Sweet home Carolina?

By Gary Bedore     Jul 3, 2000

Earl Richardson/J-W Photo
In a trophy case at the University of North Carolina's Carmichael Auditorium, a faded poster hangs bearing the autographs and photos of coaches and players involved in the Tar Heels' 1982 NCAA Championship team. Kansas University coach Roy Williams is at bottom right, next to UNC's retiring coach Bill Guthridge. The legendary UNC coach Dean Smith is in the center. Above Williams, to the right, is new Tulsa coach Buzz Peterson, then a UNC player. Former NBA superstar and UNC player Michael Jordan appears at left in the third row down.

If Roy Williams accepts the North Carolina basketball coaching job, he’ll likely purchase a palatial estate in the Governor’s Club subdivsion on the far east side of this university town.

The Governor’s Club homes start at $250,000 is a gated community with homes nestled on the fringe of a plush golf course.

For years, it’s been rumored the rumors are not true that Williams, Kansas’ 12th-year coach, already owns a house at the Club, where former UNC coaching legend Dean Smith and other dignitaries reside.

The Governor’s Club is about a 15-minute drive from the Dean E. Smith Center, home of UNC men’s basketball, and a good 10 minutes from a small apartment complex where Williams and his wife, Wanda, lived back in 1979, when Williams worked as a 28-year-old junior varsity coach on Smith’s Tar Heel staff.

The person who now lives in Williams’ former brick ranch two-bedroom rental at 36 N. Hamilton Robert C. Mason wasn’t home Sunday when a reporter and photographer came knocking on his door.

Earl Richardson/J-W Photo
If Roy Williams heads to North Carolina, its rumored he may build or buy a home at The Governors Club, a golf and residential area south of Chapel Hill. If youre not an invited guest, this gate may be all the closer you get.

But a neighbor Whit Windham at 46 N. Hamilton was more than happy to fill some Midwestern visitors with southern hospitality and discuss Williams’ old stomping ground.

Chapel Hill touted

“This has always been a nice family complex,” said Windham, 37, who lived in the area as a child, moved away, and now is back as an adult.

“Look at these beautiful trees,” he said of towering pine trees that dominate the landscape in Chapel Hill. “These trees have been here forever. It’s a nice, quiet neighborhood. There are no drugs here. In fact, there basically is no crime in Chapel Hill.

“That’s what I like about it. It’s safe. To run into drugs, you’d have to be looking for them. You will get no surprises in Chapel Hill. I can see why coach Williams would want to live here if he has kids.”

Williams’ children are basically grown. Scott, a former UNC basketball player, is in Charlotte. Kimberly attends the University of North Carolina and is a member of the school’s dance team.

Earl Richardson/J-W Photo
When Roy Williams was coach Dean Smiths No. 3 assistant in the late 1970s, he and his wife, Wanda, lived in this apartment house at 36 N. Hamilton in a tree-lined neighborhood just east of the UNC-Chapel Hill campus.

Williams will find a somewhat different Chapel Hill, circa 2000, if he decides to take the Carolina job this week.

“In 1950 there were 10,000 people. Now there are about 50,000,” noted Windham, who works at the Morehead Planetarium on campus. “There are a lot more people but the roads have stayed the same, so traffic is now a problem. Really, I’d say traffic is the only negative to living in this city.”

The positives Williams will find appealing? The weather and the location.

“We get no snow, some ice and sleet,” Windham said. “You have temperatures 20 below. It may get to 20 (above) here, but the next day it’s 50. A hurricane came here a few years ago and caused some major damage in Raleigh and Chapel Hill, but usually the hurricane only damages the coast.”

Chapel Hill is about a 3-hour drive from the beaches of North Carolina and nearly five hours from Williams’ South Carolina beach house. The mountains are two hours away to the west.

Earl Richardson/J-W Photo
All was quiet Saturday on the University of North Carolina campus as a solitary cyclist was framed by the columns of UNC's Old Well. In the background is the university's South building. UNC was chartered in 1789, making it the oldest state university in the country. The Tar Heels have been playing hoops as a varsity sport since 1910.

“If you like the heat and the water, go to the beach,” Windham said. “If you want cooler weather in the summer, head to the mountains.”

Actually, Chapel Hill looks a lot like Lawrence, except for all the pine and oak trees. Chapel Hill is sprawling to the east; Lawrence to the west.

Basketball fever

And like Lawrence, the natives love their basketball here. One big difference, however.

There are three major universities UNC, Duke and North Carolina State all in a three-country area called the Triangle. Duke’s campus is in Durham, about a 10-minute drive from Chapel Hill and N.C. State in Raleigh, 20 minutes away.

“If you like college basketball it is nirvana,” says Al Featherston, basketball writer for the Durham Herald-Sun. He’s covered hoops in the Triangle since 1974 covering Tar Heel games from 1978 to ’88 when Williams worked at UNC.

“There are three great programs close together. One of them is always good. Usually two are good. Sometimes three are good.”

Williams will be in a fierce battle for supremacy with Duke if he takes the job here. Kansas, of course, rules the Sunflower State.

As far as facilities, Williams will coach in the massive, 21,572-seat Smith Center here, known as a building where fans tend to “sit on their hands.”

It’s much different from 8,800-seat Carmichael Auditorium where the Heels played until the Smith Center opened in January 1986. A calendar of the 1982 UNC national title team and other pictures of Williams in team photos hang on the walls of Carmichael today.

“Carmichael was as loud as Cameron Indoor (Stadium),” Featherston said of Duke’s building, known as one of the loudest in the country, along with Allen. “Students surrounded three sides of the court. It was a great atmosphere.”

The Smith Center can get loud, also, said former UNC assistant athletics director Rick Brewer, who saw every game in Carmichael, which opened in 1965.

“There was a Duke game where the Duke players said they couldn’t hear what went on in the huddle,” Brewer said of a game in the Smith Center a couple years back. “It’s not like Carmichael but it does get extremely loud in there. When it opened, coach Smith was concerned because the alums got the choice seats. It upset him a little bit. There have been plans to switch the seating, but the problem is some bought seats for life.”

As far as Carmichael … Brewer said it was one unique building and not just because Michael Jordan played in there.

“The press box hung from the ceiling,” Brewer said. “It was different being up high like that.”

Featherston agrees.

“To get down to go to the bathroom, you’d walk through the crowd. One time we walked down at the end of the game and walked back up because it went into overtime.”

Look back at Roy

As far as memories of Williams on the Heels’ bench?

“Roy Williams always wanted to be a head coach,” Brewer said. “That is what I’ll remember about him. Also the fact he used to drive coach Smith’s TV show all around the state on Saturdays before there was satellite. It was a way for Roy to make some money for his family. He’s a great person and great coach.”

Featherston doesn’t have many Williams anecdotes.

“I don’t remember interviewing him. I remember saying hi to him and thinking he was a nice young man,” Featherston said. “The funny thing is, he was always the third assistant. He sold calendars on weekends driving all over the state to make money. I remember we were very, very surprised when he got the Kansas job.

“He really did not have a high-profile position here. I don’t have a lot of Roy stories. He was just a very nice guy.”

A nice guy who has both states breathlessly awaiting his final answer on the UNC job.

“We’re just writing that North Carolina is waiting on Roy Williams’ decision,” Featherston said. “It’s believed he has interviewed with Dick Baddour (Carolina AD) and it’s up to him when he makes a decision.”

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