INDIANAPOLIS – And so, the exit of legends begins. Dadgum it.
Roy Williams is leaving, with his emotions bare to the world, as they always have been. If it’s sheer numbers we want, there are the three national championships, the nine Final Fours, the 903 wins . . . or the thousand tears. Because we’ve always known where Williams’ heart stood.
That was true whenever he would mourn the latest NCAA tournament loss, ending a season now gone forever. His mentor and hero Dean Smith always told him that his biggest worry about Williams being a head coach was how hard ol’ Roy took defeat as an assistant.
That was true after the 2003 national championship game, when Kansas had just lost a crusher to Syracuse and an CBS interviewer put a microphone in Williams’ face as he left the court, wanting to know about him taking the North Carolina job. “I don’t give a (blankety-blank) about North Carolina right now,” he answered to all of America watching, saying he just wanted to tend to his heartbroken Jayhawks. Later he would say, “Coach Smith will be disappointed in my blankety-blank, but he understands.”
That was true in 2012 when doctors found tumors on his kidneys and told him there was a 95 percent chance it was cancer. His first thought was of the mother who died from the disease. His second thought was about the grandkids who would never remember him. He was scared and he didn’t care who knew it. The tumors turned out benign.
And that was true Thursday, as he said goodbye in Chapel Hill, when it only seemed like yesterday he was saying hello. The past two years have worn on him, and weighed him down like a bag of bricks. The 18-11 record the past season he thought should have been better, the 14-19 disaster of the previous year, all the close games he felt should have been wins, but weren’t.
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“I didn’t push the right buttons,” he said.
“I just didn’t get it done consistently,” he said.
“I’m getting old, the body’s breaking down, mentally and physically . . . but the biggest reason we’re having this meeting is I just don’t feel that I’m the right man any longer,” he said. He repeated that several times. “The last long period of time I’ve been focused on the fact that I just didn’t think I was good enough anymore.”
He said there were six games in the 2019-20 season that came down to the last shot, and the Tar Heels lost all six. He then added how that happened five times his last season as an assistant under Smith, and North Carolina won all five.
“That was the difference between me and Coach Smith,” he said.
Dean Smith has been gone for six years now. Williams says he still talks to him every night. That’s what Smith means to him, and it has always been very easy to know what meant something to Williams.
Coaching, for one. “I never had any day that I didn’t give my absolute best. Not one single day,” he said Thursday.
His players, for another. “Nothing is better than seeing the look on your guys’ faces when they’ve accomplished something that was really hard."
Williams is 70 years old, so you can’t say this is a shock. Thinking back on his press conference after the Tar Heels were run over by Wisconsin in the first round in Indianapolis, there were certainly phrases suggesting a man going through some reflection.
“Basketball can be the greatest game in the world, but when you lose it’s like somebody reaches in and grabs your heart and shakes it right in front of you," he said then. "Sort of taunts you a little bit. But coaching basketball, that’s pretty dadgum good."
“I started this season when I was 70 years old. I feel like I’m 103 right now.”
“It’s been a hard year to push and pull, push and pull every other day to try to get something done. But how can you be any luckier than Roy Williams coaching basketball?"
“Basketball can be the greatest game in the world, but when you lose it’s like somebody reaches in and grabs your heart and shakes it right in front of you. Sort of taunts you a little bit. But coaching basketball, that’s pretty dadgum good."
“I started this season when I was 70 years old. I feel like I’m 103 right now. It’s been a trying year. It’s been a year that I haven’t enjoyed that much. It’s been a lot of stresses, a lot of things (going) on.”
There was the pandemic, of course. Not a coach in America had it easy this year. Not a player. Not a person. And the Tar Heels had their struggles. It will always be unfortunate that his 106th and last NCAA tournament appearance was a 23-point blowout loss. Well, at least he won his final two Duke games.
As Roy Williams leaves the stage, you wonder: Who’s next to do the same thing?
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When do we hear these words from Jim Boeheim, who is 76? Mike Krzyzewski, who is 74? Leonard Hamilton, who is 72? Rick Pitino, Bob Huggins and Tom Izzo, who are 68, 67 and 66? The coaching landscape in college basketball would seem close to throwing a massive, ongoing retirement party. Even John Calipari is 62. That’s not old by any means given today’s standards, but John Wooden was viewed as an elder statesman and patron saint of the game when he stepped down after his 10th national championship at UCLA. He was 64.
Williams arrived from Kansas a week after that 2003 title game loss and some voices shredded him for the move. But why? He had given the Jayhawks 15 great years and besides, he was going home to his alma mater. Back to where he kept stats for Smith and then worked for him as the lowest assistant on the ladder, paying the bills by driving around the state and delivering Tar Heel calendars out of his trunk to gas stations.
So he coached at two of the Meccas of college basketball and ended up No. 2 in career victories at North Carolina and No. 3 at Kansas. That's not easy to do. He was always a natural figure for fun with his mannerisms and colloquialisms, but endured genuine criticism and scrutiny when an academic scandal blew through the university, with basketball names included. He expressed constant anguish about the charges, while proclaiming his innocence.
Two things are beyond dispute.
He was an unfailingly nice man to all he met. And that ought to mean something.
And the greatness of his record. He won more national championships at North Carolina than Dean Smith did. In his 18 years at North Carolina, he went to five Final Fours. Down the road at Duke over the same span, Mike Krzyzewski went to three.
Some men would say in a retirement speech that they can’t wait to do something else. Sounds good, even if it isn’t true. That’s not where Williams heart was.
“I’m scared to death of the next faze,” he said.
But about that career? How would this most heartfelt man look back on his journey?
“We did OK.”
Yes he did. But on Thursday he departed, leaving the door ajar for those coming behind.
