by Roy Williams
In 2005 I didn’t watch the championship game tape until the end of September. This year at the beach one night in June, I put in the tape. I watched the first half with my family and then I saved the rest. A few nights later, I was at my office late one night when everybody else was gone and I pulled up a chair and put the tape in and watched the second half. At first I was frustrated watching it, which seems weird, but I had the exact same feelings that I had during the game. I was coaching the game again. I was asking myself, “Why are we so tentative? Why aren’t we more aggressive?” For some reason I couldn’t tell myself, “Relax, you’re going to win this game by 17.” When it got to the end, I watched Tyler hug me and I got a little choked up and I had the same surprised feeling like, “By golly, we won the sucker.”
CHAPTER 13
The 19th Hole
IN 1984 NORTH CAROLINA was playing in a tournament in Tokyo and we played Arizona State in the last game on December 23. I asked Coach Smith if I could fly home and then join the team again before our next game. He said I could and he arranged for the program to pay for it because I couldn’t afford the trip. As soon as that game ended, Wanda had our bags packed and we left out the back door of the arena and took a cab to the airport. We flew from Tokyo to Seattle, and it was the most turbulent flight I have been on in my entire life. That 747 bounced around like it was a paper airplane. I saw somebody’s drink bounce from two rows behind me to two rows in front of me. Wanda squeezed my hand harder than she ever has before or since. I was scared to death and we were both about sick. We landed in Seattle, then flew from Seattle to Chicago, then from Chicago to Charlotte, and finally to Asheville, so I could spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with my children. On December 26 I was on a 7 a.m. flight from Asheville to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Los Angeles, and Los Angeles to Hawaii. I landed in Honolulu and I went straight to the gym with my luggage. I took off my dress shoes, put on my sneakers, and started working a team practice. People who were traveling with the team couldn’t believe what I’d just done, but it’s just what I wanted to do. It was worth it.
I have never been with my family as much as I wanted to be. Because of that, when my kids were growing up they never saw me taking a nap. Never. If they came in and I happened to be on the couch, I got up and I stayed up. Whatever they were doing, I wanted to do it with them.
Whenever I was home I would bathe them and I loved reading to them at night. I must have read Goodnight Moon 8,000 times. When they had their Little League games or their track meets, I tried to be there to watch them whenever I could. Because of what had happened when I was a kid, I wanted to make sure my children knew I was there for them.
Two years after I was hired at North Carolina in 1978, the NCAA changed the rules to say that the part-time assistant couldn’t recruit. So for nearly six years I didn’t recruit, and it almost killed me because those recruiting trips were where I thought I was making my biggest contribution. But looking back on it now, I realize it was a blessing, because it gave me a chance to be with Scott and Kimmie more when they were little kids.
Lots of nights I’d go home at 5 o’clock, and Wanda and I would get on our bicycles and put Scotty on the back of mine and Kimmie on the back of Wanda’s and ride down to the neighborhood swimming pool. I wanted my kids to be able to swim better than I could. We had them taking lessons and they became good swimmers. The first time Scotty swam the whole length of the pool, I was thinking, “God, I hope he doesn’t ask me to do that.” I liked to get Kimmie to swim to me and then I’d back up a little bit more and back up a little bit more until she’d start giggling.
I remember the little things. Some good and some bad. We had a yellow jacket nest in the ground in our yard and one day those bees got all over both kids and they ran screaming to me. I was knocking bees off of them as fast as I could, but they both got stung a few times. Within five minutes, after I knew the kids were all right, I took a can of gas and poured several gallons down that hole. Then I lit a match and I blew that nest up so hard I could have killed a million bees, but I was going to make sure that none of them ever hurt my kids again.
Once Kimmie and I were at one of Scotty’s baseball games. She was standing in front of me and I had my arms around her right at her chin. Scotty made a good play and I started clapping right in front of her face and I hit her. She had a loose tooth and I knocked her tooth right out, and for years she joked that I should be charged with child abuse.
I tried to be a good father in any way I could. One day Scotty asked me to teach him to field ground balls a little better, so we went out to practice. I was hitting balls to him and one of them took a bad hop and missed his glove and hit his finger. It turned it completely sideways and dislocated it. He came running to show it to me and he was really nervous, and I popped it back into place. I know doctors say you shouldn’t do that, but that was my son.
Those kinds of memories mean so much because as kids get older, their father becomes less important. When I was an assistant at North Carolina, I’d get home and they’d both come running to me and Kimmie would jump up in my arms and hug me. Then one day I’m at Kansas and I came home and Kimmie was sitting on the couch with one of her friends watching television and she looked up at me and said, “Hey, dork.”
A psychologist would say that I treasure those family moments because I didn’t have them growing up. Maybe that played some part in it, but the real reason is that I loved spending time with my kids. I had gone from a troubled childhood to having the perfect family. That means everything. My family is what Roy Williams is.
Family dinners have always been very important to me. Whenever I was home we’d eat together. Sometimes it got in the way of the kids’ social lives, but they allowed me to do that. It was our way of being together and it allowed me to catch up with their lives. Every morning I was home, I would fix breakfast — get out the cereal, make the toast, or fix Kimmie a plate of the little powdered doughnuts she loved and a glass of milk with chocolate syrup. It was a chance to have conversations with them. They were teenagers, so who knows whether it meant anything to them or not, but it was important to me.
