Hard Work

by Roy Williams

  In March 1985 Coach Smith had a conversation with Dick Sheridan, the athletic director at Furman, about their basketball coaching vacancy. I followed that up by calling Dick to tell him I was interested in the job. I liked the fact that Furman was just across the South Carolina border from Asheville, that it was a pretty campus, and that the program had a history of success. I interviewed with Dick and then with the university president, Dr. John Johns. Then I met with the school’s search committee, and Dr. Johns asked me, “Would you take the job if we offered it?”

  I said, “Dr. Johns, I can’t answer that because it hasn’t been offered. Right now I’m more interested in my North Carolina team beating Auburn tomorrow night than I am in this job. But you’ve got to believe that if I do get this job that I’m going to be more interested in Furman winning than any other school.”

  Dr. Johns wouldn’t offer me the job without knowing my answer. North Carolina lost to Villanova a few days later, and on the flight home our sports information director, Rick Brewer, asked me about what was going on with Furman. I said, “Rick, I think I’m going to Furman.”

  I had done some serious thinking about the job and talked to some people about joining me as assistant coaches. I was cocky enough to think Furman was going to offer me the position, and I’d made up my mind that I would take it if they offered. But when I got home there was a phone message from Dick Sheridan. I called him back, and he told me that Dr. Johns couldn’t come to grips with the fact that I wouldn’t give him an answer before the job was offered, so he had hired another coach. I wasn’t disappointed. I never second-guessed how I’d handled it. I just thought it wasn’t meant to be.

  Then in August, I was contacted about the job at Tennessee–Chattanooga. It was funny because every day that summer we had been driving by Frank Porter Graham Elementary School, and my daughter, Kimberly, would yell out, “That’s where I’m going to school next year.” She was so excited and she had just started at that school when Chattanooga fired their coach and they called me for an interview and then offered me the job. I liked the city and the program was one of the best in its conference, but I felt I owed my family some stability. I called Coach Smith and said, “I can’t do it. All summer I’ve been hearing Kimberly saying, ‘That’s where I’m going to school next year.’ It’s just not right.”

  In February of the next season, we played at Georgia Tech, and the next day I flew down to Mississippi State. I arrived there incognito a few hours before I was supposed to meet with their athletic director about that school’s coaching job. I got my rental car, drove to campus, and walked around a bit to get a feel for the place. I met two African-American girls sitting on a bench and I asked them how they were doing. They didn’t know who I was, but they were very friendly. They gave me the sense that Mississippi State was not the place for me. I was left with a bad impression of what normal students thought about the student athletes. And I didn’t like seeing the Confederate flag flying everywhere. That night I went to a Mississippi State basketball game. After the game the athletic director took me to the university president’s home and he offered me the job. I told them I’d have to go back and talk to Coach Smith about it.

  I had gotten the calendar sales up enough at that point that I was earning an overall salary of about $38,000 a year. Mississippi State was offering me $138,000 a year. I came back and told Coach Smith, “I can’t do it. I don’t think it would fit me.”

  “You know there are not many people who would turn down a raise of $100,000,” Coach Smith said.

  “I’ve got enough money to feed my family now,” I said. “I’ve got to enjoy what I’m doing.” So I turned down Mississippi State.

  I tried to get involved at Florida State when the position opened up after the 1986 season. I sent in my résumé, but they said they didn’t want to consider any assistants, so I couldn’t even get interviewed there.

  At the same time, Eddie Fogler left UNC to take the Wichita State coaching job. Coach Smith called me in and said, “Eddie’s going to take the Wichita State job and you can go with him, but I’d really like you to stay here. You’ve done a great job for us.”

  I said, “If you’ll have me, I’d rather stay.”

  After eight years, I was finally a full-time assistant. We had great teams during the next two years, and I felt like I was getting more responsibility every year.

