offered him twice as much money as he was making at KU, he jumped at the opportunity.
But in the end Mason pulled the ripcord. Why? He never really said. They never do.
