My thoughts on North Carolina coach Roy Williams

I was fortunate to meet Roy Williams at a national coaches convention in the mid 90's at Gatlinburg Tennessee. He was the keynote speaker that year, and coaching at the University of Kansas.




I was sitting in the fourth row next to the sidedoor where the speaker's entered the room. There were over 600 coaches in the room for this particular session at the Holiday Inn in Gatlinburg. I was sitting next to our Morgan coach at the time and Rick Mays, coach of the Elliott County Lions, of which i did the articles on this year. Roy walked in the door and for some reason straight to my chair. He stuck his hand out and said 'How ya doing this morning coach' then straight to the podium. Well ya could have bowled the whole coaches section there over. Coach Mays and Coach Bellamy looked over at me at the same time and asked if i knew him. Always one for a good joke i didn't say a word just smiled. Coach Mays looked at Bellamy and remarked 'Hell yeah he knows him, he knows everybody'.



What happened next only made it worse. There was a grand prize drawing for dinner and a bunch of other great gifts. Roy drew the winning number out, and it was me. Now folks try explaining to over 600 coaches that coincidence. Roy just laughed as i walked to the podium and claimed the prize. The story beat me back to Morgan County, and to this day i still get asked did i know Roy Williams that day.



The truth of the matter is for any coaches who may read my blog here that were there that day is no i didn't know Roy personally. However when i moved to Kansas City for almost 5 years 2000-2005, i went to a number of Kansas games in Lawrence, Ks.



Coach Williams in my opinion is a great coach one of the best i ever watched. After watching last night's game, that opinion is only reinforced. So there ya have it. The true story of my meeting Roy Williams.



Congratulations to a great team and coach. You made Appalachia proud this year.



Gary



Tags: NCAA, Roy Williams, North Carolina basketball, Kansas basketball