Q&A: Roy Williams on Michael Jordan's time at KU
“Coach, I’ll pass them the ball. But I’m not giving them my shrimp.”—MJ
If you happened to attend one of Roy Williams’ KU basketball camps in the mid-’90s, you almost certainly heard the rumor that Michael Jordan was, at one time, a camp counselor. Maybe you’ve even seen the above image—this one is plucked from a message board and it is, by far, the highest quality version of the image I could find. Jayhawks beat writer Matt Tait hit on MJ’s time in Lawrence a little bit in a piece yesterday, focusing on the 1997 Bulls-Sonics exhibition game at Allen Fieldhouse. But, like the Jordan-at-KU-camp legend itself, some details from the article present more questions than answers.
So, the famous Jordan photo. No one—at least no one that I know of—has firm details about it. So where and when did it happen?
ROY WILLIAMS: Well, try this. I have, in my office here at North Carolina, a picture of him with the Kansas basketball t-shirt on. It's a blue one. He’s in Nebraska doing an event—I think it was Coca-Cola-sponsored event for the Boys and Girls Club of Omaha. And the way that picture came out is that the editor of the Omaha World-Herald sent it to me.
So I'll give you the background and I'll try to do it quickly. So in the summer of ‘88, I go to Kansas. Michael and his family had been great to me. And, you know, it's full speed ahead and then all of a sudden on Halloween night we were put on probation. Then we go through the year and we're trying to recruit—we’re trying to recruit as hard as we can. And so then the next summer, which was the summer of ‘89, we had our first Roy Williams Kansas Basketball camp. We had pretty good interest, but at the end of that camp I said, “All right, next summer, we're going to want to get some people to come.” And so I think—and I want to emphasize the word think—that the summer of ‘90, uh, was the first summer that Michael came to camp. He came in ‘90 and in ‘91.
But he never really quite “worked” the camp. What he did was a pretty methodical routine. I would pick him up at the airport, take him to the golf course, beat him while he was still stiff from the plane. We went to Alvamar and then we’d come back and he would speak to the campers for about 45 minutes to an hour in the afternoon, when we got all the campers together. He would shoot some and do those kinds of things and then he would leave.
And so then the next year, I brought him back again. Same story. Pick him up at the airport, take him to Alvamar, and Randy Towner, the golf professional there, plays with us. Randy is really playing well. And, and he's telling Michael where to hit the ball. And Randy would hit it exactly where he said and Michael would hit it, but it didn't end up being quite as good every time. So finally, Michael Jordan said to Randy Towner, “Randy, I don't get this! You hit the ball where you say, and it does well. And I hit the ball there and it doesn't work as well.” And Randy Towner had the greatest lines, ever. He took his finger and he put it in Michael Jordan's chest and he said, “Michael, just remember this.” He taps him on the chest and says, “N.B.A.” And then he tapped his own chest. “P.G.A.” We just died laughing.
At the end of that round—this is the second year he came—we take him back to the gym, to Allen, and he works out for the guys and does his talk. He talks about some offensive moves or whatever it was he talked about. And then he takes a shower, comes up to my office and I say, “Mike, take a couple of these t-shirts and every now and then, work out in one of them. You’ll help Kansas. You’ll help me.”
He said, “Give me that blue one right now. And so he's standing there in the middle of my office. He took his shirt off. I said, “What are you doing? And he said, “I'm going to Omaha tonight for the Boys and Girls Club for Coca Cola. And I want those people to know where I stand cause [Nebraska] is in your conference.”
I said, “Michael, they're going to boo you!” That’s where the picture came from—it was in the Omaha World-Herald. And the editor and owner, as I said, sent me the picture.
And it’s in color?
ROY WILLIAMS: I've got the real deal. It's in my office.
Editor’s note: Reader Brian Stratman came through with a color image post publication.
In the picture, he's got a whistle around his neck. He's refereeing a pickup game with the kids in Nebraska. And I said, “Did they boo you when you took off your warmup top?” And he said, “No. But there was a lot of whispering going around.” So he never really worked the camp as a counselor. He was a guest speaker, a guest lecturer. We did that all the time. I had Kenny Smith, I had Chris Webber come to camp. Danny [Manning] would come back every year.
So that’s what Michael did. He came back two times. In the third year he was scheduled to come again. And the day before, or maybe two days before, I said, “Michael, I don't want you to come.” I’m doing this on purpose. I said, “You really helped me get the camp established and I don't want you to come. but I don't want you to tell your agent. Take two days off.” Because we had talked earlier in the spring and his calendar was just ridiculous. Everybody was running him ragged because, at that time, he was coming off of two world championships.
He said, “Coach, are you serious? “ And I said, “Yes, go to the golf course. Just don't tell your agent.”
I was going to say, ‘90 and ‘91 aren’t exactly minor years in the Jordan story. He’s one of the biggest stars on the planet at this point. What was the reception to his appearance like?
ROY WILLIAMS: The kids—you had a hard time getting them under control, but that’s something we did every day. The problem was all the people in the university, the maintenance crew or the secretaries or the assistant athletic directors, those people coming out wanting to picture an autograph or something. They were more of a problem. We hired extra security.
But that was nothing compared to the exhibition game. I just remember that that was the mob scene of all mob scenes, after that game. And Michael is so coachable for me, ‘cause I said “Give them a few minutes and I will come and get you out of it.”
So after the game they had him and I went in and said, “Guys, Michael's got to do something with me.” And nobody said a word and like…. you're taking Michael Jordan. So I took Michael upstairs in the office and my wife Wanda fried him some shrimp. So he had shrimp and french fries in two big boxes. And I asked “Do you want some more of these in to-go boxes, so you can give some to your teammates? He said, “Coach, I’ll pass them the ball. But I’m not giving them my shrimp.” I think Wanda cooked him two pounds of shrimp and he didn't share a thing.
https://streaktalkjayhawk.substack.com/p/q-and-a-roy-williams-on-michael-jordans
