UNC thread

Discussion in 'The Mainboard' started by TobiasFunke-Analrapist, Apr 8, 2015.

  1. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
    Donor TMB OG
    North Carolina TarheelsAtlanta BravesAtlanta UnitedUnited States Men's National Soccer Team

    fingers and toes are crossed until it's announced

    I wouldn't even put tonight on Fedora really, for the most part at least, but it makes no difference to me
     
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  2. shabooty

    shabooty Well-Known Member
    North Carolina TarheelsWashington Nationals

    I would put it straight on Fedora. Stupid mistakes have plagued us for six of his seven years. He's the constant. We are constantly among the most penalized teams in the league.. That league being the ACC.
     
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  3. LetItSoak

    LetItSoak Well-Known Member
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    I felt bad watching that fumble fall perfectly into the DB's hands. Just horrific luck
     
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  4. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    North Carolina TarheelsAtlanta BravesAtlanta UnitedUnited States Men's National Soccer Team

    Oh no doubt, there's nothing Larry can do to get me back on his side. I just view this loss more on the two bad fumbles, both leading to TD's, one costing us 7, and the Dazz dropped bomb than the pre-snap infractions we accumulated. I guess there was that one hold costing us a TD too, still though, this could've been a relatively easy win with better handling of the ball.

    Like I said it doesn't matter to me though, we could've won by 30 and I'd still want Larry gone.
     
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  5. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    North Carolina TarheelsAtlanta BravesCharlotte HornetsNew York GiantsManchester CityNational LeagueBarAndGrill

    everything hurts and i want to die
     
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  6. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    North Carolina TarheelsAtlanta BravesAtlanta UnitedUnited States Men's National Soccer Team

  7. momux

    momux AFAM Scholar
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    North Carolina TarheelsCarolina PanthersChelseaFormula 1

    The Tar Heels made it to the 26-yard line nine times and only scored one touchdown.
     
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  8. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    North Carolina TarheelsAtlanta BravesAtlanta UnitedUnited States Men's National Soccer Team

    It's that kind of efficiency that makes this team such a joy to watch
     
  9. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    North Carolina TarheelsAtlanta BravesAtlanta UnitedUnited States Men's National Soccer Team

    I've woken up in a bad mood and I don't know why
     
  10. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    North Carolina TarheelsAtlanta BravesCharlotte HornetsNew York GiantsManchester CityNational LeagueBarAndGrill

    someone at the game had made “FedUp” stickers and gave me 30 of them so i pasted them across campus.

    i think we got him now
     
  11. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    yeah this season is lost and beating a bad vt team woulda been the kind of meaningless “name” win that could backfire and convince bubba to keep larry so it’s almost good we lost

    but man that one hurts. really was not a fun thing to watch in the stadium. crowd was actually good tho. saw luke and he was very nice. guy beside me got a pic with kelly
     
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  12. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
    Donor TMB OG
    North Carolina TarheelsAtlanta BravesAtlanta UnitedUnited States Men's National Soccer Team

    crowd looked relatively nice on tv as the game went on btw

    new seating: 1, old seating: way less than that
     
  13. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    North Carolina TarheelsAtlanta BravesAtlanta UnitedUnited States Men's National Soccer Team

    not too surprising I guess, but the word is torn acl for Cade

    it was a fun half
     
  14. NP13

    NP13 MC OG
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    East Carolina PiratesAtlanta BravesCharlotte HornetsCarolina PanthersWashington Football TeamCarolina HurricanesAvengers

    haha, go back to sucking
     
  15. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    North Carolina TarheelsAtlanta BravesCharlotte HornetsNew York GiantsManchester CityNational LeagueBarAndGrill

    i really like the little family


     
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  16. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    North Carolina TarheelsAtlanta BravesCharlotte HornetsNew York GiantsManchester CityNational LeagueBarAndGrill

    sherrell saying that damn near everyone in the basketball community expects cole anthony to end up at unc :)))
     
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  17. John Wilkes Truth

    John Wilkes Truth You think a pirate lives in there?
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    North Carolina TarheelsCharlotte HornetsCarolina PanthersCarolina Hurricanes

    Can someone post the oral history of Roy coming back?

    Can someone also post a good anal history?

    Thanks
     
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  18. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    North Carolina TarheelsAtlanta BravesCharlotte HornetsNew York GiantsManchester CityNational LeagueBarAndGrill

    i can only help with the oral history sorry. still looking for the anal one.

    really enjoyed the read btw


    Restoration Project: Oral History of the Return of Roy Williams

    [​IMG]

    Steve Kirschner got just a hurried few minutes to prep Roy Williams, not much more than a quick hello. The news of Williams’s hire to the University of North Carolina came through early afternoon and Kirschner had prepared around all day for this moment—he helped set up a meeting with athletics director Dick Baddour to deliver the news to the team and then got the players (in suits) in the Smith Center practice gym ready for the 9:45 p.m. press conference.

