Inside the inner office of Kansas coach Bill Self, where every object tells his story

Your Guide to KC: Star sports columnist Vahe Gregorian is changing uniforms this spring and summer, acting as a tour guide of sorts to some well-known and hidden gems of Kansas City. Send your ideas to vgregorian@kcstar.com.

Subtly nestled on a shelf in Bill Self’s vast and vivid office is a photo among the images of family and friends. Among several other pictures, this one is of Self and his wife, Cindy, bookending a man he casually refers to as Garth — better known as Garth Brooks.

“Cindy went to high school with Garth,” he said, “and I played on the same softball team with him for seven years or whatever.”

That was in Stillwater, Oklahoma, during Self’s playing and assistant coaching career at Oklahoma State, where he met then-cheerleader Cindy and Brooks lived in his dorm for three years.

Their group of friends tended to tease Brooks about his seemingly inauspicious career aspirations. At one point, Self recalled, they donned mock T-shirts that said “Garth Brooks World Tour” long before that ever seemed possible.

But Self recalled one night at Willie’s Saloon, when Brooks spoke about giving Nashville one more shot.

“‘And I wrote this song that I’m hoping George Jones or George Strait will sing, and I just want to play it for you guys to see if you like it,’” Self remembered Brooks saying before giving a sneak preview of what became a No. 1 hit. “And that was ‘If Tomorrow Never Comes.’ So that was a pretty cool deal.”

So is about everything in the refurbished office of Self, who, entering his 21st season at Kansas, is enmeshed with the lore of the storied program that was inaugurated by the inventor of the game, James Naismith, and propelled by the father of basketball coaching, Phog Allen.

That’s all been perpetuated by Hall of Fame coaches and the Allen Fieldhouse experience that is a hallowed marvel of college basketball — and a wonder of the Kansas City region.

While Self calls himself a mere caretaker of all this, he’s considerably more than that with two national titles and a program that has dominated the Big 12. With his next three wins, he will eclipse Allen’s 590 for the most victories in school history.

And his era still is unfurling — paralleling what he considers the must-see of eminent artist John Martin’s ongoing, decades-in-the-making mural of Kansas basketball history down the hall adjacent to Allen Fieldhouse.

Meanwhile, his own decades in the making are best illustrated behind the scenes in his inner office, where the ever-animated Self recently spent some 90 minutes with The Star annotating the personal touches and memorabilia around him that tell their own tale of his journey.

All while reminding that he’s about as real and down to earth for someone of his stature that you could ever meet .

The panorama features keepsakes that cast light on his family and friends and players … and engagements with three U.S. presidents.

It highlights relationships to basketball royalty such as Henry Iba, Bobby Knight, Pat Summitt and John Wooden.

And it makes for colorful glimpses at Self’s intersections with the likes of Brooks, Bruce Springsteen and Ken Morrow of Team USA’s 1980 “Miracle On Ice.”

‘To Bill: Rock Chalk! … Bruce Springsteen’

With acclaimed artist William Rose’s “Jayhawk Dynasty” painting looming behind him, Self sat at his desk and gazed around him.

When John Wilkins and his team at Multistudio redid KU’s offices in the wake of its 2022 national title, Self wanted the personal to be the emphasis of his inner office. The outer office would largely be dedicated to trophies and such for a wow factor “show area” for recruits.

Directly around him, he wanted to feel immersed in images of family, friends, experiences and some achievements.

All for a sense of comfort and fit, including …

“Bad eyes,” he said, “so big TV.”

Another purely aesthetic baseline point: Much of what might be called a gallery is framed by (mostly sports) books Self has been given.

“I think you said that best: ‘Books that I’ve been given …, ” Self said, smiling. “I’m not the most well-read person in the world, but I will set them out there.”

With that covered and after cleaning up his desk some, Self essentially led a tour of some of the most meaningful imagery around him.

We started with the section to his left from his desk that emphasized family and friends and just cool stuff.

That included him with the guy who went from “low places” to international acclaim and a congratulatory letter from Springsteen — of whom Self is a great fan — framed with an image of Springsteen and his setlist from April 7, 2008, in Anaheim, California.

That was the night KU won its first national title since 1988, and Self beamed as he said he had been told that Springsteen took the stage late and apologized thusly:

“Sorry, I had to watch Kansas win the championship. Rock Chalk.”

While that recording is not easily found, the letter — attributable to a friend of the program connected to someone then working for Springsteen — attests to Springsteen’s interest:

“To Bill. Rock Chalk! Congratulations. Bruce Springsteen.”

Near the Springsteen display is an autographed photo of the ultimate underdog 1980 U.S. hockey team’s stirring celebration on the ice in Lake Placid, New York.

