Back to School, with Bill Self’s Jayhawks

By Matt Tait     Aug 24, 2020
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Kansas coach Bill Self laughs on the sidelines during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Texas Tech, Saturday, March 7, 2020, in Lubbock, Texas. (AP Photo/Brad Tollefson)

When you get to be my age, your social media feeds tend to be flooded by first day of school photos the later in August you get.

And I love them.

They often feature my friends’ smiling kids — and others I don’t know — beaming with excitement over the promise of a new school year and all of the wonderful things that await.

My own daughter is starting kindergarten next Monday, and in addition to shopping for school supplies, crossing our fingers for her new backpack to finally arrive off of backorder and ripping off a link in the paper chain we made for the first-day-of-school countdown, we’ve started to make plans for Day 1, both the before and after pictures.

She’s going to be so over it!

This year, of course, masks have played a strong supporting role in many of those front-door photographs throughout the country. But I expected that.

What I didn’t expect was to see the members of the 2020-21 Kansas men’s basketball team sprinkled in among those back-to-school snapshots posted by my friends.

I have to admit, those were cool, too, though.

In case you missed them, here’s a quick look.

Be sure to check out the “I want to be ______ when I grow up” sections, and take a minute to process how funny it sounds to hear these guys talking about 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th and even 17th grade (shout-out Mitch Lightfoot!)

There’s even a good video of senior Silvio De Sousa cruising through campus on his last first day of school.

I don’t know too many kids, no matter how old or young they are, who would be willing to let mom or dad record video of their first day of school. Silvio seemed to eat it up, though.

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Written By Matt Tait

A native of Colorado, Matt moved to Lawrence in 1988 and has been in town ever since. He graduated from Lawrence High in 1996 and the University of Kansas in 2000 with a degree in Journalism. After covering KU sports for the University Daily Kansan and Rivals.com, Matt joined the World Company (and later Ogden Publications) in 2001 and has held several positions with the paper and KUsports.com in the past 20+ years. He became the Journal-World Sports Editor in 2018. Throughout his career, Matt has won several local and national awards from both the Associated Press Sports Editors and the Kansas Press Association. In 2021, he was named the Kansas Sportswriter of the Year by the National Sports Media Association. Matt lives in Lawrence with his wife, Allison, and two daughters, Kate and Molly. When he's not covering KU sports, he likes to spend his time playing basketball and golf, listening to and writing music and traveling the world with friends and family.