UNC Gets 1st Black Head Coach
posted by Tyjahn Stokes | April 9, 2021 | In News, SportsAs time furthers, eventually everything runs its course, even having to move on and leave that job you once loved, but realized your time has officially come to an abrupt end. The one place we see this a lot is in sports.
Legendary head coach at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Roy Williams is retiring from coaching, paving the way for the first Black head coach in UNC history.
Whether you are a March Madness fan or not, there are at least three notable head coaches you’ve at least heard of or even seen when March comes around: Mike Krzyzewski of Duke University, John Calipari of Kentucky University, or Roy Williams of UNC. Williams is often discussed as being one of the greatest college coaches in history.
Williams’s resume speaks for itself with 900 wins and three national championships. Williams helped build his resume by bringing three titles to UNC. These accomplishments helped culminate and make college hoops’ culture even more enormous and create more sports fans.
Williams announced his retirement on April 1 (and, no, this isn’t a late April Fool’s joke). With Williams holding a press conference explaining that he enjoys coaching, you can assume how hard it was to come to grips with this decision.
“It has been a thrill. It has been unbelievable. I’ve loved it,” the 70-year-old Williams said during a news conference to announce his retirement on the Smith Center court that bears his name. “It’s coaching. And that’s all I’ve ever wanted to do since the summer after my ninth-grade year of high school. No one has ever enjoyed coaching like I have for 48 years.”
Williams continued and even gave the reason why he decided to part ways with coaching: “Everybody wants to know the reason, and the reason is very simple,” Williams said. “Every time somebody asked me how long I was going to go, I’d always say, ‘As long as my health allows me to do it. But deep down inside, I knew the only thing that would speed that up was if I did not feel that I was any longer the right man for the job… I no longer feel that I am the right man for the job.”
North Carolina native Hubert Davis will become the new head coach. The nephew of former Tar Heel player Walter Davis, Davis, is making history by being the first Black head coach in UNC’s history.
Davis said: “It is significant. Significantly, I’m African American, and I’m the head coach here. It’s significant. I know that in terms of Division I head coaches all around the country, only 26% of the head coaches for Division I basketball are compromised (sic) by minorities.”
This history of the UNC shows coaches’ longevity in the Tar Heels history with Dean Smith, who coached before Roy Williams from 1961 to 1997, and Roy Williams, who coached from 2003 to 2021. Two coaches that have shown that they can produce results with their extensive resumes with a combined five National Championships and 20 Final Four appearances throughout their careers coaching in Chapel Hill. It also shows the college’s allegiance to give assistant coaches a chance to coach when the head coach has moved on.
Overall, Coach Williams will be missed by his former players, basketball fans, and even other coaches. Whether he’s on the sidelines being animated telling his team to push the tempo or even when he had that famous gif of him in the locker room elated with joy after his team won, fans of Coach Roy Williams will miss him greatly.
Photo courtesy of Chuck Allen
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