That’s it for Ol’ Roy
Williams not ‘right man’ for UNC anymore
Roy Williams has a Hall of Fame resume filled with more than 900 victories and three national championships in a career leading two of of the most storied programs in college basketball.
So it came as a surprise Thursday when the 70-year-old Williams announced his retirement and said it was more because of what he doesn’t have: the conviction that he is still the right coach to lead North Carolina.
During a long, thoughtful news conference on the Smith Center court bearing his name, Williams described himself as a coach who was bothered by losses and by his own mistakes over the past two difficult seasons. One of those saw the only losing record of his career and the other, this season, saw Williams coaching a young group playing amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Williams had long said he would coach as long as his health remained good.
“But deep down inside, I knew that 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,” he said. “I’m not going say the best man because I never thought I was the best at anything. But for 15 years at Kansas, I thought I was the right man. In this time at North Carolina, I thought I was the right man. I no longer feel that I am the right man for the job.”
The stunning news came two weeks after Williams closed his 18th season with the Tar Heels after a highly successful 15-year run with the Jayhawks. In all, Williams won 903 games in a career that included those three titles, all with the Tar Heels, in 2005, 2009 and 2017.
The last time Williams left North Carolina, he was a virtually unknown assistant who was getting his first shot as a college head coach at Kansas after 10 years under late mentor Dean Smith.
Williams had talked about how Smith — who Williams still respectfully calls “Coach Smith” after all these years — worried about how hard Williams took losses as an assistant. That much was apparent Thursday as Williams — often with his voice shaking as he fought back tears — recounted some of his own self-described coaching mistakes.
They were the kind of details he “was really bothered by” as he contemplated his future after a first-round loss to Wisconsin in the
NCAA Tournament, his only firstround setback in 30 tournaments.
“Ol’ Roy’s going to feel pretty good about what we accomplished,” Williams said. “Ol’ Roy’s going to be proud. But the problem is, Ol’ Roy is selfish. He wanted more, and I didn’t think I could cheat my school and my kids.”
Williams had thrived with lessons rooted in his time under Smith even as he forged his own style. Williams always pushed for more and typically he got it. His teams played fast, with Williams frantically waving his arms for them to push the ball. They attacked the boards with his preferred two-post style. He stubbornly hoarded timeouts, saying his team should be prepared for most situations through practice.