Former Kansas University men’s basketball coach Roy Williams on Sunday said a call from former KU basketball player and assistant coach Jerry Waugh boosted his spirits after another trying day.

“I said, ‘You need a friend to talk to,'” Waugh said in the wake of reports Williams violated an NCAA extra-benefit rule while coaching at KU. “I said I wanted to share some things with him and I’d call him at the office in the morning.”

Waugh said he was surprised to learn former student-athletes could not receive gifts from boosters from the time the player enrolls to the time he dies.

“I have to be careful where I golf from now on. I don’t want to accept any free rounds of golf since I’m still a student-athlete,” quipped Waugh, retired and living in Lawrence.

Waugh, who also coached women’s golf at KU, learned Friday that, like Williams, he’s a violator of NCAA rules.

“A student-athlete is a student-athlete for life … Well, every time I sent a wedding present to a girl on my golf team, I committed a violation,” Waugh said.

Waugh is amazed at the attention Williams’ secondary violations have received in the press. Violations appear much more serious in KU football and women’s basketball.

“I’m not saying it’s unfair. I understand whatever happens with KU basketball is the limelight, and it’s something people want to know about,” Waugh said. “That’s too bad, because what occurred seemed to be a minor infraction. Everybody I’ve talked to said it’s much ado about nothing.”

¢ Budig supportive: Add former Kansas University Chancellor Gene Budig to the list of those firmly standing behind Williams

“Roy Williams is a person of unquestioned integrity, one who brought enormous credit to the University of Kansas over 15 years,” Budig said Sunday from his home in Princeton, N.J.

“Clearly, the coach would never do anything intentionally to bring discredit to the sport and the people he cares so much about,” said Budig, who was chancellor when Williams was hired at KU in 1988.

Budig currently works as College Board Professor in New York after serving as major league baseball’s American League president.

¢ Compliance director responds: Former KU compliance director Janelle Martin cannot recall speaking to any boosters or coaches about the legality of providing gifts to graduating players.

Booster Bernie Morgan said he was directed to compliance by former KU coach Williams to learn whether he could provide gifts to six members of the graduating class of 1997.

“I don’t recall talking to him or having someone asking that question (about graduation gifts),” Martin said Sunday.

She said other members of the compliance office might have spoken to Morgan or a KU coach.

Martin said she believed the basketball violations were “secondary” — not deserving of NCAA penalties. She joins former KU athletic director Bob Frederick, former KU senior associate AD Richard Konzem, former NCAA enforcement official Rick Evrard and ex-KU coach Williams as individuals who deem the violations secondary.

¢ Konzem on Williams: “In the 22 years I was there I never worked with a coach who had a better grasp and knowledge of NCAA rules and commitment to follow them. He was as good as anybody we ever had.”

¢ Misleading?: KU’s wording of Violation No. 1 in its men’s basketball report of self violations — the first paragraph national media members read about the matter in preparing their articles and TV reports — appears to be misleading.

It says “With the approval of then head men’s basketball coach Roy Williams, at the completion of the 2000-01, 2001-02, 2002-03 men’s basketball seasons, three representatives of the university’s athletic interests (Dana Anderson, Joan Edwards, Bernie Morgan) provided gifts of cash and clothing to graduating men’s basketball student-athletes and men’s basketball student-athletes who had exhausted their eligibility.”

In the report that follows, Williams admits giving approval to booster Dana Anderson.

However, he told booster Morgan to check with KU compliance to see if the gifts were legal according to NCAA rules. He said he had no knowledge of the gifts provided by Edwards, who had been providing such gifts since 1988.