    But the actual moment when Kirschner, who had worked at North Carolina since 1990, met his new boss for the first time was admittedly a blur. From the time Williams sped past fans and media trucks on Skipper Bowles Drive in a car driven by Dean Smith and arrived in the Smith Center tunnel, it was a West Wing walk and talk situation. Kirschner met him in the tunnel and ushered him to the staging area for a quick rundown and then to the practice gym for a press conference with 16 TV cameras and other print media. Williams would be introduced for the first time as the head coach of North Carolina basketball and not the head coach of Kansas. This would be extremely difficult for Williams, and Kirschner and Baddour would be the ones doing it.

    Coach, we’re in the practice gym. We’ve got mics up there for you, Dick Baddour, Chancellor Moeser. I’ll make an opening comment and I’ll throw it to Dickie, he’ll make an opening comment introducing you as the coach. Then you make a comment and we’ll take questions.

    Fifteen years earlier on July 8, 1988, Williams held the last welcome press conference he’d ever planned to have. Williams arrived in Lawrence, Kansas, just a few months after Larry Brown had won a national title and a few weeks after he deserted the Jayhawks for the San Antonio Spurs. Williams was the anti-Brown. Not in terms of basketball pedigree but modesty and wanderlust.

    Williams would hope to win and he’d never leave if they’d have him. He said as much, right away.

    “My hope is that you don't have to go through another press conference to hire a head basketball coach for about 30 years,” Williams said. The crowd of media and onlookers crammed into the small, tan-walled room erupted in cheers. This was a somewhat wounded bunch—even for the champs—and salvation wasn’t in a Goliath, but someone reliable. Williams was reliable. He wanted them. “I coached at the same high school for five years and I coached at North Carolina for 10. I’ve had the same wife for 15 years. I’ve had the same set of golf clubs for 17. So, you know, I’m more or less a guy that usually if I’ve got a place I like or find something I like, I stick with it.”

    Which is why today was so hard. Williams had meant what he said then, but here he was all the same, 15 years short of his goal.

    After Kirschner introduced Baddour, who introduced Williams, Williams started his tenure as coach of the University of North Carolina with a nod to the fanbase he left behind.

    “I do want to perhaps do something a little different from most of these types of press conferences,” Williams started. “There's no doubt that I'm excited to be here or I wouldn't be here. Other than serious injury or death to my family, I've never had anything more difficult than what I went through this afternoon, talking to my team and telling those 13 young men that I was leaving them. And in saying that, I would like to get away and have a little unusual beginning to this press conference.”

    What followed was different. It was unusual. The former Kansas coach had broken the news to his Jayhawk team hours before and hopped in a private jet shortly after. It was probably too soon for this, but there was no putting it off. So he spent half the press conference giving the goodbye he didn’t have time for earlier—explaining how he’d given Kansas all he had for those 15 years, that he had two dream schools and wished he could coach both, knowing he couldn’t. At one point he listed off each of the 13 players on his Kansas team by name. It was a proposal and a breakup all at once. It was peak Roy Williams and the perfect re-introduction of Williams to North Carolina basketball.

    Fifteen years after a coaching transition that has since resulted in three national championships and effectively saved the program, here are the way people involved remember it.


    ‘I COULD GIVE A S--T ABOUT NORTH CAROLINA RIGHT NOW’
    [​IMG]
    Sean May speaks with reporters while awaiting word on Matt Doherty's fate.

    “I haven’t thought about that for one second. The guy in your ear that told you (that) you have to ask that question, as a journalist, that’s fine. But as a human being, that’s not very nice because it’s not very sensitive and I’ve got to think that in tough times, that people should be more sensitive. I could give a s--t about North Carolina right now. I’ve got 13 kids in that locker room that I love.” — Roy Williams to Bonnie Bernstein, April 7, 2003

    Eric Hoots (Manager 2001-04, Coaching Staff 2004-): “I was in Chapel Hill in my apartment. I watched (the national championship game) with some of my buddies and I think some of the players were with me. … I felt bad for Coach Williams and felt bad for his team at Kansas because that’s all anybody wanted to talk about. He has this group of guys trying to win a national championship. As someone who’s now been there, I can’t imagine somebody trying to talk about something other than (the game). As coaches, players and staff you work so hard to accomplish that goal, you don't want anything to taint it. This is about the team. I’m sure Coach did a tremendous job with his team. I remember his response to Bonnie Bernstein and I understand why he said it because his allegiance was to those 13 guys in the locker room.”

