How hard is Bill Self’s KU Boot Camp? ‘I was going to transfer,’ says ’08 champion

Former Kansas Jayhawks power forward Darnell Jackson, who earned a national-title ring on the court and a diploma in the classroom, says he enjoyed almost everything about his 2004-08 experience at KU.

The one annual headache over those four seasons? KU men’s basketball coach Bill Self’s preseason Boot Camp.

It left such an impression on the 6-foot-9, 270-pound Jackson that he wrote about the experience in his recently released book, “Behind the Smile .”

“Kansas was a place of solace for me. There was only one thing I hated about Kansas basketball: Boot Camp. I hated Boot Camp,” the 38-year-old Jackson, now an assistant coach in the NBA G League, said of the two-week conditioning program.

Boot Camp 2024 begins Tuesday morning for the current KU men’s hoops team. Jayhawks players and coaches will gather between 6 and 7 a.m. in the practice facility adjacent to Allen Fieldhouse.

“I hated running — the sprints and suicides,” Jackson recalled. “I didn’t want to do all that (darn) running. I was lazy. I just wanted to play basketball and I didn’t think all that running would prove anything.

“For every sprint I missed, I had to make it up the next day, and if I didn’t finish, I had to do more sprints. I was a stubborn little (bleep) in school. I had a chip on my shoulder and a bad temper. I thought I knew it all, but reality hit fast.”

The Oklahoma City native credits 22nd-year KU coach Self for his coaching methods — Boot Camp included. Jackson said they helped him mature after a turbulent childhood.

And as much as he disliked Boot Camp, Jackson made it through morning sprints, rope jumping, defensive slides, backboard touches and other conditioning drills that lasted 60-90 minutes on Monday through Friday. After a weekend off, the players would proceed to four or five more days of difficult conditioning drills, all conducted without a basketball, inside the gym.

“I never got sick,” Jackson said of surviving the non-stop drills for an hour. “I had nightmares knowing (that) I had to wake the next morning.”

He almost surrendered — and even considered heading home to Oklahoma City — during his first Boot Camp ahead of the 2004-05 season.

“I was going to transfer. I wanted to get out of there and be done with it,” Jackson, an assistant coach for the G League’s Ontario (California) Clippers, said Monday in a phone interview with The Star.

Jackson — he played in the NBA for three years and overseas for nine more — said he realized the value of Boot Camp late in his senior season.

“You saw what happened, winning the national championship. Memphis was gassed,” Jackson said.

KU defeated the Tigers 75-68 in overtime in the 2008 NCAA championship game.

“We were in way better shape,” Jackson said. “That’s one of Coach Self’s biggest things. He made sure we were in shape.”

Jackson said Boot Camp also helped him adjust to professional basketball.

“Especially playing cross-seas,” he said. “A lot of teams do similar things. You have to go through horrendous conditioning. Running the soccer fields … Boot Camp helped me get through that mentally, especially in France.”

Jackson was asked if he had any advice for KU’s first-year players this week.

“I would tell them come in mentally and physically prepared,” he said. “Try to be in the best shape possible, have your mind set on the conditioning part. The outside world doesn’t matter. It’s more about you and the team and what you can provide for the program.”

‘Shock’ is not the right word

Self, who was on the road recruiting Monday, told The Star in a phone conversation that Boot Camp, which he has held before each of his 22 seasons at KU, would run Tuesday through Friday then “into next week.”

“We’re starting a little early,” he explained, “just to get our bodies in shape, feet in shape, obviously work on different types of sliding techniques, things like that, that make it so we are more prepared to start practicing the week after that.”

Asked if KU’s transfer-portal newcomers would be “shocked” by the strenuous conditioning program, Self said: “I think we are actually in a pretty good place (conditioning-wise) right now. I don’t know if ‘shock’ is the right word. I think they all will be surprised it’s as tough as what it is.”

Jackson said he hopes the current Jayhawks fare as well as some of his former teammates.

“Aaron (Miles), Keith (Langford), Russell (Robinson), Jeff Hawkins, Sasha, I could go on and on,” Jackson said. ”It’s unbelievable what those guys could do: Boot Camp, then practice, weights, go to tutoring and do the same thing day after day.”

Jackson is certain that members of the 2024-25 KU team will see Boot Camp pay off down the line.

“I felt like in the games I did play well in, it was from hard practices during the week,” he said.

“One thing Coach (Danny) Manning and Self said: ‘The harder you practice the better you play.’ I carry it that way now with my son: ‘If you want to be great, do great things, you have to work hard.’’’