What is it with Roy’s sartorial choices this weekend? About seven minutes into tonight’s championship game, CBS indulged us with a shot of ol’ cryin’ Roy sitting in the stands wearing a black shirt emblazoned with a clearly noticeable decal of a Kansas Jayhawk on the front of it.

Let’s repeat this for clarity. The coach at North Carolina was sitting in public wearing a Kansas Jayhawks shirt and rooting for KU at the sport’s biggest event a mere two days after his team was folded, spindled and mutilated by said Jayhawks team.

Has Roy gone completely insane?

It’s obvious to everyone that Roy would privately root for his former employer, but such a public display of affection surely pushes all sensible and acceptable boundaries of decorum for a coach. Right? As Bo Schembechler said when he fired Bill Frieder in 1989 for his dalliance with Arizona St., a “Michigan man is going to coach Michigan.” While Roy isn’t halfway out the door the same way that Frieder was, you have to wonder how Carolina AD Dick Baddour feels about this affront to the Carolina brand.

And what about his players who likely will be having nightmares for the next six months of Jayhawk blue running through, over and around them en route to grasping their hopes and dreams of a title shot away from them. Do they not see a problem with Roy’s behavior here?

Carolina Nation was atwitter over this tonight. The message boards on Inside Carolina had filled fourteen pages with posts about Roy’s seeming lack of discretion. Here’s some of the better quotes from their fans on the matter:

• And there it is!!!!! wow that is absolutely shameful!!!!! Roy if you want to go back to KU…dont let the door hit ya…way to stand by your kids!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• If this is true, this is very (and I mean VERY) disappointing to me as a Carolina alum and diehard fan. Again, if true, Roy needs to get his head out of the past and show where his true loyalty lies. He is the head coach at UNC. If I were a player, I would be heartbroken right now knowing that my coach is cheering for (or at least lending moral support to) the team that humiliated my team in the Final Four.
• I don’t question his loyalty to us. But I question his judgment. For someone who is so sensitive, this is a major oversight.
• Let’s face it people. Roy needs to be more discreet in his choices. Go to the game, even sit in the KU section. But honor the pain of your current team of Don’t wear the Jayhawk sticker and heaven’s sake, pass up the TV opportunity. It’s unseemly.

We haven’t yet corroborated this, but we also heard that John Thompson (the dad) called out Roy for this decision during his broadcast of the game on Westwood One.

rtmsf (3998 Posts)

This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 10:41 pm by rtmsf and is filed under 2008 ncaa tournament. Tagged: kansas, loyalty, roy williams, unc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.