Roy Williams - Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court

ROY WILLIAMS

A LIFE ON AND OFF THE COURT

WITH TIM CROTHERS

Published by
ALGONQUIN BOOKS OF CHAPEL HILL
Post Office Box 2225
Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27515-2225

a division of
WORKMAN PUBLISHING
225 Varick Street
New York, New York 10014

2009 and 2011 by Roy Williams and Tim Crothers. All rights reserved.
First paperback edition, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, October 2011.
Originally published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill in 2009.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.
Design by Anne Winslow.
All photos courtesy of the Williams family unless otherwise indicated.

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition of this title as follows:
Williams, Roy, [date]
Hard work : a life on and off the court / Roy Williams with
Tim Crothers. 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-56512-959-7 (HC)
1. Williams, Roy, [date] 2. Basketball coaches United
States Biography. 3. North Carolina Tar Heels (Basketball
team) I. Crothers, Tim. II. Title.
GV884.W58A3 2009
796.323092 dc22
[B]

2009036970

ISBN 978-1-61620-107-4 (PB)

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First Paperback Edition

TO WANDA, who has helped me with everything,

including this book, and is the greatest mom in the world

To Scott and Kimberly, who are my heroes

And to my mother, my father, and my sister, who

I wish were here to read these pages

IT IS SAFE TO ASSUME that Roy Williamss early years were not filled with great expectations. Look at his ancestors. Few people could (or would) lay claim to the same genealogy that produced the feuding McCoys in Kentucky and the murderous Dalton gang, eventually gunned down somewhere in Kansas. Growing up in the mountains of North Carolina, Roy had an abusive, alcoholic father who abandoned the family, leaving Roys mother and her two small children with no support and no place to live. They moved from motels to trailers to rooms offered by relatives. His mother labored in factories and ironed clothes for the wealthy to pay the bills and put food on the table. As kids, Roy and his sister hustled part-time jobs and learned that survival depended on hard work.

Life was often unpleasant. When he was eight years old he bounced his first basketball, and the game soon became his outlet, his escape. He loved to play alone, to shoot for hours on dirt courts and in local gyms, often when they were closed and he was not supposed to be there. The game consumed him, and his constant practice turned him into a noticeable high school player. He wasnt tall and he wasnt fast, but his deadly aim was perfected by hours of hard work.

It would be easy at this point to say, And the rest is history. But not so fast.

Nothing ever came easy for Roy Williams.

As an athlete, he was good but far from great. He realized his limitations as a player, and by the time he finished high school Roy had decided to become a college coach. All roads led to the University of North Carolina and Dean Smith. He tried out for the freshman team, primarily as a means of wiggling his way into the program. He juggled part-time jobs to pay for school, slept little, studied hard, got one degree and then another, and managed to land a volunteer position as a statistician for the varsity. From the bleachers, he watched every practice and every game and took endless notes. His hard work did not go unnoticed.

Dean Smith hired him as an assistant coach, and offered him a salary of $2,700, an amount far less than Roy needed to support his young family. No problem. He hustled dozens of part-time jobs and paid his bills. For 10 seasons he worked under Coach Smith watching, studying, absorbing every aspect of the game. He learned to teach, to coach, and to win. By the time he left for Kansas in 1988, no coach worked harder than Roy Williams.

When he returned to Chapel Hill 15 years later, he had few peers. And no coach worked harder than Roy Williams.

I met him a few years ago. My daughter enrolled at UNC, and I found myself spending a lot of time in Chapel Hill. Its not unusual to see him jogging the leafy streets around the campus, waving at students and chatting with the neighbors. He loves baseball and is a regular at Tar Heel games in the spring, graciously signing autographs while never missing a pitch. I once bumped into him in a hotel lobby during an ACC basketball tournament, and he was immediately concerned with my ticket situation. I got the impression he had a pocketful and wanted to make sure his friends were covered. I send him a copy of each new book, a small gesture thats always appreciated. I was in St. Louis with my wife and daughter for the Final Four in 2005 when Roy won his first national title. As the final seconds ticked away and Tar Heel Nation was ready to explode, I shared an enormous sense of pride in the fact that we consider each other friends. There was also a mighty sense of relief in knowing that he would no longer be dogged by the second-place finish.

Today, his salary is not an issue. With two national titles, he has silenced those who said he couldnt win the Big One. He has filled the legendary shoes of Dean Smith, and with the same class and grace. The grind of recruiting is somewhat easier since the great players call him. He is still disarmingly warm, affable, genuine, and accessible.

But success has not changed him. The perfect gentleman with the easy grin still burns the candle at both ends so he can bury you in March.

THE FACT THAT YOU are reading this book is more surprising to me than to anyone else in the entire world. I never thought I would be writing about myself and what has happened in my life. I have been approached several times about writing a book and I have always said no, but I was finally convinced to do so. I hope I can give you a story that you will enjoy reading and might help you to understand Roy Williams a little better.

There are some things that I need to say that are easier to express in an introduction than in the book itself. I was very fortunate as a young assistant coach to be mentored not only by Dean Smith but also by Bill Guthridge, Eddie Fogler, and Dick Harp. All of those people played an extraordinary role in my development. To this day, I have never called Coach Smith or Coach Guthridge anything other than Coach. That is the way it will always be with me. Dick Harp coached alongside me for only a couple of years, but I learned a great deal from him about Kansas and the tradition, all of which was very important to me. Eddie Fogler taught me so much about coaching and recruiting, and I still follow many of his suggestions today.

In a book like this, it is impossible to say enough about how lucky Ive been to work with all of the assistant coaches I have had during my career. I can only tell you that I have the best staff in America, and its not even close. A lot of coaches can say that, but none can say it with the conviction that I do. Joe Holladay, Steve Robinson, C.B. McGrath, and Jerod Haase have all been with me for at least 11 years. They make my job so much easier, and they all have tremendous pride in the success that we have had together. I hope they know how important they have been and continue to be. I have also been very fortunate in the past to have had excellent assistant coaches like Jerry Green, Kevin Stallings, Mark Turgeon, Neil Dougherty, Matt Doherty, and Ben Miller. There is no way we could have enjoyed the success we have had over the years if I didnt say we; everyone has contributed to that greatly and they all have meant so much to me personally as well. When you hire an assistant coach, you are putting a part of your life and career in his hands. With all of these people, I realized I was in good hands.