Commentary: KU Bill Self speaks about Adidas trial. Kind of | Kansas City Star

Lawrence

They say that posture is the most important part of walking a tightrope, but that’s in a real circus, with elephants and lions and bearded ladies.

The most important part of walking a legal and public relations tightrope is discipline and defiance. Or, at least, that’s the way Kansas coach Bill Self is trying to tame his corner of the college basketball circus.

The one with indictments, FBI investigations, and now guilty verdicts involving Adidas — KU’s apparel partner — recruiting basketball players to several schools, including Kansas.

Click to resize

“We all know shoe companies have influence on all levels of basketball,” he said.

“My staff and I have not and do not offer improper inducements to (recruits) or their families ... nor are we aware of any third-party involvement to do so,” he said.

“I’m not shucking responsibility at all,” he said.

The whole thing — from the investigation to the trial to the desperate clinging to plausible deniability — reminds me of a moment just after Kansas’ greatest achievement last season, when it beat Duke to make the Final Four, the confetti coming down and hats being passed around. We’ll get to that in a moment.

First, it’s worth mentioning that viewed from a legal perspective, Self refrained from commenting on anything involving the trial, even whether the guilty verdicts — technically and comically, a jury determined that KU and other schools had been defrauded by the shoe company influence that’s defined college basketball for decades — were good for his program.

This is sort of like going into a restaurant and being defrauded by them serving you food.

So, kudos on that?

From a public relations standpoint — and there are few places in the world where perception matters more than in college sports — the results were mixed. He stood up for KU fans, said he won’t run from the reports, and (correctly) pointed out that relationships between shoe companies and recruits and schools do not violate NCAA rules.

But his non-answers to anything he deemed connected to the trial will be seen by many as running from the reports, and he said the question of whether Kansas should continue its relationship with Adidas is for the school’s chancellor and athletic director. Self is the highest-paid and most powerful man on campus, which he would not deny, and it is simply not believable that the university would go against his wishes on this either way.

Self gave assistant coach Kurtis Townsend unwavering support. This is notable, because in a phone call that the defense tried unsuccessfully to enter into evidence, one of the defendants told Townsend a recruit was asking for money and housing.

“If that’s what it takes to get him for 10 months, we’re going to have to do it some way,” Townsend is recorded as saying.

The recruit, Zion Williamson, is now at Duke, and the cynic might say that’s KU’s best defense here. Not just that Williamson didn’t choose KU, but that he is now at Duke, the sport’s glamor program. That means an investigation with even the pretense of credibility must include Mike Krzyzewski’s domain.

Are we to believe Williamson — projected to be among the first few selections of next year’s NBA Draft — was unable to find any takers in a world filled with under-the-table payments?

Are we to believe Williamson turned down any impermissible gifts because he just wanted to play at Duke?

Or are we to believe that the relationships, influence and payments detailed in this investigation — with two more trials to come, by the way — are pervasive in the sport?

One of those explanations is realistic. The other two are representative of the fairytale that college athletics have sold the public on for years, a shameless stretch of the truth that by now can only be believed by the willfully naive.

This is the world many of us had a small hand in creating — the NCAA refusing to use more than an ineffective crumb of their multi-billion dollar business to fund a real enforcement department, administrators wanting to hoard power and money, coaches looking for every edge, shoe reps and others trying to profit, fans demanding their school win or else, and, yes, absolutely, media riding the wave and promoting the lie for far too long.

We’ve all had a hand in it, which makes so many of the reactions plainly dishonest.

The NCAA has steadily refused any action not in its financial interest. Administrators and coaches are largely protecting their livelihoods. Too many fans and media pretend to be outraged or shocked whenever a bit of the truth comes out — this cycle is so old it wasn’t new when the UNLV basketball players were photographed in a hot tub with a sports fixer nearly 30 years ago — and then quickly forget about all of it when the games start.

Well, now it’s Self’s turn in the fire, and few are better equipped to stand the heat. He’s a giant in the sport — a national champion, a Hall of Famer, owner of a $50 million contract. He is among the sport’s biggest charmers, whether in front of a recruit or a camera, and if this is his stiffest challenge yet, it’s not one that figures to derail him or his program.

Kansas is undeniably loaded, for one, the country’s preseason No. 1 team, and winning always matters.

But that’s not all. A jury (somehow) just decided KU and other programs with big-money shoe contracts were defrauded by those shoe companies using their influence and relatively small amounts of money to push a top recruit to their program. The trial put KU in the spotlight, but the trial was not about KU.

The result, at least this week, was bizarre even by college basketball standards. Shoe reps who were merely following the incentives put in place by the NCAA were found guilty in federal court at the exact moment Self was answering a basketball question at Big 12 media day in Kansas City.

KU then called a news conference, where Self read a prepared statement and then basically said he could not answer any of the questions people most wanted to know, including what rules he thinks can or should be changed.

By the time the lawyers tell him it’s OK to talk — after these next two trials, presumably, but maybe after all appeals are exhausted — many fans will have forgotten the specifics and see the questions as beating a dead horse.

This is how a system exists for years without change, even as everyone involved can see the absurdity. KU’s turn in the fire came largely because investigators alleged the guardian for Silvio De Sousa needed payment from Adidas to get out of a payment he accepted from Under Armour.

Whether anyone from Kansas knew about that or should have known is critically important legally but irrelevant realistically, because this is the form of college basketball we’ve all had a hand in creating — and this is the scene from the celebration after the Duke win that won’t leave my mind:

It’s Self, in the midst of the party, speaking of De Sousa, who graduated from high school early to join KU (after being cleared by the NCAA) and turned into a force inside for a team in desperate need of it.

“Who would’ve thought a high school kid three months ago would be the guy we cannot win without going into the Final Four?” Self said.

De Sousa served his purpose. So did Adidas.

Whether it can be proven that Self knew about any of it is all that matters to the lawyers and the NCAA. Whether anyone has the courage or power to push for change is what will determine how long we’re stuck in this dishonest cycle.

The truth is that day will come when the NCAA decides change is more profitable than the status quo, and not a minute sooner.

This story was originally published October 24, 2018 9:41 PM.