More than a job …

Coach and Athletic Director, August, 2003 by Herman L. Masin

We have mixed feelings about the kind of coaches who will jump their contracts at the drop of an extra coconut.

Is a coach entitled to anything he can get? Maybe so, but as a coach and role model isn't he required to exhibit a little restraint?

We wondered about all this during the North Carolina-Roy Williams-Kansas opera at the Final Four last April. Our first thought was that Williams was obfuscating about the North Carolina job, that he had definitely decided to take the job and was waiting for the right moment to confess.

As the opera played itself out, our thinking took a turn. We checked one voice against another and then a third and wound up totally convinced: If ever there was such a thing as a perfect pitch, Roy Williams and North Carolina were it.

Roy Williams was born in North Carolina.

Roy Williams spent his boyhood dreaming of playing for North Carolina.

Roy Williams won an athletic scholarship to North Carolina, and Dean Smith became his coach and mentor.

Roy Williams learned the game from Dean Smith and then became his assistant coach for 10 years.

It was Dean Smith who helped him get the head coaching job at Kansas.

Roy Williams became a great coach and leader at Kansas. He loved the job, loved the university, and served it with huge distinction for 15 years.

In 2003, the North Carolina job opened up and Roy Williams finally received the offer that couldn't be refused.

Alas, there always has to be a victim and this time it was Kansas--for no other reason than the existence of North Carolina.

No other colleges could have handled the situation more graciously and professionally than Kansas and North Carolina.

Both of them deserve to live happily forever after.