Cyn has to identify with the virtuous woman in a western waiting to see if her man wins the showdown.
And Bill has to identify with Gunfighters.
Maybe every coach does.
Over the years a lot of new guns have been hired to knock Self off.
It never ends/Never.
Not as long as he's takin' the checks/the checks.
Every year it's some one new in the B12.
Over the years, Self has faced down a lot. Been quicker than them all/Them all.
Knight. Sampson. Saddler. Barnes. Billy Clyde. Anderson. Martin. Haith. The Mayor. Tubbie. Kruger. Trent. Travis. Prohm. Shaka.
Now Jaime Dixon.
He's good.
Real good.
Turn around good.
Back home good.
Lose by six to the #3 team with Trent's cellar dwellers good.
If Self stays with us for five more years, there are going to be some monster confrontations between Self and Dixon.
Dixon will own Texas recruiting in three years if he can claw to 20 wins next season/twenty wins.
Owning that state's recruits is the El Dorado of college basketball. Owning that state's recruiting brought Knight to Texas Tech, LB to SMU and Barnes and Shaka to Austin City Limits.
Self may in the third act of career face his greatest challenge.
Dixon is a COACH!
KU's Master Gunfighter, like Cole Thornton in Howard Hawks "El Dorado", decides where and when he will risk his neck. Let's hope he keeps seeing the odds in risking it in Lawrence. It's really good that some seasoned guns ride beside him and walk down the dark streets of the Big 12 with him. I'm talkin' bout New York Norm, LA Townsend and Peoria Snacks. Ya gotta have some one watching the back doors and alleys.
Self and Dixon are going to have to meet in the street 10 times the next five years at least.
Cyn, like Kansan Vera Miles before her, has to know one side of Bill is the affably honest and determined Ransom Stoddard carrying law books in a land where they were needed but often did no good. But the other side is Tom Doniphon, a hard case with a gun and a side kick.
As Gene Pitney sang in a song intended for, but cut from another classic oater, "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence:"
"From the moment a girl gets to be full-grown, the very first that thing she learns
When two men go out to face each other, only one returns."
There's uh show down uh brewin' in Bill's future down south of the Picket wire and south of the Red River/way south.
It's an Okie thing.
Sooner or later, every Okie that dares to stand tall winds up in a show down with someone from Sam Houston-land/That land.
And only one returns.