One of my biggest regrets in life is that in Scott’s senior year at Lawrence High in 1995, his basketball team won the state championship, and I missed 11 of his games, most of them because of our Kansas basketball practices. Looking back, I realize that all I had to do was change the practice time an hour in either direction. I regret that. I remember on the day of his state championship game, my Kansas team lost to Iowa State in the Big 8 Tournament. I left Kemper Arena in Kansas City and drove to Emporia and got there 15 minutes before the game started. I went from as low as I could be after losing to as happy as I could possibly be for Scott. I was a little jealous of him because I’d desperately wanted to play for a state championship when I was in high school. We have a picture from that day and my eyes are red because I’d cried watching my son live his dream. That moment made me forget getting my butt kicked in the Big 8 Tournament.
I enjoyed watching Kimmie’s dance recitals just as much as watching Scott play basketball. I used to joke with Scott that he should have taken the dance classes to make his feet a lot quicker than they were. Kimmie has great feet.
When Scott went off to college at UNC, I drove with him from Lawrence to Chapel Hill. Wanda and Kimmie flew and met us and we got him moved in, and I’ll never forget the feeling I had. We were standing outside his dorm and he was getting ready to go to orientation. We were leaving our son. He walked off in one direction, and Wanda, Kimmie, and I went off in the other. I handed Wanda the car keys and said, “Wanda, you drive and Kimmie you sit up front with her and don’t either one of you turn around.”
I sat in the backseat and cried, and when I’d finally composed myself I told Kimmie, “Maybe one of these days I’ll be better.”
She said, “There’s no hope for you, Dad.”
She was right. The exact same thing happened when we dropped her off in Chapel Hill three years
later.
When Scott and Kimmie were in college and I was still at Kansas, I would come back at least once every year to see Scott play basketball and Kimmie dance with the UNC dance team. On Scott’s Senior Day I had practice with my Kansas team Saturday morning in Lawrence and then the team flew on to Iowa State while I flew to Chapel Hill. Sunday morning I got a flight to Iowa State to coach the game that afternoon.
Kimmie danced as a sophomore and junior and I would go watch her and to this day when dancers go out on the court before the game, I watch them and I’m always thinking, “I wish Kimmie were here so I could ask her if they’re any good.”
There were plenty of times when I worried I wasn’t there for my children enough. One summer, when Scott was 10 years old, he was getting ready to go to basketball camp at UNC, and he was acting sort of peculiar. I said, “Son, are you all right?”
“I’m just worried,” he said.
“What are you worried about?”
“I am afraid I’m going to do something wrong. I’m afraid I’m going to embarrass you.”
“Son, don’t worry about that. You don’t have to be a basketball player. Just go and have fun and if you decide that you’re not having fun, I won’t make you stay.” I wanted Scott to understand that I loved him no matter what. Later in the conversation I touched on how much I was away from home. “Scott, you’ve got to understand that sometimes I’m gone and it’s not because I want to be gone. It’s the job. When I’m home I try to make the best of our time together. Do you understand the difference between quantity and quality? I’m not home in the quantity that other dads are, but when I’m home I want to make that good quality time.”
“Sure, I understand,” he said. “If you weren’t gone, we wouldn’t be getting all these good players and the teams that we’re beating would probably be beating us.”
There I was, trying to give my son some fatherly counsel and he was 10 steps ahead of me.
My children are my pride and joy. They have the kind of sincerity that makes people enjoy being around them. I owe all of that to Wanda. I remember telling her one time in our junior year of college that I wanted her to be the mother of my children, and there’s no way that anybody else could have done the job that she’s done. She has been the best teacher, the best mother, the best provider. She did such an unbelievable job of raising and guiding our children through the decisions that they’ve made when I wasn’t there as much as I wanted to be. Wanda was often the mother and father both. Ninety percent of the things that our children learned when they were little, Wanda taught them.
I would always encourage our children to dream and Wanda was the more realistic one. She prepared our kids to handle everyday life. I remember a time when Scott told his mother he didn’t need to study because he was going to play in the NBA and Wanda said, “You’re not going to be a professional basketball player, son. Now go do your math homework.”
I’ve been the luckiest guy because Wanda always took care of most everything. My duties are to coach the team and to take out the garbage when I’m home. Those are my only responsibilities. When I can do something as a father to help out with the kids, that’s the icing. I never wanted to handle the finances. I have written two checks in 36 years of marriage, and both of them were at charity golf events when I didn’t know how much the entry fee was. I don’t keep track of how we’re doing financially. I used to enjoy getting a paycheck, taking it home, and handing it to Wanda, but now, with direct deposit, I don’t even do that.
When I was making $2,700 a year and Wanda stopped being a teacher because she was pregnant with Kimmie, I was never afraid of whether or not we were going to make it. I knew that she was watching it.
