i was waiting for this thread to get started...
i kind of have mixed feelings about this... from what i heard last night, ku fans are still kind of mad that he left. if rich rodriguez showed back up at wv wearing wv clothes, would fans be all better just to see him wearing wv stuff???
on the other side, i realize that he had deep roots with ku, and i do like to see that he still supports his old team...
Comparing how Roy Williams left Kansas to how Rodriguez left West Virginia is completely apples-to-oranges. There are no similarities whatsoever.
When Williams left to go to North Carolina, he was returning to his home state and his alma mater after previously turning them down three years earlier because of his love of the job in Lawrence. From every account I've read and heard, it was a gut-wrenching decision for him, and North Carolina is the only school that could have gotten him to leave Kansas. It's not like he didn't have his opportunities to leave before, including lots of looks from NBA teams over the years.
Rodriguez, on the other hand, was at his alma mater (and in his home state) while coaching at West Virginia. He flirted with other major programs after virtually every season. Moreover, Rodriguez leveraged the Alabama offer into a big contract extension, declaring to the media and the public that he wanted to stay at West Virginia and have a long career there because it was his home. Then, less than a year later, he's hopping the first plane to Ann Arbor and essentially giving the West Virginia administration and fans the middle finger on his way out the door. It didn't help that he tried to weasel out of paying his buyout clause to WVU.
I can understand why Mountaineer fans are angry with Rodriguez. Kansas fans, on the other hand, have no reason, in my opinion, need to get over Williams leaving. He didn't owe the program anything more than he already gave them. I liked the fact that he was wearing a KU sticker and cheering on his old team last night. Hopefully, the Jayhawk fans are ready to bury the hatchet now.