North Carolina appears to be making contingency plans in case Roy Williams declines a job offer to coach the Tar Heels’ men’s basketball team.
South Carolina athletics director Mike McGee said Saturday he received a call from UNC athletics director Dick Baddour for permission to talk to Gamecocks coach Eddie Fogler like Williams a Carolina graduate and former assistant on Dean Smith’s UNC staff.
North Carolina media types wonder whether the call is being made as a mere courtesy to Fogler.
Fogler has not been as successful in stints at Wichita State, Vanderbilt and South Carolina as Williams has at Kansas.
Officially, the only candidates listed in media reports for the vacant North Carolina job are Williams, Milwaukee Bucks coach George Karl, UNC assistant Phil Ford and Philadelphia 76ers coach Larry Brown.
Waiver sought: UNC applied for an emergency waiver of state and federal affirmative action guidelines an action that would allow the school to hire a replacement for Bill Guthridge before the start of the NCAA’s summer recruiting period.
“We will be as aggressive as we possibly can and do it as quickly as we possibly can,” Baddour said.
KU is bound by the same affirmative action guidelines and might have to apply for a waiver of its own. The summer evaluation period for high school recruits starts next Friday.
Heels on Williams: UNC basketball players Jason Capel and Ronald Curry on Williams:
“I know (Williams) just from the whole recruiting circuit and I know he’s a good person, obviously a great coach, but I don’t know him on a personal level,” Capel said at Friday’s press conference to announce Guthridge’s resignation.
“I don’t know much about (Williams) at all,” Curry said. “All I know is he has a son named Scotty and a daughter who goes here. I’ve seen his teams play and I’ve seen him on the sidelines. I’m looking forward to working with him if he’s the coach and hopefully he’ll accept me with open arms. I don’t care who the coach is. If I had a choice it would be coach Pat Sullivan or Dave Hanners or Phil Ford (assistants to Guthridge), one of those guys.”
UNC center Brian Bersticker on the search for a new coach: “All of us want to know who the new coach is going to be just as much as anyone else does. We’d like to get him in here tomorrow if we could.”