    Sean May (Player 2002-05, Coaching Staff 2015-): “I watched the game with my girlfriend and my roommate and we all talked about what he said. They asked me about other coaches who might come and I said, ‘Man, they haven’t said anything to any of us.’ I just remember (my teammates), no one really took him for what he said. We all felt like in that moment it was off emotions and what they were going through. Even the way he said it, you could tell there wasn’t a whole lot of thought put into that. He was just feeling the emotions.”

    Jackie Manuel (Player 2001-05): “I didn’t even pay attention to it, honestly. At the time, we had heard it could be George Karl, it could be Coach (Larry) Brown. It could be Coach Williams. … I just remember the block on the final shot and I remember we’re like, ‘oh my goodness, we beat Kansas earlier in the year. Now they’re in the championship game. How good could we have been?’ But it also shows you how great a coach Roy Williams is, getting his team better throughout the year.”

    Steve Kirschner (Athletic Communications 1990-): “I always thought in 2003, if he was not coming, he wouldn’t have put himself or the two schools through that again because he knew the toll it had taken on everybody—obviously himself and his family included—in 2000. The fact that he had not come out and said that, I just felt he was coming. … I remember Dick Baddour (after the Bernstein question) just being very patient. He was going to let Coach Williams take his time. We weren’t going to rush and we wanted to get the right guy and for us, the right guy was Coach Williams.”

    As the coaching search and media coverage intensified, players contemplated their future in Chapel Hill.

    Eric Hoots: “There was media out front of the Smith Center all the time. When I’d come in I’d have to drive our guys into the tunnel so they wouldn't be bothered. It was people putting mics in their face. It was unreal.”

    Sean May: “There were camera crews everywhere. There were ESPN reporters lurking outside the weightroom, in the back hallways and we would never leave out of the front. That’s when we knew it was a big deal.”

    C.B. McGrath (Coaching Staff 2003-17): “There was just a lot of speculation. The media was hovering everywhere in Kansas. Our kids couldn’t walk anywhere without being asked. We couldn’t walk anywhere without being asked. Coach at some point flew to North Carolina to hear about the job obviously and get a gut feeling on what he wanted to do.”

    Jawad Williams (Player 2001-05): “We had no coach and nobody telling us to be in the gym so I was in the gym preparing for whatever is going to come next. Statistically, my sophomore year was my best year. I was thinking about transferring or hitting the draft. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, but I knew whatever it was, I needed to be ready on the court. So I stayed in the gym. Jackie and Melvin (Scott) were right there with me most of the time. … The only people that knew where my mind was was Jackie and Melvin. Those were the two guys I came in with. Those were the guys I felt were my brothers.”

    Sean May: “Right after I committed to Carolina, they went 8-20 and Indiana goes to a Final Four. At that point I’m wondering if I made the right decision. Fast forward a year later, I come, I get hurt. Now we’re in a position where we’re not having a great year and we’re looking into the program and thinking about making a coaching change. Again I’m thinking, ‘did I make the right decision?’ I remember talking to my dad and there were rumors about me transferring and my dad is like ‘Listen, you’re a man of your word. You came here to play. You’re going to finish what you started.’ From then on, there was never a conversation, never even a thought about leaving. I give a lot of credit to the people who had the guts to really look into the program and see if a coaching change needed to be made. I think that’s why we’ve had the success we’ve had as of late. … I've seen other programs I've been close with make the mistake where they stayed a little too long and they can’t recover.”

    Jawad Williams: “I initially verbally committed to Maryland and backed out. My freshman year we go 8-20—worst record in Carolina history—and Maryland wins the national championship. So of coursethat’s in the back of my mind … I was considering going back home, to Cincinnati or something like that. It was tough times but I talked to my parents and they reminded me I never ran from anything in my life, so why start then? My goal at that point was to get Carolina back to where it was before I got there. … I decided I was going to stick it out. It didn't matter. I just wanted to play basketball. Saying, ‘I go to Carolina,’ that held a lot of weight. There was no school out there at the time I could say that and have the same type of pride about it. … I actually fell in love with Carolina over time.”

    ‘THE BEST COACH IN AMERICA’
    [​IMG]
    Roy Williams speaks during his introductory UNC press conference.

    “Our players, our fans, and the University of North Carolina should have the best coach in America to lead our basketball program. Tonight, I have the privilege of introducing you to that person, the next head coach of the Tar Heels, Roy Williams.” — Dick Baddour, April 14, 2003


    Eric Hoots: “The day of the announcement Mr. Baddour called a team meeting in the locker room. I was in there with the guys and he told us Coach Williams accepted the job and they were having a press conference and we were welcome to attend if we wanted. I remember it being like 7 p.m. because the guys had time to leave the Smith Center, change clothes and get back for the press conference. Everybody was really excited, more so just to know who was going to be the head coach and to have direction.”