  During the 1987–88 preseason, Coach Smith had some health problems. His nose started bleeding and sometimes he couldn’t get it stopped, and on a few occasions he sat up in the stands and let Coach Guthridge and me handle practice. During one practice, when I was teaching how to defend the lateral screen, Coach Smith came to me afterward and said, “Roy, you did a great job today. I’ve got to let you do more coaching and not dominate things so much.”

  I told him, “Coach, the way things have been going around here I’d say it’s working pretty well the way it is. But I’ve got to have learned something, you know. I’ve been here for nine years.”

  Every day he’d been preparing me to be a head coach, telling me to think like a head coach in every instance.

  In the spring of 1988 the equipment manager at George Mason called and said that he’d been talking to the athletic director who wanted to know if I’d come up and talk to them about their coaching opening. The equipment manager’s cousin, Steve Garay, worked at our basketball camp, and Steve was always bragging about me. So I flew up to Fairfax, Virginia, on a Thursday and I met with 10 people on their search committee. I walked into a conference room and the athletic director, Jack Kvancz, told me that everybody around the table had questions for me.

  I said, “How about let’s do this first. Let me tell you what I’m going to do. Let me tell you how I’m going to run the program and then at the end if you have any questions, ask me.”

  So I talked for 40 minutes about how I was going to run the George Mason basketball program. When I was done, Jack looked around and said, “Anybody have any questions you want to ask the coach?” Not one person asked a question. Then he asked one of his assistants to take me to see the coach’s office and the locker room. About 15 minutes later Jack came up to me and said, “You just blew everybody away. That’s a group of very opinionated people and not one of them could come up with a question to ask you. I want you to be our new basketball coach.”

  I said, “Great.”

  I flew back that night and I couldn’t sleep. I told Coach Smith about it the next day. I was in outer space that whole day. Jack called on Friday and said, “I’m coming down on Saturday morning. I’ll bring the contract. We’ll dot the i’s and cross the t’s and we’ll agree on everything. You’ll sign it. I’ll sign it. I’ll bring it back and then our president gets back on Sunday, and we’ll fly you up and have the press conference on Sunday afternoon. It’s a done deal, and, Roy, I am so pleased that this has worked out.”

  On Friday night I did not sleep at all. I was lying awake feeling like I was trying to convince myself to take the job and that I would be taking it just to have the opportunity to be a head coach. I got up at 6 a.m. and I was going to go for a run, but I stopped dead in the driveway, went back in the house, called Jack Kvancz, and said, “Jack, I can’t do it. I know your flight is soon. Don’t come. I’m not going to take the job.”

  I waited until about 10 a.m. because Coach Smith doesn’t get up early, and I called him and said, “Coach, I’ve got some bad news for you.”

  He said, “What’s that?”

  “I called Jack Kvancz back and told him I’m not going to take the job.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Relieved.”

  “Then you made the right decision. Just be patient. The right job will come along and you will know it.”

  Two months later, I got that job.

  CHAPTER 7

  Big-time Ballcoachin’

  DRIVING BACK FROM a round of golf on June 13, 1988, I heard on the car radio that Larry Brown had left the University of Kansas
to coach the San Antonio Spurs. I got back to the basketball office at about 4 o’clock and Coach Smith came to see me. He said that the athletic director at Kansas, Bob Frederick, had called him and asked if he would be interested in coming back to his alma mater to coach the Jayhawks. Coach Smith told him, “No, they’ve just named a building after me here and I’m going to stay, but I’ve got a guy on my staff that you should think about. He’s going to be one of the next great coaches.”

  Coach Smith told me, “Just hang tight. I think you’ll have a shot at the end.”

  I thought Coach had been drinking or something. Everybody knew that Kansas had just won the national championship in April with Danny Manning and the Miracles, and so they would want a big-name coach to replace Larry Brown. I wasn’t even a household name in my own house. Kansas is one of the premier programs in the entire country, so I thought there was no way that I’d be the next coach there.

