CHAPEL HILL – Roy Williams retired Thursday as North Carolina’s basketball coach, ending an 18-year run at his alma mater and a 33-year Hall of Fame career that included 15 seasons at Kansas.
Williams met with the media for about an hour Thursday afternoon on the court that bears his name inside the Dean E. Smith Center. Below are Williams’ full press conference, which has also been posted elsewhere on our site, but also plenty of notes and pulled quotes from what Williams had to say:
*Williams finishes his 33-year career with a record of 903-264, a winning percentage of .774. He was 485-163 in 18 seasons at UNC, which is a winning percentage of .748. He led nine Kansas and UNC teams to the Final Four, five of which came at Carolina, and won three national championships, all with the Tar Heels. He led six of his teams to the NCAA title game, four of which came at UNC. His national titles were in 2005, 2009, and 2017.
*The Asheville, NC, native is second all-time with 79 NCAA Tournament victories owning a 79-27 (.745) record in the big dance. He was 45-13 at UNC. His record in opening-round games was 29-1. His teams earned 13 No. 1 seeds in the NCAAT
*Williams was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007. He is third all-time in wins by a Division I head coach with 903. He reached 900 wins in fewer games (1,161) and seasons (33) than any coach in NCAA history. His 903 wins in 33 seasons is 100 more than any other coach in NCAA history (803 by Mike Krzyzewski, 802 by Dean Smith).
*He is the only coach in history with 400 wins at two schools, he was the consensus National Coach of the Decade (2000-09), and his eight wins over Associated Press No. 1-ranked teams is an NCAA record.
*32 former players of Williams’ were first-round NBA picks, including 22 at UNC, and 52 of his players at KU and UNC went on to play in the NBA.
*He coached four National Players of the Year, six ACC Scholar-Athletes of the Year, 10 consensus first-team All-Americas, 17 first-team All-Americas and three Bob Cousy Award winners, and is the only coach to coach two Academic All-Americas of the Year (Jacque Vaughn at Kansas, Tyler Zeller at UNC).
*Williams opened his part of the press conference getting emotional. He had a hard time looking over to where many of his former players and some members of the current team were sitting.
“This morning when I talked to the team, it was really difficult. And when I came in and I saw the former players in the lounge, that was really difficult. And when I realized that I was going to walk through that tunnel for the last time as a coach, that was really difficult.”
“These are different times and unusual ways to say things. First time I spoke at my high school graduation's commencement exercises, I wrote it out. When I spoke at my mom’s and my dad's funeral, I wrote it out. And in 2007, when I was lucky enough because a lot of those guys back there, when I was inducted in the Hall of Fame, I wrote it out. And the reason I did that is because I think I've got a better chance of holding it together.
“I really need Mickey Bell and Coach Smith here, because at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2007, Coach Smith slid over to me said, 'Eh, I've got a $10 bet with Mickey. He thinks you're going to crack up and start crying.' I said, 'Coach, you're in good hands.'
“But if I read it as opposed to just talking off the cuff, I do have a better chance. But these are different times, unusual ways to say things and in today's times, I should say that I'm not retiring or resigning, I'm opting out. That's the most ridiculous phrase I've ever heard in my life. Why the hell don't you just say, 'I quit.'
“So, I'm old school and I can't use those words, but I will tell you that I'm retiring and resigning as the men's basketball coach at North Carolina. It's been a thrill. It has been unbelievable. I've loved it. It's coaching, and that's all I've ever wanted to do since the summer after my ninth-grade year in high school.
“No one has ever enjoyed coaching like I have for 48 years. I was a high school coach for five years, came back here as Coach Smith's assistant for 10, head coach at Kansas for 15 and now at North Carolina for 18.”
*Williams then went into why he made the decision.
“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 would always say ‘as long as my health allows me to do it.’ 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.
“I'm not gonna 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 and 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.
*Williams then went on to discuss the program’s success in recent years, notably 2016, when the Tar Heels lost in the national title game, and in 2017, when the Heels won the national championship. He noted the success in 2018 and how much fun he had coaching Joel Berry and Theo Pinson and how good the 2019 team was, which got a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
But, he then went into the last two seasons, in which the Tar Heels finished 14-19 a year ago and 18-11 this season losing by 23 points to Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
“The last two years have been really hard,” he said. “In 2020, we had so many injuries, yes. This year before we got to the ACC tournament, I saw that box score from when we played Virginia Tech at Virginia Tech during that season. We only played seven guys. We didn't have Brandon Robinson, didn't have Cole Anthony, and we lost in double overtime.
“The injuries really did hurt, but I felt that I made mistakes. We were up three against Clemson, and I didn't remind the guys to foul. They make a three and send it over time and we lost. Up three against Duke, and we did foul, and the young man from Duke did one of the greatest things I've ever seen bouncing that ball off the front of the rim and making that basket. But that time (we) fouled and it didn't work out either, and we lost in overtime…
“We had six games last year that were decided on last second shots, we lost all six of those. My first year as Coach Smith’s assistant, we had five games where the other team had the last shot that would have won the game and they missed all five. That was the difference between me and Coach Smith.
“I talked to him about that several years later. Needless to say, I didn't talk to him after last season even though I talk to him every night. But no one could emphasize rebounding any more than Roy Williams, and we didn't get a box out and we lost the Notre Dame game on the second shot, didn't get a box out twice and lost the Duke game.
