Kansas assistant head coach Norm Roberts talks along the sidelines of practice on Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at Wells Fargo Arena in Des Moines, Iowa. Photo by Nick Krug

For the first time since 2012, a Kansas men’s basketball team will soon take the court for a season without Norm Roberts on the sideline.

Bill Self’s longtime assistant coach announced his retirement on Monday morning after 37 years of coaching.

“I want to thank everybody at the University of Kansas and from everywhere I’ve been lucky enough to coach,” Roberts said in a press release. “I’ve been fortunate that I’ve never worked a day in my life. Being able to coach at Kansas and be part of this program has been unbelievable.”

Roberts, a New York native, first joined forces with Self when Self was undertaking his first head coaching gig at Oral Roberts. He followed Self to Tulsa, Illinois and eventually Kansas, where he was a member of Self’s first coaching staff at KU during the 2003-04 season. Then, following six years as the head coach at St. John’s and one as an assistant at Florida, Roberts returned to KU for another 13 years.

Self called Roberts’ retirement “a bittersweet moment” because of how long the two had worked together.

“Norm has played a key role to our success at all of the stops we have had together, especially here at Kansas,” Self said in the release. “From recruiting to developing players to scouting and his knowledge of the game both on and off the court, Norm has been instrumental in what we have achieved. We won (a lot) of games together – many conference titles, deep NCAA Tournament runs, Final Fours and a national championship. We’ve had some unbelievable memories that will last our lifetimes.”

Roberts was part of seven Big 12 regular-season titles, three league tournament championships and the 2022 national title team. In 2023, Roberts was inducted into the A Step Up Assistant Coaches Hall of Fame.

“After 37 years as a coach, it is time for me to move on, enjoy my family, spend more time with my wife (Pascale) and sons (Niko and Justin),” Roberts said. “The thing I’m going to remember most is the players and watching them grow, watching them succeed, and watching them fight through adversity and come back from that.”

Niko Roberts, a former member of the KU men’s basketball team, is an associate commissioner for the Mountain West Conference. Justin Roberts, who played college basketball at Toledo and Niagara, works for the Boise State athletic department.

Norm Roberts played at Queens College in New York, where he later worked his first collegiate coaching job before he left to join Self at Oral Roberts in 1995.

Roberts served as KU’s acting head coach on a couple occasions late in his career, both during the 2022-23 season, first as Self was serving a self-imposed suspension and later as Self dealt with a health episode during the postseason. Roberts went 7-2 at the helm during those two stints.

“It’s the people that make Kansas basketball special – the fans, the coaches, the players, the administration,” Roberts said in the release. “I’ve been blessed to have 14 unbelievable years here. I want to thank everybody for everything they’ve done for me and my family, and I will forever be a Jayhawk.”