WHEN I saw the news on University of North Carolina (UNC) Tar Heels head coach Roy Williams’s retirement on April 1, I thought it was an April Fool’s Day joke.
It wasn’t. It wasn’t because the announcement was on every major news outlet in the US.
As a die-hard fan of the Duke University Blue Devils, it made me nervous every time Duke had to play a Coach Williams-coached team, Kansas before, then UNC after.
After 33 years, 15 with the University of Kansas Jayhawks and 18 with his alma mater, the Tar Heels, Roy Williams is calling it a career.
According to cnn.com, “I love coaching, wor king with kids on the court and in the locker room…I will always love that and I’m scared to death of the next phase, but I no longer feel like I’m the right man.” Williams continues, “It’s been a thrill. It has been unbelievable. I’ve loved it. It’s coaching and that’s all I ever wanted to do since the summer after my ninth grade year of high school.”
He led the Jayhawks to two National Championship appearances and four Final Fours. He coached the Tar Heels to three national titles (2005, 2009 and 2017).
According to the same article, Michael Jordan—who Williams personally recruited as assistant coach to the late great former Tar Heels Coach, Dean Smith—said, “His great success on the court is truly matched by the impact he had on the lives of the players he coached—including me.”
“I’m proud of the way he carried on the tradition of Coach Smith’s program, always putting his players first,” Jordan added.
Head Coach Mike Krzyzewski of rival Duke University said, “While we were on opposite sides of college basketball’s greatest rivalry, we both understood how lucky we were to be part of it and always tried to represent it in the way it deserved.
“Personally, I will miss competing against him, seeing him at coaches’ meetings and having the opportunity to discuss how to make our game even better,” Krzyzewski added.
Coach Williams leaves with a resume filled with 33 years of accomplishments and achievements, 903 wins—third most in NCAA college basketball history, second only to Mike Krzyzewski of Duke and Jim Boeheim of Syracuse.
According to ESPN.com, Williams said, “Everybody wants to know the reason, and the reason is very simple. Every time somebody asked me how long I was going to go, I’d always say, ‘As long as my health allows me to do it.’”
“But deep down inside, I knew the only thing that would speed that up was if I did not feel that I was any longer the right man for the job…. I no longer feel that I am the right man for the job.
“I love coaching, working the kids on the court, the locker room, the trips, the ‘Jump Around’ [pre-game] music, and trying to build a team,” Williams said. “I will always love that. And I’m scared to death of the next phase. But I no longer feel that I’m the right man.”
What struck me while reading his statements was the tremendous and enormous humility of this man, my sense is he is his biggest critic and he sets the bar high for himself and his players. He is the only Coach in NCAA history to win 400 games in both schools.
Philadelphia 76ers guard Danny Green played for Roy Williams for four years. He recently donated a $1-million endowment scholarship gift to the Tar Heels’ basketball program,
“I became a man in four years there,” said Green, a three-time National Basketball Association champion. “He’s always been more than a coach to me. He taught me how to be a man and how to do things the right way.”
According to cbssports.com, “Prior to his run with the Jayhawks, he was an assistant under Dean Smith at North Carolina for a decade. During that time, he recruited and helped coach a player by the name of Michael Jordan. Arguably the greatest player of all time, Jordan has maintained his relationship with Williams over the years.”
I think the measure of a great coach is not the trophies or the accolades, but the players whose lives he impacted. He taught his players not just basketball lessons, but life lessons, lessons that they’ll take with them when they play at the next level when they move on to the next chapter of their life.