    Steve Kirschner: “I had made one of the worst decisions of my professional career at the press conference when Matt Doherty’s resignation was announced. Some of the players were at that press conference and they weren’t dressed great and it became an embarrassing situation. That was my fault. I’ve always said, you’ve gotta put that on me. My feeling was there was a lot of speculation about the end of year meetings Dick Baddour had with the players. When he decided we needed a change, Matt resigned and I always felt bad for the players because I didn’t want them to be portrayed as people who had driven their coach out of a job. I felt if the players were there and up front, they wouldn't be criticized. But we didn’t tell them what to wear. One of the players kind of said some unflattering things about Coach Doherty and that made it worse. So I’ve always had guilt about how poorly that went. So (for this press conference) I remember early evening, telling Hoots, ‘Eric, get them in suits or coats and ties. I don’t care what they’re wearing, but they better look like we’re going to the Angus Barn for dinner.’ A lot of people afterwards said ‘Oh, Coach Williams, the first thing he did as head coach was make sure (they were dressed up). See there’s the difference in disciplinealready.’ Coach Williams was worried about other things at that point. That was Dick Baddour, Eric Hoots and myself wanting to make sure we didn’t make the same mistake.”

    Damion Grant (Player 2002-05): “I remember one of the main things we were told was ‘hey everybody, remember to wear suits.’ We didn’t meet him beforehand. So I remember we met some of the assistant coaches in the locker room but I do remember a lot of anxiety on my part, just uncertainty, what’s going to happen. Where are we going to go from here? Because there were a lot of unknowns.”

    Sean May: “We all were a little nervous, not sure what to expect. I’m not sure if any of us were recruited by Coach Williams. I talked to Coach Williams one time during my recruitment, right before I made a decision. Once people realized I wasn’t going to go to Indiana—or had a chance to not go to Indiana—he called and I told him I didn’t think it was fair to the other coaches if I opened up my recruitment. Two years later, I thought he would remember and he never did.”

    Jawad Williams: “We were a little bit nervous not knowing what to expect with a new coach coming in, especially coming in to a place like Carolina. Some things needed to be cleaned up and cleared out really fast and it was just a sense of nervousness not knowing what was to come. … I actually didn't have any problems with Coach Doherty so I didn't care who the coach was going to be. I had decided I was going to stay regardless. It was a weird situation. Coming out of high school, I was a five-star recruit and was recruited by every college except Kansas. Now the same coach and program that didn't recruit me, they’re taking over the program where I am.”

    Steve Kirschner: “You want to make a good impression on them as a staff. You want them to think they walked into a scene with people who know what the hell they’re doing. So there’s a lot of running around. It was a very exciting time. … Then there’s always the other side of the coin. You feel bad for the families (of the previous staff) and the coaches that don't have jobs anymore. It’s kind of a mixed bag of emotions.”

    Damion Grant: “One thing I remember him talking about was, ‘these aren’t my players.’ Me being skeptical, I wasn’t sure what he meant but that stood out. He’s like ‘These aren’t my players and I know there’s a lot of recruiting that needs to be involved.’ At first it kind of felt like he was already writing us off. ‘He has to come in and build from scratch and doesn’t expect much from this team.’ That’s what I thought at first. One thing I did like from the press conference was that he was offered a bonus or something for academic achievement and he turned it down because he said that’s an expectation. I admired him for that, but I felt like personally disconnected from that whole press conference.”

    C.B. McGrath: “It was difficult watching (from Lawrence) instead of being there. I’d played with him for four years and worked with him for four years. Everything he said came from the heart. That’s what he’s always done. Whether people like it or not, he hasn’t cared about that. He just says what he feels so he doesn’t have to worry about what he said. He always knows it’s the truth and it’s what he’s honestly thinking at the time. I remember him challenging the group of Heels he was about to coach and I remember him talking about how it was really tough for him to leave Kansas.”

    Steve Kirschner: “Typically you’d want a coach to come in and not talk about his previous school, just talk about how excited he is coming to the new school but that’s not Coach Williams. That’s what we love about Coach Williams. He understands the game is emotionally charged. ... I think he knew he’d have X number of years ahead of him to build whatever bond and whatever loyalty, love and adulation at North Carolina. He didn’t need that night to proclaim anything about what he felt about North Carolina. He took the job. That should be enough to say how he felt about North Carolina. What was most important to Coach Williams that night was to make sure the people at Kansas—the former players, the people in the athletic department, the donors, the season ticket holders, everybody who loves Kansas basketball and the University of Kansas—understood how much he loved that place.”

