Williams knows UNC pressure

By Staff     Jul 2, 2000

Here is a sampling of what writers in Kansas, North Carolina and around the country are saying about Roy Williams:

Andrew Bagnato

Chicago Tribune

(Roy) Williams understands how to deal with North Carolina-style pressure, although he has bristled under the scant criticism he’s taken in Lawrence.

Last season he ripped the Allen Fieldhouse crowd for what he considered tepid support of the struggling Jayhawks.

In many ways it’s a good time for Williams to go home. The Jayhawks have staggered to 10-loss seasons the last two years and haven’t advanced past the second round of the NCAA tournament in their last three trips.

Williams led the team to two Final Four appearances in his first five years but hasn’t been back since 1993.

Tim Peeler

Greensboro, N.C., Record

For Kansas basketball coach Roy Williams, the biggest decision in his professional life involves much more than just deciding to return to his home state and alma mater.

It’s a matter of picking one loyalty over another.

He has spent the past dozen years building a Dean Smith-like program with the Jayhawks, and is to the wheat fields of Kansas what Smith was to the pine forests of North Carolina.

“He may be the most popular person in Kansas,” said Dean Buchan, the Wake Forest sports information director, who spent 10 years working with Williams as the publicist for the Jayhawks’ basketball program. “Certainly some people down in Manhattan (Kan., where Kansas State is located) may disagree with that, but even down there I think they have a great appreciation and great respect for what he does.”

Buddy Baldwin, Williams’ basketball coach at T.C. Roberson High in Asheville, also knows how much Williams is adored in Jayhawk-land. He goes out to see his former player every winter.

“He loves it out there,” Baldwin said. “He has a great situation. The people out there love him to death.”

Just how great is it? Williams’ total salary package is worth nearly $1 million. He has enough country club memberships to play a different golf course every weekday. And he gets the kind of fawning attention that is similar to that accorded Smith and Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski.

Bob Lutz

Wichita Eagle

While Roy Williams is off at his vacation beach house in South Carolina this Fourth of July, frolicking through the wilderness and smelling the flowers, we’re stuck in hot, sticky Kansas, wondering whether Roy is going to bite at North Carolina’s offer to replace Bill Guthridge as basketball coach.

Thanks, Roy. You’ve made our weekend.

What was going to be a enjoyable, hearty July 4th celebration has instead, at least for KU basketball fans, turned into a holiday from hell as they ponder the future of the Jayhawks, perhaps without Williams.

Meanwhile, Roy will probably be skinny-dipping in the pool of his Myrtle Beach summer home, sipping daiquiris while mulling over his choices: remaining a rich, worshipped figure at Kansas or become an even richer, more worshipped figure at North Carolina.

Life is tough.

Dennis Dodd

CBS Sportsline

The problem is, two programs want an answer now. The summer evaluation starts in a week. Williams literally holds the future of two storied programs in his hands.

If he leaves Kansas, Vanderbilt’s Kevin Stallings might face the agonizing choice of leaving the school after a year to come to Lawrence.

If Williams stays, North Carolina must re-assess. Eddie Fogler could have waltzed to Chapel Hill a few years ago, now his star has fallen.

Will a 60-year old Larry Brown get the call? Could it be Matt Doherty, who completed his first season as a head coach at Notre Dame?

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