After a friend connected Self with Morrow, who lives in Kansas City, Self invited him to see a practice.

As he set up Morrow speaking with his players, he asked the group what the best Olympic team was.

“And they’re saying, ‘92 Dream Team (in basketball),” Self said, laughing and adding, “And I said, ‘Not even close.’”

No doubt they realized otherwise after Morrow spoke about what is widely regarded as one of the greatest achievements in sports history — commemorated with the photo in Self’s office autographed by a number of the players.

‘Wouldn’t Dad have loved this?’

Tucked in the same section are images from Self’s personal life: with friends at Wrigley Field, where they sang “Take Me Out to the Ballgame”; several with Cindy, his wife of nearly 36 years (“a lot of highs, a few lows and she has been unbelievable at raising our children”); pictures including son Tyler (who played at KU for his father) and daughter Lauren and her three children, who’ve made Self and Cindy grandparents.

“I don’t know that there’s a better gig out there than (being a grandparent),” he said. “That’s about as good as it gets.”

Featured in other pictures is Self’s delightful sister, Shelly.

As one of his greatest fans, she also has tended to be his defender.

“She’s done that a lot of times,” he said.

Never more dramatically than when Self was a senior at Edmond Memorial High in Oklahoma. During a basketball game at Midwest City, he was in the middle of a scuffle — “I basically helped escalate it,” he said — that spread into the stands.

That’s where Shelly, he said, “started pulling the dude’s hair to try to get him off of me.”

Afterward, Self was admonished by his father, Bill Sr., for starting something and not finishing it.

“‘Your sister’s in there fighting harder than you are,’” Self remembered him saying.

Most poignant among the pictures is one of Self hugging his mother, Margaret, moments after KU won the 2022 national title just weeks after Bill Self Sr. died.

“Wouldn’t Dad have loved this?” he told her that night. For many reasons — particularly the fact that KU trailed North Carolina by 16 points in the title game before rallying to win.

“(What) he loved more than anything is to tease an opponent, let them think that they got you and then take it away,” Self said. “I mean, he lived for that kind of stuff.

“He would have liked that game a lot. Because we certainly gave (UNC) a lot of confidence.”

Right by that picture is one of Bill Sr., sitting on a stoop, above a favorite quote of his that the son embraced as a message of staying in the moment and controlling what you can control:

“Don’t worry about the mules, just load the wagons.”

Self initially sent the picture of that engraving to his father and asked where he thought it was.

Bill Sr. at first thought it was in the KU Hall of Fame.

Nope.

Then he wondered if it was in the College Basketball Hall of Fame in Kansas City.

Wrong again.

Instead, it was among other motivational quotes of enshrined coaches etched in the base of Naismith’s statue at the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame — where the son was inducted in 2017 while on the job that his father had challenged him to take when he wavered about whether he was up to it.

“He’s a big talker, but he didn’t have much to say after that,” Self said, smiling. “That was pretty cool for him.”

Wooden, Iba, Summitt and Knight

Over to Self’s right in the office are the tracks of his career and basketball friends and mentors.

Here sits a photo of legendary Oklahoma A&M (later Oklahoma State) coach Henry Iba, who grew up in Easton, Missouri, about an hour north of Kansas City.

Self never was directly coached by Iba. But he reckons he’s greatly influenced by him between OSU tradition and those for whom Self played and worked at Oklahoma State and KU (in 1985-1986).

“I actually think probably the vast majority of what I know probably comes from his teachings: whether it be Larry Brown playing for him in the Olympics, whether it be Leonard Hamilton working for Eddie Sutton, whether it be Coach Sutton playing for Mr. Iba, I think that there’s a family there that you know,” said Self, later smiling and adding, “People can say ‘he’s his own guy’ (about coaches) … (but) everybody learned from somebody. …

“Pretty proud to be part of that family tree.”

In that same area, Self has several autographed pictures with Wooden, the legendary UCLA coach, including one attached to Wooden’s Pyramid of Success that thanked Self for his interest.

There’s also a shot from the early 1980s with the great Julius Erving, taken in … Enid, Oklahoma, where for “whatever reason” Dr. J was persuaded to work at a camp also worked by Self, then playing at OSU.

“He still may be the coolest,” Self said. “He and (Michael) Jordan have to be the two coolest players ever.”

Nearby is a picture of former KU stars Andrew Wiggins and Joel Embiid, who went first and third in the 2014 NBA Draft — “we’ll never have that again” — and one of Self with Summitt after each won the 2008 titles.

In her signature, the icon who coached the Tennessee women’s team to eight national titles called Self “a true champion on and off the court!” and encouraged him to “win again!”