    Jackie Manuel: “I remember him talking to the team (afterward) and letting everyone know they were going to start with a clean slate. Whatever happened in the past happened, and it was time to move on. I remember the excitement of having a coach, because we went almost a month without a coach in place. Having somebody there and having some direction and organization was very exciting.”

    Jawad Williams: “He told us how things were going to change. All the egos were going to be put aside and he was going to force us to be more of a team, more of a unit. And he did just that.”

    Steve Kirschner: “We went up to his office afterward and he had questions for me, just logistics related. He was pretty wiped out. Part of the reason we love Coach Williams is the emotional connection he makes with players and parents. It was a pretty emotional day for him in Lawrence and it was a pretty hard to tell his team he was leaving. It’s really two diametrically opposed emotions inthe same day. So I don't think he stuck around too long. I can’t even remember where he stayed that night. When he came in in 2000 to meet with Dick Baddour, he stayed at the Morehead Planetarium. There’s a beautiful VIP apartment in there, that I didn’t know existed until 2000. But I can’t remember in 2003 if that’s where he stayed or not. It probably was.”

    INMATES RUNNING THE ASYLUM
    [​IMG]
    The UNC players attend the press conference announcing the departure of Matt Doherty.

    Talking about it 15 years later—as grown men and not 18-year-olds—backlash the players received following Doherty’s resignation still stings. But it’s more akin to a phantom pain at this point. The men involved remember being upset about the criticism, but can’t remember the original source of the phrase “inmates running the asylum.”

    Even with the forever of the internet, finding the origin of that hot take is difficult. Only a couple articles mention the phrase—a column from Ralph Wiley on ESPN’s Page 2 pushes back on the characterization and a News & Observer story with Jonathan Holmes’s father J.R. is quoted pushing back on it as well.


    Damion Grant: “I think that was in the News & Observer that I read we were branded as this team of thugs with that picture being the picture used.

    There a few articles Grant could be talking about. One titled “Heels' parents speak,” written by Barry Svrluga on April 6, 2003 had the J.R. Holmes quote and a deck that read, “For much of the past week, it played out as a coup.” The article features quotes from several parents of players denying their sons’ role in Doherty’s dismissal, and one from Doherty saying the same.

    Another column by Caulton Tudor on April 3 titled “Tough road ahead for Doherty” referred to the coaching change as a “successful mutiny” and said Doherty had been “abandoned by his team.”

    The more likely reason it’s hard to trace the origin of the exact words when looking at print archives is that the term lived in TV and talk radio circles, as Barry Saunders referenced in an April 4 column titled “Who got Doherty? Doherty.” Saunders wrote: “What's disturbing is how easily the word ‘inmates’ -- as well as the opprobrious term ‘coachkiller’ -- falls off the tongue of so-called experts on television and those jock-sniffers who burn up the lines on radio call-in shows."

    Of course, the impetus for the criticism itself came from two separate events that blended together. First, the post-season meetings between players and director of athletics Dick Baddour to discuss the state of North Carolina basketball and their happiness in the program.


    Jawad Williams: “Myself and Melvin, we had our meeting together because we were always together. They told us to come and meet with Dick Baddour. He asked us what we thought about Coach Doherty. We gave our little spiel about him and our meeting ended with, ‘It doesn't matter who’s here. We’re here to play basketball. I don't care.’ I never had any issues with Coach Doherty personally. It didn't matter who was going to be the coach. We didn't make the decisions. So it was unfair of us to catch the blame for it.”

    Damion Grant: “What needed to be taken into account was we had just played in the postseason NIT and were extremely disappointed with where we ended up. There was a lot of frustration, not necessarily at Coach Doherty but just at ourselves as players. We wanted to keep that in mind but I know there were guys that were unhappy, whether it was with their individual performance or the results of the season. There was just the overall unhappiness. It’s to be expected after a disappointing season. … Nobody really judges Coach Williams for the Bonnie Bernstein interview anymore, but we were asked about Coach Doherty right after the season ends and we were judged on all that. We are all passionate. It’s the same thing. … The one thing I can say about Coach Doherty is he’d yell and scream in practice and it’d be a difficult practice but at the end of the day I could always sit in his office and have a conversation. He’d be very inviting and accepting and give me constructive feedback. That’s one thing I respected most about him. I wasn’t the most heralded player on the team, but he didn’t make me feel that way. He made me feel just as important as everybody else.”

