Exactly one year after he announced his retirement, former UNC head coach Roy Williams earned yet another prestigious honor.

Williams was announced Friday morning as the winner of the 2022 Gene Bartow Award, which is given annually to “a current or former coach for his contributions to the game.”

Williams won 903 total games over his head coaching career at Kansas and North Carolina and recorded a better than .770 winning percentage. He won 79 games in the NCAA Tournament, led the Jayhawks and Tar Heels to nine Final Fours and won three national championships with Carolina. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.

Williams has been a regular attendee at UNC games in both Chapel Hill and elsewhere this season, having shown up to each home game and NCAA Tournament game with his wife, Wanda.

The Bartow Award is named after the former coach at Michigan State, UCLA and UAB. Bartow led both the Spartans and the Bruins to the Final Four and built the UAB program from the ground up, eventually winning 350 games there and appearing in seven consecutive NCAA Tournaments. His award “measures a coach’s win-loss record but also the impact he’s made on his players, school and community.”

 

Featured image via Todd Melet

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