  A couple of weeks went by and about every third day Coach Smith told me that he’d heard that Kansas had talked to another coach but that I’d still have a chance. He told me that Dick Harp, a beloved former coach and player at Kansas who was working on our staff at that time, was campaigning hard for me. Then one day Coach Smith came to my office and said, “What are your plans for July 4?”

  I said, “Wanda and I are going to Asheville and then the next day we’re going on vacation to Bermuda for four days. It’s been four years since she and I have had a vacation without the kids or the team.”

  Ten minutes later, he came back into my office and said, “On your way to Bermuda can you meet with Bob Frederick at the Atlanta airport?”

  So Wanda and I flew to Atlanta and I met Bob in the Delta Crown Room and we talked for an hour and a half while Wanda sat about 20 feet away reading a book. Bob interviewed me, but I didn’t get the feeling he was recruiting me as much as he was evaluating me. He had a very distinguished, stately, genuine presence about him that made me feel like I could trust him completely. I also liked how much he revered the tradition of Kansas basketball.

  We flew to Bermuda and I couldn’t sleep. Our second day there, Coach Smith called and said that Kansas wanted me to come back as soon as possible and meet with their search committee.

  “Coach,” I said, “we’ve only been here two days. Are you trying to get me divorced?”

  “There are not many chances to get the job at Kansas,” he said.

  Wanda and I went to dinner. “You’re here physically,” she said, “but you’re not really here, so we might as well go.”

  So Wanda and I packed up and we left and I was torn to pieces about whether this was really the right thing for me to do. The thought of leaving UNC reminded me of leaving Roberson High for college, going from a place where I was totally comfortable to the great unknown. We landed in Atlanta; Wanda flew back to Chapel Hill and I went to Kansas. I arrived there at about 8:30 p.m., where I was met by the assistant athletic director and the sports information director. I was starving, so we stopped at a Hardee’s on the turnpike so I could get a hamburger. When we got to Lawrence, they took me into a conference room in Allen Fieldhouse to meet with the committee. It was 10 p.m. by then, and I was thinking about what Coach Smith had told me when he had called me in Bermuda. He’d said, “You’re Bob Frederick’s choice and the chancellor agrees. So if you do all right with the committee I think you’re going to be the new coach at Kansas.”

  I was telling the committee members what I would do as a head coach and they were asking me a few follow-up questions. But all I could think about was Magnum, P.I., and how he would always talk about that little voice in his head. I had this little voice in the back of my head, too.

  Finally, I said, “Guys, let’s stop just a second. I’m having a real struggle here. Everything you’re saying about the University of Kansas is great. Coach Smith says it’s great. I’m not trying to upset you, but I’ve got this little ol’ voice in the back of my head saying, ‘Son, why don’t you thank these people and apologize for wasting their time and get your rear end back to Chapel Hill?’ That’s what I’m fighting right now, my love for North Carolina and the thought of leaving there. Chapel Hill has been a dream place for me. It’s nothing bad against Kansas, it’s just that I love coaching at the University of North Carolina.”

  By the time I’d finished, I was choking up. One of the people at the meeting was Galen Fiss, who was Coach Smith’s college roommate at Kansas and an 11-year All-Pro linebacker for the Cleveland Browns, a no-facemask kind of guy. He had tears in his eyes and suddenly he stood up. He said, “I’d like to address what you just said. Roy, I want you to know that what you said doesn’t make me think any less of you. It makes me think more of you. That’s the reason I want you to be our coach, because you love the University of North Carolina. I love the University of Kansas. Nobody could love Kansas any more than I do, and I believe that you could love it like that, too. I want somebody here who’s going to love this university the way I love this university. I want somebody here who’ll love my school like you love your school. Kansas is no different from North Carolina. You have people there you love, and you will have people here you’ll love. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

  When he sat back down there were big tears rolling down his face. I got cold chills. You could have heard a pin drop.

  Then Bob Frederick said, “Roy, I’ve got to ask you. If we offer you the job, will you accept it?”