Wanda provides a perfect balance for me. She’s so sensible. She’s no coach, but a lot of times after games I like to ask her, “What did you think?” Over the years, I’ve learned from her take on games. When we were at Kansas that first year and lost eight games in a row, Wanda was not worried. She gave me the feeling that we were going to be all right, and I needed that support.
In 1999 when our team was struggling and I was at one of my lowest points as a coach, Coach Holladay came over to meet with me and we went down to our basement and talked for a couple of hours. When he left, I came up into the kitchen and Wanda said, “You’re not thinking about doing anything stupid like quitting are you?”
“No.”
“Well, good,” she said.
She knew that things were tough for me. I don’t know whether or not she really wondered if I was thinking about quitting, but she wanted to make sure I realized what a bad decision that would be. She’s never been one to pump me up or tell me how great I am. She only gives me that feeling when I need it — not when I want it but when I need it.
I’ve told Wanda that I want to die first because I don’t know what I would do without her. For 40 years, she has been a great companion.
One of my favorite stories of us spending time together occurred during Tyler Hansbrough’s senior year of high school in 2005. He had already committed to North Carolina, but I was flying out to see him play, and Wanda came with me. I reserved a private plane that was going to take us to Poplar Bluff. The pilot came out about 30 minutes before we were supposed to arrive and said that we couldn’t land because an ice storm had closed the airport, so we were going to have to go to Cape Girardeau instead.
Ten minutes later, the pilot came out and said, “Coach they just closed Cape Girardeau. We’re going into Jonesboro, Arkansas.”
“All right, let’s go,” I said. “Can you call ahead and get me a rental car in Jonesboro?”
When we landed, I got my rental car and I called Tyler’s dad, who said they were having sleet and freezing rain in Poplar Bluff. I asked him how long it would take me to get there.
He said, “Coach, that’s an hour and a half. The players are going out to warm up right now.”
“Maybe I can get there before the end of the game.”
“Don’t do that,” he said. “That’s silly. We’ll be worried the entire time that you’re going to slide off the side of the road.”
“All right,” I said. “Then I’ll see you in a couple of weeks.”
I was so frustrated. I asked the rental car agent where we could go to get something to eat. She gave me directions to a Sonic Drive-In. I drove there and bought two cheeseburgers and two chicken sandwiches for Wanda, me, and both pilots and drove back to the plane to go home.
I got back on the plane and we divvied up the food. On the flight home, I looked at Wanda and said, “Not many people have a husband who will put them on a private plane and fly them from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to Jonesboro, Arkansas, to get a cheeseburger and then fly them back home. Honey, you have made the big-time.”
She looked back at me. “Yes, this will go down as one of our most unusual dates.”
EVER SINCE I WAS a Little League baseball player putting my uniform on 12 hours before the game, I have loved nothing more than being on a team. I have always enjoyed the idea of pulling together a group of guys for a common purpose and my dream back then was to be on a team for the rest of my life. These days my team is a group of friends I call my “foxhole buddies,” and we will be together until the end of time.
They are Buddy Baldwin; Jerry Green; Scot Buxton, a neighbor during all my years in Lawrence; Randy Towner, the golf pro at Alvamar Country Club in Lawrence; Mike Davis, a former dean of the Law School at Kansas; Mickey Bell, a former UNC player who arranged my deals with Converse; Lee King, a UNC alum who I first met when my Owen golf team played at a course he owned; Cody Plott, another North Carolina graduate who I played basketball against in high school and is now the president of Pebble Beach; Russ McCormick, a banker in Chapel Hill who helped me get my calendar business started; Billy Puckett, who was a year behind me at North Carolina and a fellow basketball camp counselor; Terry Allen, a former Kansas football coach; and Ted Seagroves, a friend who rides with me on recruiting trips and
lives across the street. They are the guys that I jog with, the guys that I play golf with, the guys that I go on trips with, the guys that I would trust with my life.
I also have some buddies from my younger days in Asheville — Walt Stroup, Gene Allen, Curtis Ensley, and David Crandall — who I trust completely and who care about Roy Williams, not who Roy Williams is.
There is no reverence among us. I remember a game in 1994 when my Kansas team had the ball out of bounds down by a point with one second to play in the semifinals of the Big 8 Tournament. I called a play and we didn’t score and we lost. After that game I saw Randy and Scot, and they said, “Gosh, we’re so disappointed in you.”
I said, “Guys, be careful. You’re my best friends, but I might hit you with a hammer.”
They said, “That was the perfect opportunity to run the barking dog play.”
A month earlier, we had all seen a highlight on television where a high school team had a player run over to the corner and kneel down on all fours and start barking like a dog and everybody stopped to watch him while one of his teammates flipped the ball in to another teammate who scored the winning basket. Randy and Scot got me laughing just thinking about how I should have run the barking dog play, and it brought me back down to earth.
My buddies have a running joke about “the committee” that plans all of our outings together. It is a committee of one. Me. It will be January in the middle of our basketball season and I will call my buddies and tell them the committee has met. I don’t even have to tell them the details about the latest trip I’ve planned. They’re in. We get together each spring and fall to do a trip and it’s seven or eight guys and their wives. Those trips are the highlight of my year.