To the editor:

Those fans who still hold a grudge against Roy Williams for leaving Kansas University five years ago should put themselves in his shoes for a moment. Suppose you had been born and raised in Kansas and played for a KU legend like, for example, Phog Allen. You graduate, he gives you your first job, and you wind up on his coaching staff for 10 years. Your wife is from Kansas and your children are born here. Then, with the great help of Dr. Allen, your coach and mentor, you get your first head coaching job – at North Carolina. You are very successful, even beat your old coach and the Jayhawks at the Final Four.

Then Allen retires, and KU goes through two coaches in quick succession. KU’s program is in dire straits, and Allen calls you to ask you to come back to your roots, he and KU desperately need you, and all your childhood and college friends and teammates say the same.

Allen is your mentor, a legend in his own time, and your alma mater wants and needs you. What would you do? I suspect that not one of us who consider themselves to be true Jayhawks would do any differently than Roy did five years ago: return. There’s nothing to forgive; just get over it and focus on the fact that we have a terrific coach in Bill Self and a team that has won as many games as any team in KU’s long and proud history.

Joe Reitz,
Eudora