    Sean May: “For me, it was a little unique because I only played 10 games that year. So I always told them, I was the ultimate fan with a backstage pass because I was in every meeting but I wasn’t a part of every meeting because I wasn’t playing. It was tough because you have these 17- or 18-year-old young men who are figuring out life on their own as well and you’re having them make and shape decisions about other people’s lives. That's a unique and tough position to be in.”

    Steve Kirschner: “I’ve always been very sensitive to that accusation (that the players got Doherty fired). I think it’s completely unfair. The players didn’t go to Dick Baddour and demand to be heard about their feelings about playing for Coach Doherty. Dick Baddour went to the players and said, ‘Guys I want to know what’s going on with the team. I want you to tell me about what’s going on playing here right now.’ It was not the other way around. And when he talked to the players, he felt like he needed to make a change with the program. It wasn’t right that the players took the heat.”

    The second event was the players’ attire during the press conference when Doherty announced his resignation, which included baggy jeans, boots and athletic wear. Kirschner explains what happened.

    Steve Kirschner: “We didn't give them a whole lot of time or notice about the press conference. Most of the guys didn't think they were coming to a press conference and didn't have time to go home and change. The reality of it is, I just got really busy. Normally, I would’ve been downstairs and I would’ve recognized, ‘hey you guys are just wearing normal college kid stuff: jeans and flannel shirts and t-shirts’ and I would've been downstairs to say ‘we’re going out to a major press conference, you guys need to throw team sweats on or you need to go get a coat and tie.’ But I wasn’t downstairs, I was upstairs shuttling back and forth between Coach Doherty’s office and Mr. Baddour’s office. I was helping Matt with his statement. Dick Baddour had statements and we were working on a Q&A before the press conference ... I didn't see the players until literally James Moeser, Dick Baddour and I walked out from the tunnel to go to the table where the mics were set up and I looked over and saw the six, eight, 10 players that were there. I saw the way they were dressed and said to myself, ‘Uh-oh. This is going to be a problem.’ But that’s on me. I should’ve been more organized. I should've told somebody to make sure the players were dressed appropriately. It was one of those details. I see it as one of those fog of war things. It just happened. It was bad and what I really felt bad about was, it was not the inmates running the asylum.”

    Eric Hoots: “It’s one of those things as a college student where you’re like, ‘I feel I should probably go, I didn't have time to go change my clothes, so I just wore what I wore to class.’ … I wouldn't even call it a mistake, it was just a situation you are put in and you don't necessarily think it all the way through and how it could be perceived … It can be hurtful especially as a college kid. When you’re like, ‘I don't want to be held responsible for someone losing their job or families being displaced.’“

    Damion Grant: “I remember exactly what I was wearing. I was wearing a New York Yankees hat, a throwback Black Yankees jersey. I know Rashad (McCants) was sitting to the left of me and he was wearing this Raptors warm up. Jackie was sitting behind me. Damien Price, Melvin. That’s what we wore to class. We just got out of class. … We heard (he was resigning) the same time as everybody else. We’re like ‘what?’ … I was confused about what was going on. ‘Did he get fired?’ Because the way it was announced in the press conference they said he resigned. And I’m like, ‘no way Coach Doherty resigned. I just talked to him. He loved his job. What do you mean he resigned?’”

    Jackie Manuel: “It wasn’t like ‘hey, 2 o’clock we’re going to have a press conference come dressed for whatever.’ We were in class, we get a text saying we’re having a meeting at such and such time, come straight to this meeting. I don’t know how many guys would have time to go from class to the dorm to dress up. It was an image being portrayed about us that wasn’t true. We didn’t have one, ‘thug’ on our team. We felt a certain kind of way. We did. And, it was just like, ‘Wow, how can you say that when we were just coming from class? Like, man, okay this is how people really feel?’”

    Jawad Williams: “It bothered me a lot. You talk to Steve Kirschner and there were a couple interviews I had that had some profanity in them. I had to get my point across though. There was a point to get across. They were taking shots at myself and my teammates. … We were told we had to be somewhere, so we got there and for somebody to tell us ‘oh they dressed like’—and I don't know if this was used but—let’s say they said we dressed like thugs or look like the way they were dressed—the inmates running the asylum. That was just unfair criticism. You have no idea where we come from, to make those kinds of assumptions.”

    Steve Kirschner: “I also thought it was very racist. The picture of the players, one of the pictures, there were probably five or six black players and one with a (headband) on and earrings in their ears and they were dressed like college kids. I absolutely, 100 percent will go to my grave thinking that there was a little bit of racism involved there with some of the people (saying) they looked like thugs, they looked like the inmates running the asylum and all that. That was a bunch of crap. That’s just not fair to those players and I just don’t think that was right.”

