I found the article interesting. His thoughts on how he thinks about NIL and change he's made.
A year after hospitalization, Kansas coach Bill Self lives by a fresh perspective
EVERT NELSON • THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL/USA TODAY NETWORK
Kansas coach Bill Self yells out plays from the bench during the first half of a game against UConn inside Allen Fieldhouse during the 2023-24 basketball season.
A year after hospitalization, Kansas coach Bill Self lives by a fresh perspective
BY VAHE GREGORIAN
VGREGORIAN@KCSTAR.COM
4 hours ago
Approaching the anniversary Friday of what Bill Self last year termed an “out of body-type” sensation that turned into sudden hospitalization and a heart-catheterization procedure, Self sat as comfortably as ever in his own skin and palatial office and rather reflexively shrugged off the significance.
“I won’t even think about that,” he said in an interview with The Star last week. “I haven’t even thought about it until you said it.”
At least not in the direct sense of the jarring episode itself. That came the day before his University of Kansas men’s basketball team was to begin play in the Big 12 Tournament. Self’s ensuing recovery sidelined him for the rest of a season that ended with KU, a No. 1 seed, losing a second-round NCAA Tournament game a year after winning the national title.
ADVERTISEMENT
But while Self might minimize experiencing that unsettling interlude because he never feared for his life, the truth is that he feels the ripples of it every day.
And he’s consciously embracing it.
In ways that he believes will be vital to his future in a landscape of relentless flux.
And toward helping him navigate a particularly challenging season with a starter-rich but ultimately thin roster. That left the Jayhawks a relatively pedestrian 22-8 entering their regular-season finale on Saturday at Houston.
With such a record and so much inconsistency, say, two years ago, Self said, he would have been consumed with the flaws as already defining. But now ...
ADVERTISEMENT
“I probably feel like it’s going to come down to, ‘Can we play our best when it counts the most?’“ he said. “And before I’d say, ‘No, we’ve got to play our best every day in order to get to where we can play our best when it counts.’
“Does that make sense?”
Sure.
But as I type this I’m still thinking … who are you and what did you do with Bill Self?
“It’s a little bit of a pivot,” he said, smiling, and later adding, “I actually think in some ways my health scare has helped with my perspective on how I need to coach moving forward with the new times. I really do.
ADVERTISEMENT
“With (the transfer portal and Name, Image and Likeness benefits) and all this stuff, you can’t get so stressed about things that you can’t control. It’s just the way of the world now.”
The pivot isn’t merely in the sense that he seems to be generally adhering to dietary advice — albeit maybe more as guideline than rule. Allowing for some wiggle room, he smiled and said, “I do actually think I’m eating better.”
Where it’s deeper and more apparent is in the overall mindset of Self, whose fresh and prevailing viewpoint no doubt was reinforced by a separate health scare last fall, about which he declined to elaborate but that left him losing 30 pounds.
The coach who last April joked about his “Zen-type” approach, which is largely the opposite of his coaching persona, typically has been projecting something eerily calmer.
Most of the time, that is. After all, he went and got himself ejected from the game at Texas Tech last month.
ADVERTISEMENT
“I’ve had several people tell me, ‘Man, you look so much more relaxed on the bench,’” he said, laughing and adding, “And then I’ve had several people tell me of late, ‘Man, you better chill out.’”
So this new-age version of the 61-year-old Self might be considered a work in progress. But it’s certainly gathering momentum in more nuanced but substantial ways.
Because among those telling him to chill out, in as many words, have been doctors who’ve been saying since last March that he “needed to be a certain way.”
And Self has taken that most to heart, you might say literally, in learning to let go of the sort of stuff that used to gnaw at him.
“I think as a coach, we get so hung up on that we want to be involved with what uniforms we’re wearing today or the seating arrangements on planes,” he said. “Or everything that, to be honest with you, who cares?”
ADVERTISEMENT
Now, he said, he sees it more like this: “If it doesn’t impact winning or losing, it’s somebody else’s problem.”
For that matter, to some degree that includes the sorts of things he used to think do impact winning or losing.
“Like officials: I won’t even know who’s officiating the game until I walk down there right before the game,” he said. “Whereas before that would be something I’d look at maybe two weeks before: ‘OK, who do we have?’
“That stuff doesn’t even register (now). I’m trying to not let things like that even register.”
While he still sees the urgency in dealing with all the demands around the program — “a lot of things you can get stressed on” — he also is processing it now more along the lines of “just tell me where we’re at, and we’ll make it work.”
ADVERTISEMENT
The at-least tentative transition from iron-willed to more flexible perhaps is most evident in how he’s contending with the implications of the coin of the realm: the money to be made in NIL.
“I think you probably should be a little bit more patient to see it from a player’s viewpoint now than maybe how I was in the past,” he said. “I think being sick gave me more of an up-to-date perspective on how coaches need to be (now).”
Case(s) in point: It’s not altogether unusual for a player to ask Self if he can move a practice time to accommodate a money-making opportunity.
Most of his career, even the gall to ask would have stunned Self and immediately been rejected. He would have said we do this at this time for this reason, including when officials might be available.
Now, well …
ADVERTISEMENT
“Is it going to hurt me if we practice earlier? No. So, OK,” he said, laughing and adding, “Now, you call the officials, and you say, ‘Hey, can we move (it to another time?)’”
None of which is to say Self has gone “soft,” to use one of his most scathing terms of criticism.
While he reckons former players would tell you he’s not as hard on these guys, it’s about adaptation … not capitulation.
To modern times, for one thing.
“The players still care the same amount they always have,” he said, smiling and adding, “They also care about some other things more than maybe what they did in the past, too, though.
ADVERTISEMENT
“And that’s not going away. That’s not changing.”
Meanwhile, Self is.
Both in trying to bring the best out in this team, which he knows has scant margin for error if it’s going anywhere in the postseason, and in learning how to do what’s best for his own long-term health — twin transformative endeavors stemming from a year ago.
tulsaworld.com
www.mystateline.com
