University of North Carolina Athletics
Bill Lam to Retire After 2002-03 Season
April 16, 2002 | Wrestling
April 16, 2002
Bill Lam, who has led the University of North Carolina to 14 Atlantic Coast Conference wrestling championships and 14 NCAA Top 20 finishes, will retire after the 2002-03 season. Next year will be Lam's 30th as the Tar Heels' head coach. Lam, who turns 60 on May 18, 2002, has a 367-126-4 dual match record, including a 132-34-1 mark in ACC competition.
"I want to express how grateful I am for the opportunity I have had to coach at this great University," says Lam. "When I came here 30 years ago I intended to stay for one or two years and head back to Big 8 country or a more traditional wrestling community, but I fell in love with the University and the people. The administration has taken such good care of me that I never wanted to leave. But it's time. I've done it. The commitments to go out recruiting and teaching on the mats each day in the room necessitate a younger person take the program to a higher level. I believe we have a strong foundation in place for that to happen again.
"I am so proud of the young men we developed here, not just as wrestlers but as people. Wrestling is a demanding sport and I will always be thankful for the commitment our wrestlers have given the program.
"I have a lot of personal memories, but my favorite is hosting the 1994 NCAA Championships here in Chapel Hill and having a national champion (T.J. Jaworsky) win the title in front of our home crowd. It was the largest attendance in NCAA wrestling history and still is talked about as being one of the best championship sites ever. 1982 was also a special year because C.D. Mock became our first national champion and the team placed fifth at NCAAs. People laughed at me when I said North Carolina wrestling would become a nationally competitive program and that year we proved we belonged."
The NCAA rewarded Lam for his tireless efforts to promote the sport by granting UNC the 1994 NCAA Championships. More than 64,000 fans attended over six sessions, including 12,000 for the championship matches. The Tar Heels had four All-Americas that year and placed sixth in the country.
"I want to thank (former UNC athletic director) Homer Rice for hiring me in 1973 and athletic directors Bill Cobey, John Swofford, Dick Baddour and Beth Miller for all their support through the years. I also can't say enough about how much I enjoyed working with the Educational Foundation. We couldn't have the overall outstanding athletic program that we have without the Foundation staff and the members' generosity.
"I wanted to announce my retirement a year in advance so we could make next year a true celebration of Carolina wrestling."
"Bill Lam put North Carolina wrestling on the map and I mean on the high school as well as collegiate level," says Director of Athletics Dick Baddour. "It's appropriate Bill has chosen to call next year his last because it will be the 50th year of the ACC and he has earned the right to be called one of the best coaches in the history of the ACC. He built a dominant program in our league and made Carolina a legitimate presence on the national scene. His teams have always been well disciplined and hard working and competed for each other as well as the University. He will be difficult to replace."
Lam took over the Carolina wrestling program in 1973-74. Prior to his arrival, the Tar Heels had never won an ACC championship and had only two winning seasons in the previous quarter century.
Carolina won 11 matches in Lam's first year, four more than it had won in the previous four years combined. In 1979, his sixth year at UNC, the Tar Heels won their first ACC championship and placed 17th at the NCAA Championships.
Lam has led Carolina to ACC championships in 1979, 1980, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000. He has been named ACC Coach of the Year nine times and National Coach of the Year in 1982. In the last 24 years, Carolina has won 14 conference titles and NC State has won the other 10. Lam has won more overall dual meets and more ACC dual meets than any other coach in league history and has the second-highest win percentage and second-most number of conference titles in ACC history.
"Coach Lam has done an amazing job," says Virginia head coach Lenny Bernstein, who won two ACC titles and earned All-America honors in 1987 while wrestling at UNC. "He built the program from nothing. When I was there we were consistently in the Top 10 or Top 20. The next coach will have unbelievably large shoes to fill. When you talk about UNC wrestling, you mention Coach Lam in the same breath. They're tied together. He's done an unbelievable job."
Lam has coached 36 All-Americas, 88 ACC champions and five NCAA champions. Current UNC assistant coach C.D. Mock won Carolina's first individual championship in 1982, current Cornell head coach Rob Koll won in 1988, and current Davidson head coach T.J. Jaworsky was a three-time champion in 1993-94-95. Jaworsky was named the National Wrestler of the Year and Most Outstanding Wrestler at the NCAA Championships in 1995. Four other Tar Heels have finished second in the country.
"I believe that time will prove that Bill Lam truly is a legend in wrestling," says Mock. "Undoubtedly, he's had the greatest effect on wrestling in the Southeastern United States. When I talk to youth organizations they all know Bill Lam. I think as time goes by people are going to recognize the sacrifices and contributions he made to the sport of wrestling and realize he truly is a legend."
"He's the epitome of Carolina wrestling," says Koll, who posted a 155-20-1 record from 1984-88 and was the first Tar Heel to earn All-America honors four times. "He took a program from humble beginnings and turned it into a national power. When you think of Carolina wrestling, you definitely think of Coach Lam."
Lam has led Carolina to five Top 10 national finishes, including fifth place in 1982, sixth in 1986, seventh in 1987, sixth in 1994 and eighth in 1995.
"Because of Coach Lam, Carolina wrestling has always been one large family," says Doug Wyland, a two-time ACC champion and national runner-up in 1989, who is now an orthopedic surgeon in Vail, Colo. "And he's the patriarch of that family."
Lam, a Boulder, Colo., native, was a three-time All-America wrestler at the University of Oklahoma, and set the Sooners' career record for victories. He was graduated from OU in 1966. He came to Chapel Hill after serving five years as head coach at Norman (Okla.) High School, where he was a three-time state runner-up.
"North Carolina high school wrestling is at the level it is today as a result of Bill Lam," says Dick Knox, Deputy Executive Director of the North Carolina High School Athletic Association. "It is a result of the time and effort Bill put into building his program at UNC and the commitment he has made to high school wrestling. He has been a leader in coming up with innovative and creative ways to positively promote and improve wrestling at all levels."