“I no longer believe I am the right man for the job. I thought I was the right man for 15 years at Kansas, and thought I was the right man at North Carolina. I would never say I’m the best man for the job, because I never thought I was better than anyone else.”
Those are words from the most real and genuine press conference you may ever hear.
Roy Williams said he made some mistakes during games the last two years, but that’s as much a part of coaching, part of any job, really. So, yes, the timing of his retirement was a little strange, but when he made up his mind, he wanted to do it as soon as possible so UNC could get on with finding his successor.
Roy has his annual golf trip at the end of the month with his famous Fox Hole buddies. They’re all still going and Roy will set the tee times and make dinner plans every night for the whole group, as he has done for more than 30 years.
He will forgive the coaches he loves whom he learned were recruiting Walker Kessler during the season, which they aren’t supposed to be doing until that player enters the transfer portal.
Roy said he couldn’t get to the players like he used to. Was that because he wasn’t as good, or because the players and rules of the game are different now?
For an hour, he bore his soul to the small crowd and national media audience, fighting back tears most of the way. But that’s who he is. He walks through campus, walks down Franklin Street without ball cap or sun glasses, stops and talks to everyone, takes pictures with anyone who asks.
At a high school game to watch a coveted recruit, all the kids surrounded Roy and asked for pictures with him. He said he needed to watch the game but to come back at halftime and he would take them with everyone who wanted one. And he did, much to the amazement of the school principal who watched it happen.
After winning the 2017 NCAA championship, Roy was at an all-star camp and ran into Villanova coach Jay Wright, who had beaten the Tar Heels the year before for the title. Roy thanked Wright for sending him one of the first texts after Carolina beat Gonzaga in Phoenix. Putting his finger in Roy’s chest, Wright said he sent it “because you are the eff-ing best!” Williams had come back from the loss to Wright and the Wildcats and won the title without a single NBA-caliber player on his roster.
A few hours after that devastating 2016 defeat in Houston, Roy saw the father of his player, Nate Britt, who is also the stepfather of Kris Jenkins, who made the game-winning shot for Villanova. Williams hugged the middle-aged man and said, “I’m so happy for you and Kris to have that moment together.”
In Las Vegas earlier that season, the day before losing to Kentucky in a CBS Sports Classic thriller, Roy was trying to conduct practice when former UNC star Doug Moe and CBS announcer Bill Raftery sat down on baseline chairs, swapping stories and laughing loudly. A member of the UNC media staff asked Williams was it okay they were making all that noise? “That’s Doug Moe, one of Coach Smith’s all-time favorites,” Roy said, smiling.
Williams went overboard embracing the older guys who played for Dean Smith and Frank McGuire, made them feel as much a part of the UNC program as the current players because they were the legacy.
At the hotel suite in St. Louis after winning the 2005 national championship, dozens of former players from Kansas and UNC and their friends were partying and carrying on, including George Karl and Moe, who had driven in from Memphis. A stack of pizza boxes arrived and everyone grabbed slices. As the party wound down, Roy and wife Wanda, with kids Scott and Kimberly, started picking up the pizza boxes and cleaning up the suite. He did this after having just won his first daggum national championship!
Roy had a huge thrill in the locker room after beating Illinois at the Edward Jones Dome, when Smith, Phil Ford and Michael Jordan walked in. “These guys ARE Carolina basketball,” Roy told his team, “and now all of you are too, forever.”
In a way, it was remindful of Smith, after the painful loss to Marquette in the 1977 title game in Atlanta, walking around the locker room, handing every player a Coke and thanking each of them.
As a student at Carolina, Williams started working at Woollen Gym, where students couldn’t wear their own shorts and t-shirts when they worked out. They had to sign in, pick up gym clothes and towels and turn them back in when they finished. Who was there collecting dirty towels and sweaty stuff but Roy Williams?
Needing spending money wherever, Roy became the czar of intramurals, officiating games, making up schedules, settling disputes between students and student umpires and referees. In grad school, he made $5 a day chasing balls at soccer practices, then reffing scrimmages for Smith after taking notes on his legal pad in the stands.
Smith hired Williams as a part-time assistant in 1978 because he knew Roy wanted to be a coach and thought he would be a great one. He learned to love being around Roy, in the office, at practice and on the golf course. Assistant coach Eddie Fogler, the first season Williams was there, said, “I don’t just like Roy Williams, I love Roy Williams!”
Every summer, including 2000 when he turned down Carolina to remain at Kansas, Roy held a Tar-Hawk golf outing for three days in Pinehurst and invited coaches and close friends from both KU and UNC, including Smith. Roy arranged all the foursomes for the morning and afternoon rounds and made sure each golfer got to play one round with Smith, so they could all say they did.
Others were mad at Roy when he decided not to take the Carolina job the first time. Smith said, “I wanted him to come, sure, but I’m not mad at him. He’s my friend, what else is there in life?”
While Carolina battled academic accusations during the NCAA scandal for almost seven years, Williams was the face of UNC, carrying the controversy on his shoulders; he didn’t duck anyone, made every public appearance, even walked through the crowd during the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2, where people yelled at him, “Cheater! Cheater!”
During his 18 years back at Carolina, he won 485 games, went to five Final Fours and won three national championships. He won eight more NCAA tournament games and one more NCAA title than Mike Krzyzewski and more than the entire Big Ten, Big 12 and Pack 12 and combined.
He loved the two schools and the people that gave him a chance to be a coach. In return, Roy gave them every ounce of his blood, sweat and tears, everything he had, every day.
On April 1, he announced his retirement, honoring Dean Smith in the process. Smith had retired in 1997 when he also said he couldn’t give it his best for his school…when he was no longer the right man for the job.
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Art, I understood that the Pinehurst/cheater incident was initiated by an NCS fan, so that explains that! Enjoy your articles as I did when I was at Carolina. Rick Newell ’72
Thanks, Richard, good to hear from you!