University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Milestone Means Little To Williams
December 8, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 8, 2006
By Adam Lucas
Roy Williams is all about winning. He somehow manages to accomplish that while being not at all about winning. And maybe that's why he seems to balance the two seeming opposites so well.
Pick a coaching stat and you'll find him at or near the top. He has the highest winning percentage among active coaches (a win Saturday would put him at exactly 80.0%). He has 17 straight NCAA Tournament appearances, which ranks third all-time and finds him closing fast on Dean Smith's record of 23 straight. His .799 winning percentage entering the season put him fourth on the all-time college basketball percentage list, trailing John Wooden by mere thousandths of a point.
And there is no question that he is completely oblivious to any of the above statistics.
All great coaches--all great anything--have some sort of ego. But Williams is driven by only one goal: winning the next game. Right now, that's High Point. Records and honors and recognition mean nothing. Winners, as he is fond of saying, get the awards and rewards.
So he aims for the wins, not for the awards. It just so happens that on Saturday night in the Smith Center, the two will collide. A win over High Point would give Williams 500 career victories. He'll reach that mark in his 19th season, faster than any other coach in the history of college basketball.
There are some NCAA coaches who would have that achievement tattooed on their forehead, coupled with a limited edition leather-bound book touting the achievement. This was Williams's reaction one week ago, before the Kentucky game, when told he was approaching the milestone:
"Are we playing for that on Saturday?"
Seriously. He really wanted to know.
"No," he was told by associate athletic director Steve Kirschner. "You have 498."
"Oh, OK," the head coach said. "I knew we were close. I'm not trying to act like I didn't know we were close. But I wasn't sure exactly."
It's natural to doubt the sincerity because, be honest, if the rest of us were as good at our jobs as Williams is at his, we'd know every detail of our accomplishments. Program 500 computers or build 500 widgets or win 500 games and it's a big deal.
Not to Williams. Most of us build our calendars around certain game days: the ACC opener, the Duke game, the ACC Tournament, the Final Four. Not him. It is an absolute certainty that right now he knows only two specific game days: his team's next game and the tip-off time for the next player he'll see on the recruiting trail. This is a man who, despite the billions of dollars poured into the NCAA Tournament and the endless "bracketology" projecting seeds and regions, doesn't know the regional sites until his Tar Heels begin planning their travel.
It's OK to be skeptical. It's OK to believe that while Williams keeps up a good public front, secretly he's pouring his heart out to his team about how much he wants to win 500 games. But if that were true, senior Wes Miller wouldn't have had this reaction after the Kentucky game when asked about being a part of his head coach's milestone:
"Oh, is that the next game?"
Not exactly a hot topic of locker room conversation.
What players love about Williams is that while he's busy deflecting any individual attention, he's conscious of their chances to be record-holders. Not at the expense of the team, of course. But if the Tar Heels are winning big and an individual record is within reach, he'll make sure the player chasing it has every opportunity to reach it.
That happened twice in his first season as Carolina's head coach. The first came on Dec. 7, 2003, when Raymond Felton was closing in on Jeff Lebo's single-game assist record. With Felton sitting on 17 assists late in what would eventually be an easy 115-81 victory, Williams left him in the game and signaled for "Dribble," a play designed to create an assist opportunity for the point guard. Felton got the assist--and the record--and was quickly removed to a loud ovation.
Three months later, Rashad McCants was nearing the school record for 3-pointers in a game. With the Tar Heels holding a double-digit lead over Clemson, Williams called a play designed to free McCants on the perimeter. His team executed the play, McCants tied the record, and--here's the part Williams probably remembers best--his team won the game.
Actions like that make an impression on players. That's why they'll send in congratulations from across the country when Williams reaches the 500 milestone. For almost 20 years, he's won like no coach in history while consistently deflecting any personal recognition.
The next time the Tar Heels claim a victory, it'll be time for him to accept the awards and rewards.
Whether he knows it or not.
Adam Lucas's third book on Carolina basketball, The Best Game Ever, chronicles the 1957 national championship season and is available now. His previous books include Going Home Again, focusing on Roy Williams's return to Carolina, and Led By Their Dreams, a collaboration with Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers on the 2005 championship team.
