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.

Resolute—and quarantined—I figured it was about time someone got the truth of the matter, especially since no one can even agree on the basic details of the photo, including the year it was taken. (Online researchers have narrowed down to ‘89, ‘90 or ‘91, a period where Jordan is the biggest star in sports). Thanks to the roaring success of the new ESPN Jordan doc, The Last Dance, everyone wants to talk Jordan right now, including me. So, I put a few feelers and media request out into the ether, largely guessing about who might be the most credible source on the topic. Who was around at the time? And what do they remember?

Long story short, I got a unexpected response to one of my e-mails. Earlier this morning, I spoke with former KU coach and current UNC head coach Roy Williams about MJ’s time at KU, Wanda Williams’ fried shrimp and how much of that “MJ gave Roy a motorcycle!” story is true.

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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. 

Brian Stratman @AeroKU

@M_Vernon @rockchalktalk Did you write this? I have a pic of the color picture.

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.

When I was a camper, there was a story about MJ plucking out a then-teenage Ryan Robertson from a crowd of kids and playing him one on one. Ryan says this is not true. But I’m wondering if you might know where that story came from? 

I have no idea where that came from. Because I know it's not true. I remember he would show kids a jab step and show them how to protect the ball. So he would get one of the little kids up to stand in front of him. But he never played any of the kids one-on-one.

This is probably my last question and I saved it for last on purpose. There’s a rumor that MJ bought you a motorcycle. Is that true?

ROY WILLIAMS: This was about ‘97 or ‘98—Wanda is here with me and she may remember this too. [Asks Wanda] She's thinking, but let me get the story going. 

I came back to the Jimmy V Celebrity Golf Classic. [Wanda reports back] She said it was ‘99. So I came to the event and Mike and I would usually get together with Coach Smith—actually, Coach Smith and Michael would get together and they’d let me tag along, that’s the better way to put it. 

This is in the spring, and the event is in North Carolina. They have a banquet. And so I'm sitting there with Wanda. Michael comes walking in and draws Barkley with him. Hootie and the Blowfish are at another table. So it's a big time basketball, celebrity kind of crowd. Michael sees me and I motion for him. And he came over and I said, “We have room here if you want to sit down with us.” And the [event staffer] said, “Michael, I've got you at a table” And he said, “No, I'm going to sit here with Coach. I haven't talked to him or played golf with him in over a year.” He sat down at our table.

[An aside] Wanda and I had a beach house in Charleston. Every time we would go down there, we would rent a car for the week and take it back. And Wanda said, at one point, that we should get us an old clunker to just leave down there when we went to the beach. 

Back at the event, they start the auction. The very next week, Michael and I were going on a golf trip together. The last day of the golf trip was his anniversary. And so they bring out this diamond necklace and I said, “Big fella, you need to buy that for Juanita, because you're getting home late on your anniversary and you’re going to need something.” 

So Michael bid on it and got the necklace. Then, all of a sudden, the very next item was coming out on the stage—it was a Harley. It was a little one they called a Sportster, not one of the big boys. And Wanda makes this very innocent statement—“You could buy that for me and that’d give me something to get to the grocery store at the beach.” And Michael said, “Do you ride?” And I said, “Michael, she doesn’t ride a bike.” But she said, “I could learn!” 

And you know—it was a very innocent comment. And Michael said, “I'm going to buy you that motorcycle” And Wanda said, “No!” I said, “Michael, don't do something silly.” And he said, “Coach, do you realize how many meals of fried shrimp that she has fixed me over the years? I'm buying her that motorcycle.” 

And so the bidding starts going. And Charles Barkley is sitting at the other table with Hootie and the Blowfish. And Charles is bidding against Michael. And finally Michael yelled, “Charles!” And he gives him the stop sign, the “cut it off” sign. “I'm buying this for Wanda,” and he pointed to Wanda. And so Charles gave him the thumbs up. You know, Charles was just trying to make Michael spend his money—that kind of thing. Charles had been great to me as well. And so Michael buys a Sportster Harley for Wicked Wanda. 

So we go up on stage and they bring Wanda up on the stage. Michael presents it to her. It took until November, late fall, before we actually got it delivered to Kansas. And we’d start it up in the garage—I just loved the sound of it. I'd ride it down to the end of the driveway and back up. We went to Topeka and bought helmets and one day even signed Wanda up to get lessons or get her license, something like that. But Wanda fell that winter and broke her collarbone. So that delayed everything.

Some time later, we run into Pat Croce, the former president of the Sixers. He’s using a crutch or a cane, he’s limping. And he said “I've heard [the motorcycle story.]” And he looked at Wanda and he looked at me and said, “Do not ride that motorcycle. They’re so scary. You can get killed.” He himself had a serious motorcycle accident.

And so we started thinking about it and then Wanda said, “Well, I'm certainly not going to give it away and I’m not going to sell it.” And so one of these days—don't laugh!—I'm going to help make it into a coffee table.

I mean, Michael Jordan buys your wife a motorcycle. You don't sell the dadgum thing. You don't give it away. You keep it.