    BACK IN KANSAS
    “This is personal, fellas. There is something I want to say. This has been a special place. I really appreciate the way you have treated me.” — Roy Williams in Lawrence, Kansas, early in the day, April 14, 2003

    “I gave my right arm for him, literally.” — Wayne Simien, wearing a sling, April 14, 2003

    “It’s sad for the program and the players who are here. It’s tough for them.” – Jeff Boschee, April 14, 2003

    C.B. McGrath: “I stayed in Kansas for a couple weeks to be there for the current team and transition, to talk to them if they had any questions. We recruited a lot of those guys and worked with a lot of those guys. Coach Williams obviously had to get to North Carolina and start working and recruiting and meeting all the guys he was going to coach. Coach Holladay and Coach Robinson, I believe, were with him from Day 1. Jerod and I came out, maybe a week later and looked it over and looked for a place to live and then came back and packed up stuff.

    “(The Kansas players) were upset, obviously. I was just there to be a friend and listen and give my side of the story or my two cents. I wouldn’t say it was damage control but it’s similar. They were going to get a really good coach obviously. Places like Kansas and North Carolina, Duke and Kentucky (do). Coach Self came in there and has done a great job. I think before I left, I even met with him to just tell him a couple things I thought were important to the current guys. How Coach treated them and what was always important to the program and to them and to me as a former player.

    “People were hurt (in Lawrence) because everybody loved Coach Williams out there. It’s different. Kansas fans are loyal to the program and some speak their minds, some do it different ways. There were a lot of people who would say something to me and ask what I was going to do, ‘Aren’t you going to stay at Kansas?’ ‘Not really, I’m going to go work for Coach Williams.’ ‘Why would you do that?’ ‘Well, because that’s where my job is’. I didn’t have a job at Kansas.

    “The first time Coach met with me, he said ‘if I do go, I’d like you to go.’ I said, ‘Coach I’m not a North Carolina grad. I’m not a former player. Don’t feel like you need to take me. I will figure out life without you.’ He said, ‘No, no, this will be great for you and I fully intend to bring you.’ I didn’t want him to feel pressure. That’s the last thing he needs.”

    DAY TWO: FIRST PRACTICE
    From the end of the 2003 season—a 79-74 loss to Georgetown in the NIT on March 26—to Roy Williams’s hiring on April 14, North Carolina basketball was essentially out of session. Players worked out on their own and played pickup but were without a coach for three weeks. They got rusty, and it showed during the first 28-minute workout on April 15.

    “My second day back at North Carolina, I wanted to watch the players work out for a few minutes, just to see what I had. I brought them in to do a little run-and-shoot workout. It lasted 28 minutes. That’s all it was. Two guys threw up. I mean they were pathetic. … I was thinking, ‘What in the world have I gotten myself into?’” -- Roy Williams (“Hard Work”)

    Jawad Williams: “That was a 28-minute workout, 30 minutes of hell. We knew things were changing right there. In that practice, we knew for sure everything was changing. First of all, you walk in nervous. Someone tells you you have a 30-minute workout, you know it’s not going to be just a walkthrough type thing. It was real. I remember being very tired that day. There was a lot of nervous energy, because you still want to showcase to the new coach what you can do.”

    Damion Grant: “(The workout) was a drill where we threw the ball off the backboard, got the rebound and did the outlet pass. Then we sprinted to the other end, got fed the ball, took a shot, got the rebound, threw it off the backboard, rebounded, threw the outlet pass, and did it again. It was essentially that for a full 28 minutes. … There was a level of intensity there I know we didn’t have for that month. Guys were still playing pickup ball. That was just in our nature. We were extremely competitive and wanted to get better so we were still playing pickup, but it wasn’t an intense workout like that was.”

    Sean May: “Guys were like throwing up in trash cans. Dead on the ground. They were just exhausted. It was the intensity of the way he works. Not a lot of wasted time. Not a lot of wasted movement. That was the extent of the workout, it was 23, 24 minutes hard. And that kind of set the tone for what we could expect. … Funny thing was I’m not even sure Roy was a part of it. I think the assistant coaches ran it. That kind of threw us even more for a loop that these guys are going this hard.”

    Jackie Manuel: “We were honestly excited because we were like ‘okay, we’ve got a coach. And we’ve got a really good coach.’ We were still unsure how everything was going to work out, but it was great because when Coach got there, he gave us direction right away. ‘It’s going to be like this. This is how hard we’re going to work.’”

    C.B. McGrath: “I wasn’t there but i heard about it. It wasn’t anything where coach tried to kill them, they just weren’t in very good shape. They hadn’t done anything and all of a sudden they go through a 30-minute workout and no matter what you’re doing, if you run around for 30 minutes and you haven’t done it for a couple weeks, you’re going to get pretty tired. But I think they realized then this was going to be different.”

