Decision still gnaws at Roy Williams.(Chicago Tribune)

Byline: Skip Myslenski

CHICAGO _ Roy Williams calls and learns you have just seen a game at Kansas, and immediately and without prompting he says: "It's one of the greatest places of all time. I hope we can get it going like that here."

"Here" is North Carolina, his birthplace, his alma mater, the place he learned the craft of coaching while spending 10 years as Dean Smith's assistant.

But Kansas . . .

Kansas is where he grew up as a coach, where he established himself as one of the greats in his field, where he enjoyed 15 hugely successful seasons before bidding it a tearful farewell last April.

It was an exit filled with human drama and colored by raw emotion. There was the famous epithet he delivered on national TV after his Jayhawks lost the national title game to Syracuse, and another day when he was so stressed by the decision he faced that he simply vomited.

One moment he was leaving and the next moment he was staying, and even now, six months removed from the moment he told his Jayhawks he was going, he said: "If I'd known the feelings I'd have when I talked to the players, I wouldn't have done it. I felt dirty. If I'd known that, no way I would have left."