Roy Williams will be back in Allen Fieldhouse for a Kansas Jayhawks basketball game
Former Kansas men’s basketball coach Roy Williams and his wife, Wanda, will attend Tuesday’s KU-Iowa State game as guests of the athletic department, Jayhawks coach Bill Self said Monday.
Tipoff is 7 p.m. at Allen Fieldhouse.
Williams, who has not seen a game in Allen Fieldhouse since he left KU for North Carolina after the 2002-03 season, announced his retirement as North Carolina coach on April 1. He coached 15 years at KU and 18 at UNC. He won three national titles at UNC.
“There is a special guest we will have from Chapel Hill, North Carolina ... coach Roy Williams and his wife, Wanda, will be coming back,” Self said Monday.
“Roy contacted a couple guys within our department and said he really wanted to come back to Allen Fieldhouse and see a game. This happened a couple, three weeks ago,” Self added, noting, “Certainly he’s more than welcome.”
Self said it’s “a given” that KU fans will “pay homage and tribute to him when he’s announced and they (athletic department officials) do a little something for him the way he deserves for the 15 great years of service he gave this institution.
“But Roy will be back at a game … this is the first and hopefully wont be the last and he’ll be very much like coach (Larry) Brown always feels welcome and coach (Ted) Owens always feels welcome to come back whenever he wants to.”
Williams was in the fieldhouse, but not for a game, on Oct. 27, 2014. He, Self, Brown and Owens were featured speakers at the “60th anniversary of Jayhawk basketball in Allen Fieldhouse.”
“As a head coach in our profession, it’s hard to go back to watch somebody else play when you are coaching a team,” Self said. “So there’s nothing negative with that. He did come back with coach Owens and Brown in 2014 in a fabulous event honoring the 60th year of the building.”
Asked if Williams would receive a gift of some kind, Self said with a smile: “Wait and see … a hearty handshake.”
This story was originally published January 10, 2022 at 3:22 PM with the headline "Roy Williams will be back in Allen Fieldhouse for a Kansas Jayhawks basketball game."
