11-10-21
A week ago Emporia State’s men’s basketball team played KU in an exhibition game. Attending the game was Frank Howell, a coaching friend of Emporia’s coach Craig Doty.
Howell, who was the Women’s coach at Graceland when Doty was there recently had emergency surgery for brain cancer.
Doty reached out to KU’s coach, Bill Self asking him to come to Emporia State’s locker room prior to the game to meet Coach Howell and offer him encouragement.
Self not only came to meet Coach Howell he spent ten minutes with him and then found him again after the game and they visited again.
Coaches often help one another out as they do have somewhat of a fraternity. I’m proud of Coach Self and also sure Craig Doty or K-State’s Bruce Weber would have responded in like manner.
Now, I have another Bill Self story to share. Shortly after he took the KU job his Jayhawks were invited to play a preseason exhibition series in Canada. KU was allowed 5 practices before going to Canada.
Margie Grimwood, the Director of Emporians for Drug Awareness had Bill Self scheduled to speak in Emporia. Unfortunately, the scheduled day was one of the days KU needed to practice.
Further creating conflict was the plans included a round of golf at Emporia Country Club for Self and some donors. Not only did the Coach not cancel his speech, but he also showed up for the golf game and ran KU’s practice on his cell phone!
And, then there’s the rest of the story!
There were 5 golfers in our group and Self agreed to a small wager in a game called Wolf. Coach Self was a good enough golfer, but Wolf can be cruel at times and Bill was that day’s victim losing over a hundred dollars.
On our way to the clubhouse to have a drink, we Emporians agreed to not pay bets thus letting Self off the hook, but he would have none of that. Self demanded to know the amount of the damage and wrote out a check to Emporians for Drug Awareness.
Bill Self is not only a very good basketball coach he’s a very good person too. It was a fun day!
I’m Steve Sauder.