At the event honoring them, Self remembered joking, “I think it’s so fitting that you’re honoring two coaches that have won a combined nine national championships.”

Also among the photos is one of Self alongside Bob Knight, with his arm draped over Self in courtside seats pregame at Allen. When the irascible Knight was coaching at Texas Tech, he became a friend to Self.

Enough so that Self felt comfortable giving Knight guff about his penchant for wearing advertising logos, including for insurance, on his Tech gear.

Before one game, Self approached Knight and said, “Coach, I’ve got a serious question for you.”

When Knight asked what it was, Self said, “Cindy and I, we’ve been … talking about switching insurance. Do you really trust …”

Knight cut him off with a playful cussout.

In the middle of all the coaching imagery is a plaque of President Teddy Roosevelt’s wisdom about “The Man in the Arena.”

It was given to Self when he took his first head coaching job in 1993-1994 at Oral Roberts, where I remembered Self’s first team as going 6-27.

“Nooooo, we were better than that: 6-21,” Self said.

When I suggested it seemed hard to imagine from there to here, he added that it was “hard to imagine keeping a job back then.”

Roosevelt’s words, noting “it’s not the critic who counts” and that only those who “strive to do the deeds” know what they’re up against, were sustaining to Self then and through the years.

No doubt that included during the six-year period that ended last year with sanctions that included KU and Self vacating 15 victories.

“I think (the Roosevelt quote) is so true,” he said. “It’s so easy to make all the decisions and the calls from the cheap seats, from the couch (without knowing the entire story).”

‘You mean, like, the Oval Office?’

Speaking of former leaders of the free world, another section of his inner office is what Self called “meet the presidents”: moments with Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Here, there’s a ball signed by Clinton and longtime Kansas politician Bob Dole, who visited Allen Fieldhouse together in 2005 in a bipartisan effort for Hurricane Katrina relief.

“They used our coach’s locker room as their (dressing room),” Self said, adding that “they made fun of each other the whole time.”

What Self had assumed might be rivalry to the point of dislike, he learned, was “total respect” between them. Smiling, he added that “you can’t let your fellow Republicans or Democrats know that you actually like and get along with somebody.”

Then there’s a photo with Bush that began with a story Self told me last year: After winning the title in 2008 and celebrating all night, a groggy Self got a call early the next morning from someone purporting to be a White House operator saying “please hold for the president.”

Then came a voice that seemed to be imitating Bush.

Assuming it was a joke, Self hung up only to have another call come in. “Hey, this is the president,” Self recalled Bush saying, prompting him to apologize profusely.

Bush was inviting Kansas to the White House, and Self gladly accepted. A few weeks later after the formal recognition of the team in the Rose Garden, Bush told Self to bring the KU entourage into his office.

“You mean, like, the Oval Office?” Self said.

Bush replied, “Yeah, that’s where I actually office.”

Once there, Self said Bush spent some 45 minutes speaking with the team and taking questions.

Self had one of his own, asking about how Bush dealt with low approval ratings.

“He said, ‘Bill, you know something: We won’t know if I was any good or not ‘til 30 years from now,’” Self recalled. “Pretty good way to look at it.”

Self also has several autographed photos from Obama, including from 2015 when Obama visited KU and 2011 when he visited Osawatomie to deliver an economic speech.

Since the Jayhawks had a game that night against Long Beach State, Self initially tried to politely decline an invitation. But when he got a followup call from someone on Obama’s team, Self said, “So he’s not asking me to come, he’s telling me to come? Would that be accurate?”

So Self did what he realizes he should have in the first place: skipped a shootaround and had an audience with the president to talk ball.

When Self spoke about the conversation later that night, he said that the only favor he asked Obama was to stop picking Kansas to win the national title as he’d done the previous two years only for KU to suffer early knockouts.

“He said, ‘You cost me money,’” Self remembered then. “I said, ‘Not as much as you cost me.’”

All of that now is part of the tapestry not just of Self’s life but of what he’s injected into the program and brings to Allen — where he treasures having to lip read during timeouts late in games and relishes everything from senior nights with the flowers on the floor to the sunlight shining through the windows during 3 p.m. games that make that his favorite time to play.

At 61 now, when Self occasionally ponders how much longer he wants to do this, he likes to romanticize that he would be content coaching at a lower level with fewer distractions and less stress.

Then he realizes … “No way.”

Because there’s nothing like the adrenaline rush of the tradition.

One he’s visibly enhanced … through a path and a way on display in his sanctum adjoining the cathedral.

Star sports columnist Vahe Gregorian is changing uniforms this spring and summer, acting as a tour guide of sorts to some well-known and hidden gems of Kansas City. Send your ideas to vgregorian@kcstar.com.