“So, when those six games were decided on last second shots and we lost all of those, it sort of ate at me all summer. And we beat Syracuse on the road late in the ACC and the next week lost to them in the ACC tournament, and they just had more fire and more passion, and I didn't get my kids to that level.
“It's funny and humorous and comical but so many times of my career I've had fans say, ‘Coach, if you can just beat Duke twice, we don't care about anything else.’ I don't know if they're gonna say that right now because we did beat Duke twice, but we still didn't get done what I wanted to do.
“I just never got the team, this year, where I wanted them to go. I just didn't get it done. I didn't get them to buy in and focus on the things that I think are really big in the game of basketball. We got better all season long. I think we got better but not to the level of some of our teams have been. I didn't push the right buttons.
“We did some good things. We did some things that sometimes, as I said, the locker room at Duke, the Duke game here, Louisville here, Florida State here, Notre Dame and the (ACC) tournament. I just didn't get it done consistently enough.”
*Williams started having meetings with his players shortly after the team returned from the NCAA Tournament and by mid-week he was done. He wanted the players to get home, since they’d had three days at home since last July, and with all of them taking online classes, they could do that from home. They were to return April 12 to begin offseason workouts.
He informed the current team in a zoom meeting Thursday morning, though several players remain around campus. Many former players made their way to the Smith Center for the announcement, as well. Williams said “telling the current team was really hard but seeing and talking to Jackie Manuel when he came in to see me today is something I will love for the rest of my life and feel very fortunate.
“Just think about how lucky I have been, and it’s because of kids like that.”
*Williams goes for 45-50 minute walks just about every day, so was there a moment during the last two weeks when, on one of his walks or while doing something else, when it just hit him that this was the time to move on. Was there a seminal moment?
“I was so discouraged after the Wisconsin game the way I’d gotten our guys ready to play, and I think I sort of knew after that game,” Williams said. “So, the last 13 nights I’ve basically stayed awake all night to make sure. There wasn’t much sleeping or anything.
“I don’t know that there was a single event. Some things sort of confirmed that it was the right decision.
“I called Bubba, I think it was Tuesday of last week – so we lose on a Friday night and I called Bubba on Tuesday of that week. The Chancellor was nice enough to meet with me on Sunday and asked me if I would think about it for another 24 hours. So, I did what he asked, I stayed awake all night.
“The last two days I was a lucky guy. I went to Augusta National (golf course). Played par 3 Tuesday and then played 18 Tuesday afternoon, played 18 yesterday morning, and it was beautiful and I loved it – shot 88 and 87… But between every shot I wasn’t really thinking about hitting the golf ball, I was thinking about how I was going to tell my players and getting through this press conference.
“So, I knew then if you can’t even think about golf when you’re at Augusta National, the decision that I felt about not being the right person any longer, that pretty much confirmed everything.”
*Williams said Dean Smith later told him he retired too soon and regretted walking away prior to the 1997-98 season, so Williams was asked if he had revisited that discussion he had with Smith about that and did he take any insight from it in making this decision.
“I thought about that, and I told Coach (Smith back at the time of the discussion) that I was going to coach as long as I felt like I was healthy enough to do it, but also, I was really bothered by the mistakes that I made last year and the fact that I felt like I could have done a better job coaching this team this year.
“As I said, my guys never wanted to make a mistake, I’m not blaming them, it was me. I didn’t get them to do what I wanted them to do.
“But I did think about that conversation with Coach, and I made it past 66 because he made me promise not to stop at 66… I’m very comfortable with the decision.”
*Williams has some concerns about how college basketball is changing, but he has always expressed thoughts about changes to the sport, and avoided going into any of those opinions Thursday. He made clear, however, that the coming Name, Image, and Licensing, transfer portal chaos and otherwise did not play a role in his decision.
*Williams said he gave it some thought last summer, but wasn’t going to coming off a 14-19 season. So was there a precipitating event over the last couple of months that moved this along?
*Williams said four years ago he was concerned because he was forgetting people’s names, so he shared that with former UNC player and NBA coach Doug Moe, and it was simply the reality he was getting older.
“Wanda wanted me to quit in ’09,” Williams said. “She really wanted me to quit in ’17 but I survived 12 more years (from ’09), so I felt like I did alright.
“But last summer was really hard. And yes, I can say injuries and all that stuff, but I gave you an example of a couple of decisions… Even this year in the championship game in Asheville against Texas. Score is tied and there’s 20 seconds to play or something like that, and I sent the team out there. And Steve Robinson, I grabbed him and said, ‘If we weren’t so young, I would double-team the ball right now, but I’m afraid we’ll give them a wide open layup.
“And I never had (those) kind of ideas. So, Matt Coleman dribbled the clock out and shot it in and they beat us. And those things really bother me. I hold them on for a long, long time…
“I didn’t feel like I was touching the right buttons for my players… So, all that stuff came to a head after the Wisconsin game and some other things sort of confirmed that it was the right thing.”
*When he kissed the floor following the home win over Duke last month, did he know this day was coming soon?
“No,” Williams said, noting he didn’t know he was going to retire when he did that. “It’s strange because I didn’t plan that. You remember how good our homecourt was for us this year except for the Marquette game, and I was thinking ‘I really appreciate (the court).’”
Full Roy Williams Retirement Press Conference
