Lucas: Catching Up With Donald Williams
October 27, 2003 | Lucas
Aug. 15, 2003
By Adam Lucas
Carolina's seniors chose not to cut down the nets after their 1993 Eastern Regional championship win over Cincinnati. But when it came time to snip the nets following the national championship victory over Michigan, at least two of the players already had plenty of experience.
"Pat Sullivan and I were roommates at the ACC Tournament," says Donald Williams. "The night before the ACC Tournament championship we were joking around and standing on our beds pretending how we were going to cut the nets down the next day. Then we lost that game to Georgia Tech, but when we won the NCAA, Pat and I had already practiced."
Williams deserved his share of the net, which he ripped repeatedly with bulls-eye three-pointers throughout that Final Four weekend in New Orleans. After making five of seven three-pointers against both Kansas and Michigan and scoring 25 points in each game, he was named Most Outstanding Player of the Final Four.
Ten years after that memorable weekend, he says someone brings up the national championship to him almost every day.
"I've been overseas a lot, but when I'm at home and I'm out somewhere someone will look at me and say, 'Don't I know you from somewhere?'" he says. "They think they went to high school with me or something. Then I tell them I played for the University of North Carolina and they remember."
His final two years in Chapel Hill were hampered by injuries. In 1994, a stress fracture in his foot and a separated shoulder prevented him from regaining the sweet shooting stroke he had flashed as a sophomore and contributed to that squad's unexpected early departure from the NCAA Tournament against Boston College.
"To be honest, I don't think I was the same after getting hurt that year," he says. "My confidence wasn't always the same as before. Coming into the year my level of play was so high, and then getting hurt did something to my confidence."
It didn't damage his place in the Tar Heel record book. His 87 three-pointers in the 1995 season are tied for the second-best mark in Carolina history, and his 221 career trifectas are second only to the 233 made by Shammond Williams.
After graduating, Williams began a professional career that has taken him to six different countries plus a stint with the Harlem Globetrotters. He spent last season with Limoges in France, where he was joined by former teammate and fellow national champion Derrick Phelps. The pair grew so close that Williams's two daughters--who joined him overseas along with his wife--call Phelps "Uncle Derrick."
Williams isn't sure of his destination for the 2003-04 season and is letting his agent field calls from potential suitors. He is tentatively slated to play in the World's Greatest Alumni Game on Aug. 23 but knows that if he signs with a foreign team, they may require him to report immediately.
In the meantime, he has spent his summer back Stateside at his home in Garner, where he has run his own basketball camp for the past three years. It's the first step in what he eventually hopes will be a career in coaching.
"My goal is to play five more seasons," he says. "After that I would really like to get into coaching. I've always wanted to coach ever since I was a kid. I told Coach [Eddie] Gray, my coach at Garner High, to keep holding on until I retire and then I'll take over for him."
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.