Billy Eugene Self Jr. is an American basketball coach. He is the head men’s basketball coach at the University of Kansas, a position he has held since 2003.
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During his 19 seasons as head coach at Kansas, he has led the Jayhawks to 16 Big 12 regular season championships, including an NCAA record 14 consecutive Big 12 regular season championships, some of which were shared (2005–2018).
At the end of the 2021–22 season, Self had the 18th most wins among Division I coaches in NCAA history and 4th among active head coaches.
He is the second-winningest coach in Kansas history, behind only Hall of Famer Phog Allen and is the only coach in Kansas history to lead Kansas to multiple NCAA Tournament National Championships.
Self was the highest-paid NCAA basketball coach for the 2021–22 season. He made $10,184,282 that season. He signed a lifetime contract extension with the Jayhawks in 2021.
In 2022, Self became the seventh coach to win multiple NCAA tournament championships since the tournament field expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
Bill Self Age
Bill Self is 59 years. Self was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, where his father was the girls’ basketball coach at nearby Morris High School.
Self attended Edmond Memorial High School, where he was named Oklahoma High School Basketball Player of the Year in 1981.
Bill Self Suspension
Kansas suspended Self and assistant coach Kurtis Townsend for the first four games of the season, self-imposing the punishment amid the NCAA investigation into alleged recruiting violations.
The investigation began in 2017, but Kansas took action this summer with the probe nearing a conclusion. The school held Self off the road during this summer’s recruiting period.
In 2019, the NCAA alleged Kansas had committed multiple Level I violations, including “recruiting improprieties.”
Kansas also imposed additional penalties, including a reduction of recruiting visits and scholarships. While the program ordinarily wouldn’t want to punish itself, Kansas is aiming to prevent the NCAA from imposing harsher penalties.
Bill Self Contract
Bill Self’s base guaranteed salary is $5.41 million, though he made more than $10 million during the 2021-22 season, his first with a lifetime contract at Kansas.
In 2021, Kansas gave Self a new contract that will pay him handsomely to remain in Lawrence for the remainder of his career.
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He has a “lifetime contract” that functions as a five-year agreement that automatically adds a new year to the back end of the contract at the end of each season.
His base salary, with retention bonuses and professional services clauses, comes to a guaranteed annual salary of $5.41 million.
On top of that, Self had $4.5 million of retention pay that was deferred during the pandemic. That brought his total salary for the 2021-2022 season to a whopping $10.2 million.
Bill Self Teams Coached
In 1985, Self joined Larry Brown’s coaching staff at the University of Kansas. Self’s first head coaching position came at Oral Roberts who hired him in 1993. In his first season at ORU, the team managed only six wins/victories.
After rebuilding the Golden Eagles, Self was hired by crosstown rival Tulsa and spent three seasons (1998 to 2000) there, compiling a Tulsa-best 74–27 record. While at TU, Self coached the Golden Hurricane to consecutive NCAA tournament appearances in 1999 and 2000.
On June 9, 2000, Illinois named Self the head coach of their basketball program. Self’s predecessor, Lon Kruger, had recently left the Illinois program to accept a job in the NBA as head coach of the Atlanta Hawks.
Kansas hired Self in 2003. He took over for Roy Williams who left for his former team, North Carolina after KU lost the 2003 National Championship game to Syracuse.
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
|---|---|
| 1985–1986 | Kansas (assistant) |
| 1986–1993 | Oklahoma State (assistant) |
| 1993–1997 | Oral Roberts |
| 1997–2000 | Tulsa |
| 2000–2003 | Illinois |
| 2003–present | Kansas |
Bill Self Awards
- AP Coach of the Year: 2 (2009, 2016)
- Naismith Coach of the Year: 1 (2012)
- NABC Coach of the Year: 1 (2016)
- Sporting News Coach of the Year: 3 (2000, 2009, 2012)
- Henry Iba Award: 1 (2009)
- Big 12 Coach of the Year: 6 (2006, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2017, 2018)
- WAC Coach of the Year: 1 (2000)
- John R. Wooden Legends of Coaching Award (2013)
- Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (inducted in 2017)
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