One story making the rounds in the wake of North Carolina’s wooing of Roy Williams to become the Tar Heels’ next basketball coach credits Greg Gurley with planting the seed of doubt in Williams’ head.
Gurley, though, takes credit only for an assist.
According to the popular version of the story, Gurley a former Jayhawk who lives in his native Kansas City approached Williams on Wednesday during the penultimate day of the coach’s youth basketball camp.
Gurley, the story goes, had heard rumors that Bill Guthridge was stepping down at UNC and Williams was sure to step into the void, and Gurley asked Williams, “How can you leave your grandchildren,” referring to the dozens of players who went through Williams’ system and their children.
The question was said to have shaken Williams, who had already decided to return to his native Carolina.
Gurley, though, tells a slightly different tale, and is quick to point out that on Wednesday he had no idea Guthridge would retire the next day. Though it has come out that Guthridge actually made the decision at least as early as Wednesday, Gurley wasn’t privy to the news.
“My wife and I were at the game with our new daughter,” Gurley recalled. “Mindy Pollard was there with their daughter, and Rex Walter’s wife was there with their two kids. So there were four or five kids there. Coach Williams and I were talking after the game and I pointed out all the kids there, and I asked him, ‘How many grandkids do you have now? All your players have kids now. You’re like a grandfather now.’ It was just a casual comment. He made the comment that it was nice to have everybody back.
“Now, I’d say he knew all about coach Guthridge’s retirement then. They coached together, what, 10 years? Coach Williams had to know at least a day or two earlier. I didn’t, but I’m sure he did. If what I said made him think more about it, great, but I don’t think he already had his mind made up on Wednesday.”
Still, Gurley a Shawnee Mission South grad who played his entire career, from 1992-95, under Williams bought into media reports Friday that said Williams was Carolina-bound.
“It was on CNNSI, ESPN,” Gurley said. “It was the AP. The AP! It’s not like it was the National Enquirer. The AP is pretty respected. Scot Pollard called and Ryan Robertson, and we talked about it. We were shocked. But I fell into the same trap as everybody else. I saw it on TV and the Internet and thought it had to be true.”
His chats with former Jayhawks Pollard and Robertson convinced Gurley that Williams wasn’t already a goner. Williams’ press conference Friday confirmed it, and Gurley headed off to a weekend vacation at the Lake of the Ozarks.
But before he left, Gurley gave a radio interview.
“I felt pretty good about it,” Gurley said with a laugh. “Just before the news conference, I said on the radio, ‘Don’t believe anything you hear about inside sources or any other B.S. The only source who knows anything is Roy Williams. There’s nobody in the (UNC) athletics department that knows something more than coach Williams, or nobody brave enough to say anything. I knew there was no way something was already done, knowing the guy like I do.”
Even in the Ozarks, Gurley and traveling companion Pollard couldn’t escape questions about Williams.
“Everywhere we went, it was, ‘What’s he going to do? What’s he going to do?'” Gurley said. “We gave the standard answer that he’s down in South Carolina doing a gut check. We don’t think he knows what to do, but we haven’t talked to him. We know as much as everybody else. But I do know this: There won’t be any inside source. You hear, ‘My buddy’s a big booster and in the loop.’ That’s B.S. You can give $10 million a year, and coach Williams is still going to be the one making the decision.”
Gurley hopes, of course, Williams will return to KU for a 13th season.
“I have a gut feeling he’ll stay,” Gurley said, “mainly because he’s going to be able to think about it. He’ll be with his wife and kids. Yeah, they’re both from there, but he’s got a good thing going here. If he stays another 15, 20 years, they’ll name the arena after him here. Not that he’s a guy that wants that type of stuff, but he’d be a legend.
“In my heart I think, as competitive of a guy as he is, he hasn’t won a national championship yet. I think he almost feels like he hasn’t done what he came here to do. It’s not failure but disappointment. I hope he stays. That’s my gut. Either answer is a pretty good answer, but if I were a betting man, I’d say he stays.”
