In October 2016, he was sitting at the end of a wooden bleacher in the congested Koury Natatorium at the University of North Carolina. My middle son Clayton was competing for Georgia in her first college swim meet against the Tar Heels.
Within minutes of the meeting, a silver-haired man entered and sat a couple of rows in front of me. It was Roy Williams.
It was a short trip for Williams, as the Heels’ basketball court, the Dean Smith Center, is across the sidewalk. Still, the view was surprising: the swim meet-ups are events for friends and family. You just don’t have a lot of casual fans coming in.
But here’s the thing: Ol ‘Roy is no casual fan when it comes to everything about Tar Heel. He could be the biggest fan of all sports on campus.
The latest proof that Roy was bleeding in Carolina blue came on Thursday, when the school sent a statement saying that the Hall of Fame member and his wife, Wanda, had donated more than $ 600,000 to fund scholarships for senior students. UNC year in spring sports that had its seasons cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Williams made the donation in March, shortly after the spring sports season was suspended. I just didn’t want anyone to know.
But the school basically made Roy possess this substantial act of generosity with the launch. Many of the athletes she is funding now return to campus to resume their interrupted (and almost finished) college careers.
“Roy and Wanda have donated millions of dollars to UNC, the athletic department, the Rams Club and individual sports programs over the years, but have always chosen to do so without fanfare or publicity,” said John Montgomery, executive director of the Rams Club, at the launch of UNC. However, we feel that this was the right time to announce our appreciation for all that you have done to support the academic and athletic activities of your alma mater and student athletes in all 28 of our sports programs, and to thank you for a contribution. extraordinarily generous to allow our older adults another chance to compete in the spring. ”
As Montgomery points out, Williams has been sneaking donations to Carolina’s non-income sports programs for years. A UNC official told me that the teams themselves often did not know that the basketball coach who had won three national titles used to pay the bill for their training equipment, shoes, or other expenses.
Williams is a rabid sports fanatic and a Carolina man. Don’t feel isolated in your Dean Dome fiefdom; he goes out to cheer everyone up.
“I try to go see all the varsity teams we’ve played at least once in person every season,” Williams told me that day at the pool.
The day after the swim meet, North Carolina played for Virginia Tech in soccer. The game was played in a torrential storm, as Hurricane Matthew stirred inland from the Atlantic Ocean. The weather kept almost everyone away: 33,000 recorded attendance was inflated, but it’s still the smallest for a Heels home game since 2012.
But if you walked into the luxury suite next to the press box 30 minutes before the start, there was a Carolina fan inside, looking out onto a field you could barely see: Roy Williams. His family had abandoned the game, not wanting to be part of the drenched path to and from the stadium. Roy? I wouldn’t miss it.
While Williams is happy to have the family for soccer games, there is one general rule in his box: While playing, Roy is not socializing. If you want to involve him in a little chat, do it before the start or at halftime.
Last fall, when North Carolina played a six-hour overtime game against Virginia Tech, Roy and Wanda were in the mountains where they grew up, in the western part of the state, for the 70th wedding anniversary of Wanda’s parents. For some reason, they couldn’t watch the game on television: “I guess all the ACC network stuff hadn’t made it to the mountains,” so Roy spent over an hour sitting in his car in the driveway, listening to the end four minutes of regulation and the six extra hours.
“I was there the whole time,” he said proudly.
Roy Williams poses with five Final Four MVPs at halftime of an UNC soccer game: left to right, Sean May 2005, Joel Berry 2017, Wayne Ellington 2009, Donald Williams 1993, James Worthy 1982.
Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
But Williams is just as invested in low-profile sports, financially and emotionally. UNC is one of the most successful sports departments in the country, so there are many quality programs to cheer on.
The rowing team named one of their boats “Wicked Wanda” for Williams’ wife. She has been to Omaha to support the baseball team when she reached the College World Series. Softball, Soccer, Gymnastics – Coaches on campus know they will see Roy appear sometime during the year. (At a gym meeting, a young Tar Heel from the team enthusiastically pointed it out to coach Derek Galvin. “Yes,” Galvin replied. “He works here.”)
“I try to support them all,” said Williams. “I really love our other sports, I love coaches, I love our kids. I believe in the name on the front of the shirt, and I know that’s cheesy like everything.
Despite being a North Carolina native, Williams did not grow up dreaming of being a tar heel. I didn’t dream of college at all. His parents never got that far, and neither did his older sister, Frances. It wasn’t until Roy’s high school basketball coach and de facto father figure Buddy Baldwin urged him to walk for Dean Smith that he saw himself as a Carolina man.
“I never saw a North Carolina game in person until I played here as a freshman,” Williams said.
After playing for the freshman team, Williams was not good enough to make it to the varsity team. It was then that he set his sights on training, keeping statistics, and trying to look at the game like Smith did. After graduation, Williams returned to western North Carolina to train high school basketball, and golf, and ninth grade soccer, for five years.
It was then that Smith brought him back to his alma mater. He remained an assistant for 10 years before being hired (somewhat controversial, inexperienced as a college head coach) in Kansas. Williams’ career there was spectacular in every way except one, failing to win a national title.
When the call home came in 2003, he had to take it. He was followed by a national title in his second season, then another in 2009 and another in 2017. However, that doesn’t separate him much from his UNC teammates: nine coaches on campus have won national championships.
“At least I should learn something from them by osmosis,” said Ol ‘Roy.
Or by attending their games. If you’re ever at a sporting event on the North Carolina campus, keep your head turned; You may see Roy Williams sitting in the stands near you.
Roy Williams holds his granddaughter Kenzie Newlin before the game at the Dean E. Smith Center.
Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
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