The Reason I Love Kansas Basketball

It was the summer of 1996, and I was on a vacation in Las Vegas with my good friend Matt and his family.  I was 14 years old, so in retrospect, it was probably dumb of me to pay for a trip to Las Vegas to play video games and eat a bunch of food.

We drove around shopping and came across a store called 'Just For Feet'.  It was a shoe store the size of a K-Mart.  Well, in this shoe store, they had an entire wall full of fitted hats.  Me being 14 years old, and how cool fitted hats were then, I had to buy one.  So, I looked for the coolest looking one on the wall and came across a Kansas Jayhawks hat.  I asked my friend if it looked good on me, and he said, "yeah sure".  

I thought to myself, they've got a great basketball team right?  I guess I can wear this hat and nobody will say anything bad about it.

Done.  Bought it.  The rest is history.

I started following the KU basketball team the same way I follow Michigan Football and Tigers Baseball.  I would watch every game I could possibly watch, and learned more about their unrivaled basketball history, their recruits, their coaches, fans, etc.  I was basically hooked.

Not many people realize that the inventor of the game of basketball, Dr. James Naismith, was the first coach at Kansas.  He coached Phog Allen, who coached Dean Smith (father of UNC basketball) and also Adolph Rupp (father of Kentucky basketball).  Not to mention, the last time the Jayhawks won the National Championship, Larry Brown was the coach.  The list goes on.

No other programs in the history of college basketball can boast about this family tree of coaching.

Then you look at the players they've had.  Wilt Chamberlain, Clyde Lovelette, Jo Jo White, Danny Manning, Paul Pierce, and many many more.

The fact that I was 6 years old the last time they won the Championship, and wasn't yet a fan, makes last night's game the first time I've seen them win the big one.  I couldn't be happier, and I'm glad that Bill Self finally did what Roy Williams couldn't do at KU, win the National Championship.

Don't get me wrong, I still love old Roy, but he never could seal the deal with KU.  Bill Self made all those years of loving the Jayhawks finally make me proud to be a fan of this great program.

Thank you Mario Chalmers.  You made my century.