Bill Self

As much as I love and admire Coach Self and want him to stay with us until he retires, I am just a bit angry at him.
It wasn't hard to notice his weight gain through the past one or two years, and my bet is that his friends, wife, and doctors have spoken to him about the dangers of added fat around the heart.

Many of us fight the weight problem sometime in our lives, and Self is only human. I only hope he now realizes how important his diet is and takes the necessary steps to follow a healthier regimen.

My wife has a nurse friend who had attended one of Self’s lady day events. For the last 5+ years she has sent him a personal email saying, “Bill you need to lose x lbs” with increasing values of “x” each year. This year’s email was “I told you so! “

Okay, yes, Self has clearly gained weight. And yes, all things equal, excess weight is correlated well to heart risk. But all weight gain is not equal and and there are several other factors equally important. Sleep for instance. More studies are coming out showing a strong correlation of “quality”sleep to health. And diet is obviously a huge contributing factor. And of course exercise, not just for weight loss but for stress relief. And never underestimate the importance of attitude, peace of mind and life satisfaction. All of these things have strong correlations to heart and other issues. When you are on the road, especially on a generous expense account, it is incredibly easy to eat a crap diet in the most upscale restaurants. And maybe I am wrong, but the whole NCAA investigation has likely been a source of stress for Self. And I think from his own words he recognizes his activity level has been below what is needed. I have no idea how well his sleep patterns are so I can’t speculate on the degree to which that has been a contributor. But generally, I have to imagine that his position comes with an extremely high level of stress. Not all stress is equal. There is good stress as well but it is easy to allow good stress to ease into bad stress when worries pile up. I ran a large organization with a large number of people and it was an honor to serve and build an organization that improved the lives of so many. That was mostly good stress, stress that served to motivate and energize. But bad stress tends to enervate. As a leader at such a high level, Self probably has a good amount of both. But he need the balance in life so good stress doesn’t become bad stress. And he needs to sleep long and well. And he needs a balanced healthy diet and a regular exercise regimen. And he needs to not allow the demands of the job to detract from the balance of his family time. My impresión is that he does this mostly. If I had to guess I would suspect his diet and activity levels have been the culprit and possible the worries on his shoulders have taken a toll. I hope he stays but if he said I am rich and I want to lower my life stress and retires, I would completely understand.

I agree with one major addition, generics. In my case, I was not over weight , not a couch potato and ate right. The family history on my mothers side said lookout. I did not. Yet, with a medication and some healthy changes I could have prevented the build up that lead to my blockages. I did not. I believe Self’s father died from heart disease, His unhealthy weight gain needed to be controlled. He did not. Ditto with his blood pressure. In his news conference, he essentially admitted that he had made a mistake in not paying sufficient attention to his health.

I seem to recall HCLB and HCRW being joggers. Seems like they had regular runs with faculty.

Lawrence is the most fitness oriented place I have ever lived. Along with running there great cycling. For example a man in his 60s could ride 15-20 miles and work into the route a climb of the 11th Ave hill that runs north of the stadium. Conditioning would either improve or the bike get buried in the garage.