  I took a deep breath and paused for a few seconds until my mind was completely clear. Then I said, “Yes.”

  It was about midnight when I called Wanda and said, “They offered me the job and I took it.”

  Wanda said, “Great.”

  I told her there were three tickets for her and Scott and Kimmie to fly out for the press conference the next day. Then I called my old friend Jerry Green, who was the coach at UNC–Asheville, and asked him to be my assistant. A few days earlier Jerry and I had sat on the front porch at my mother’s house and I’d said, “What do you think about the University of Kansas?”

  He said, “What am I supposed to think?”

  “Jerry, I think they might offer me their coaching job. Would you want to go with me?”

  “Hot damn, that is big-time ballcoachin’. Damn right I’m with you.”

  Then I went in and told my mom about it and she said, “Why are you thinking about leaving North Carolina? Don’t you love your job?”

  I said, “Well, Mom, there’s one difference. Kansas is going to let me be the head coach.”

  “Don’t you love your job?” she said.

  It didn’t make any difference to her whether I was a head coach or not. She was going to miss me.

  I WENT BACK to the hotel that first night and lay down on the bed, and I had a scary realization. I said to myself, “My gosh, I just took a job and I have no idea what this place even looks like. I have no idea if it’s beautiful like Chapel Hill or if it’s desolate or what it is.”

  I didn’t sleep a lot and the next morning I got up early. I called Wanda and I asked her, “What did the kids say?”

  It was one of those neat moments in a father’s life because she said that Scott, who was then 11 years old, had come into the kitchen as soon as he woke up and said, “Mom, what happened?”

  She told him, “Your dad is the new head basketball coach at the University of Kansas.”

  He pumped his fist and said, “All right!”

  When she told me what he’d said, before I knew it, I had big tears in my eyes.

  As soon as I hung up the phone, I realized my stomach felt just awful. I went into the bathroom and threw up. Then Bob Frederick picked me up and we went to see the Kansas chancellor, Gene Budig. Then Bob took me down to his office and I stepped into the restroom and threw up again. After that, Bob took me to see a booster, and when I came back from that meeting, I threw up again. Then I did the press conference and I went back to the hotel and I threw up again. Then I did an interview with the local media and went back
to my room and threw up. When Wanda arrived she said, “Do we need to take you to the hospital?”

  During the day Bob Frederick had taken me to a doctor’s office and the doctor said, “Well, you do have a little bit of an ear infection and that’s probably what’s causing it.”

  I said, “Could stress have something to do with it, too?”

  That was my first day as the head basketball coach at Kansas.

  DURING ONE OF MY conversations with Coach Smith about the Kansas job, I’d said, “Coach, this is your alma mater. Larry Brown was their coach and they just won a national championship. Are you sure you want me to do this? Are you sure I can do this?”

  I’ll remember his response until the day I die. Coach Smith got very stern with me and he said, “Let me tell you something. You can be just as good a coach as Larry Brown. Don’t you forget that. You just do what you think is right and it’ll work out.”

  It was almost as if I’d insulted him. By this point in my life, I’d gone from being a student who worshipped Coach Smith to a high school coach who called him “the Godfather” to a member of his coaching staff who was still totally in awe of him. He was my teacher and I thought of him as the best coach there’s ever been. I believed everything he said as the gospel truth. So once I took the Kansas job, I kept hearing Coach Smith’s words in my head and I wasn’t scared. I just thought I could make it work. I didn’t exactly know how, but I just thought it would work out.

  The first few days and weeks I felt like I was caught in a whirlwind. And that whole first year I don’t think my heart rate dropped below 100.

  I hired Kevin Stallings from Purdue as an assistant coach, and then Jerry Green said, “You know, I met a guy on an airplane and I think you would like to talk to him.”

  It was Steve Robinson, who was an assistant coach at Cornell. We arranged a meeting and talked for two hours. I went home and told Wanda, “I think I’m going to hire that guy.”