RCW: From the office of ... Jerrance Howard

With the 2017 NBA Draft just 30 days away and KU protégées Josh Jackson and Frank Mason III hoping to be selected by one of the league’s 30 teams, let’s visit the men’s basketball offices one last time in 2016-17. 
 
Walking into Kansas assistant coach Jerrance Howard’s office, visitors cannot help but see the many framed high-profile magazine covers that showcase Kansas basketball. Sports Illustrated, ESPN The Magazine, Athlons, Sporting News, Basketball Times, SLAM and Jayhawk Illustrated are just some of the entities represented in covers which date back to the 1980s.

However, Howard cannot take full credit for the more than 100 framed pieces, which include a Wilt Chamberlain autographed Sports Illustrated cover. Former KU assistant coach Joe Holladay, under then-head coach Roy Williams, started the framing project. When Bill Self took the program’s reins in 2003, the pieces continued to be added by then-KU assistant coach Joe Dooley. When he joined the KU staff in May of 2013, Howard took on the process.
 
“I’ve just kept it going,” Howard said. “When people come in, they see a lot of former great Jayhawks and it is definitely a conversation piece.”

After the Draft on June 22, look for Howard’s walls to hold covers graced by projected top-five pick Jackson and Mason, the consensus 2017 National Player of the Year.