University of North Carolina Athletics
A Q&A With Head Coach Bill Lam
November 21, 2002 | Wrestling
Nov. 21, 2002
Q: What about wrestling do you love?
Coach Lam: "I think it has some major ways it can challenge you. It challenges you mentally and physically. It tests your true character and I think that development is what really what people want to know. They want to know what their limits are and they like to be challenged in those ways. I think that's why this sport is so unique and I also think it's what turns them into leaders because you become accountable for your own successes and failures."
Q: What about coaching do you love?
Coach Lam: "I think anybody likes to be able to take somebody and have them reach a level that they might not have reached. I know my college coach helped me get to place I never would've gotten had he not challenged me in those different ways. And he couldn't have challenged me if he hadn't been there and done those kinds of things. It's hard to be a leader if you never followed. It's hard to take somebody where you've never been. So it's kind of fun knowing where you've been and to know that the exhilaration, excitement they'll feel when you're able to challenge them to that point and have them reach those limits. When you see a person like a Doug Wyland, or a Rob Koll, T.J. Jaworsky or C.D. Mock, reach somewhere where, maybe early on, they didn't think they would get. That's exciting."
Q: What one thing made you get into coaching?
Coach Lam: "If there's one thing it was the influences that coaches had on my life. I had a degree in psychology and a masters and almost a doctorate, I still felt like I could influence somebody's life more in coaching than any other way."
Q: Did that start when you were younger or when you got to college?
Coach Lam: "It started when I was younger because my dad was in athletics and I had good high school coaches and good college coaches. From the beginning athletics has been an influence in my life and coaches along the line have been big influences, and I wanted be able to do the same."
Q: What was the hardest thing to overcome when you first came to North Carolina?
Coach Lam: "To change people's image of what wrestling is about and to change the competitor's mind of a level that they could reach."
Q: What is your most memorable moment here at North Carolina?
Coach Lam: "I think I've said this and it's hard to pick just one. C.D. being the first national champion and us being a Top 5 team in the country. Everybody had told him he couldn't be a national champion here and everybody told us we couldn't be nationally competitive and we proved them wrong.
"Another one right along with that though is T.J. (Jaworsky) winning a national championship in the Smith Center in front of a record-setting crowd for a national championship event. When the first match we had [when I came here] we had five people at and then we set an attendance record at a national championship and having an individual champion right there.
"Those two things, to me, are what proved to the rest of the wrestling nation that Carolina was a real situation and a real national competitor."
Q: What will be the hardest thing about leaving coaching at North Carolina?
Coach Lam: "The fellowship with young people growing up and the camaraderie with fellow coaches."
Q: Do you have any mixed emotions with the season starting on Saturday and this season being your last season, does it feel different than years past?
Coach Lam: "I've always been this way, when I've made a decision, I only look forward. Because that's what life is about. I've made the decision, I feel good about the decision, and now I'm going to just make it be the best season it can be. I won't look back and say what if, and I can't look back and say well look at all these good young guys, next year we could really be good again and I could go out with a better season. That's not what I made my decision on. If I would've looked back 30 years ago, after the first match, I would've said what have I done and left."