    Damion Grant: “I played my whole freshman season with a torn meniscus. So, at the end of the season, I stopped playing to get ready for surgery. ... I hadn’t been doing any conditioning. ... I was a little skeptical. I’m not sure how to phrase this but I’ll just say it. I remember reading in his book how out of shape we were and I remember he mentioned me specifically. He said I was so out of shape that I got a rebound and I threw it like 10 feet over the guy’s head and then the next time I was standing like 10 feet away from the backboard and I threw it and missed the backboard completely. What was going through my head at that time was, ‘man, I’m in a lot of pain. I don’t really want to be doing this.’ I was so frustrated doing those run and shoot drills, I intentionally threw the ball against the wall by missing the whole backboard. I intentionally did that because I was so frustrated because I was in a lot of pain. I had my surgery in four days. I’d already played the whole season. Coach (Doherty) got fired. I’m confused about what’s happening. … There was just a lot of frustration there on my part when it came to that piece of it. I can’t say throughout the whole transition I handled it very well. I wanted to put my best foot forward and show (Coach Williams) ‘hey, I’m willing to work’ but at the same time I already played a whole season. I felt like I’d sacrificed for my team with playing injured all season with a torn meniscus and getting ready to have surgery but then having to prove myself again to some coach I don’t really know and he doesn’t really know me. So that was frustrating.”

    Jackie Manuel: “We were like, ‘crap. Coach is about to kick our butts this fall.’ It was such a high level, high intensity deal. It was honestly, ‘can we do this?’ … I think we played with effort under Coach Doherty. I don't think we ever played with a lack of effort. It was just a higher level of intensity.”

    LIFE AT THE HAMPTON INN
    With Kansas firmly behind them, the new staff hit the road to recruit and adjusted to life in Chapel Hill.

    C.B. McGrath: “I remember meeting Eric Hoots. He was the head manager. Jerod (Haase) and I landed and we spent the whole day with him. He would try to explain things to us but the trees were just so big we couldn’t see everything. It just seemed really confusing. My first month on the job, every door (in the Smith Center) had a different code and I feel like I was taking off my shoes and putting them in the door so they wouldn’t lock behind me and I wouldn’t get stuck. There was no cell service in the Smith Center back then. It was sort of scary because it’s a maze.”

    Eric Hoots: “I’d been in Chapel Hill for four years and I’d been a manager all four years. I had really good relationships with our team and the players but I also had good relationships with the people in the office and knew everything around the town of Chapel Hill. So when C.B. McGrath and Jerod Haase flew in for the day, I showed them around campus. When I picked them up, I was in one of the dealer cars from one of the former assistants. It was in the parking lot and they let me drive it for the tour because I had a terrible Honda as a college student. I didn’t have any gas in the dealer car. So the first thing I did was go get gas and Jerod Haase jumped out of the car and said ‘Here I’ll pump it’ and ‘I said no, Coach Haase, please I’ll do it.’ I’m so nervous and Jerod is pumping the gas and I forgot to turn the car off. Midway through I’m like ‘Oh no, Coach McGrath I forgot to turn off the car’ and C.B. just starts dying laughing. Right then I realized ‘these guys are terrific. I can’t wait to get to know them.’ I got a lot from that moment. 1) how well they knew each other 2) how well they work together and like each other. I immediately felt that when they came, their staff was a unit and they worked together as a team.

    “So I gave them that tour and Coach (Steve) Robinson and Coach (Joe) Holladay came and I did the same for them. The tours were very thorough. I remember the four of them wanted to know where the guys lived, what the meal plans were, where the closest cafeteria was, how long it took them to walk to class, was there a bus, was the bus system free, where were all their classes, what was the format and layout of when the classes were, did they have time to get there between classes. Coach Holladay, especially, was very thorough. They were going to go into people’s homes and sell the University of North Carolina. So they had to have the answers to all these questions. It was not basic touring you’d get from Jackson Hall, it was—as a student at the University of North Carolina, what has your experience been? What are things I need to know, so I can tell these families and recruits? … That whole spring and summer I wanted to work as hard as I could. I never wanted the answer to be ‘no.’ ‘Eric can you…’ ‘Yes.’ Before they even finished the question, I would say yes and figure it out. … I was still a student but I was always in the office when they came back (from recruiting trips), helping them get gear, making sure they had polo shirts and stuff like that.”

    C.B. McGrath: “It was just a blur. I was working on trying to hire coaches for basketball camp and get facilities organized. A bunch of people were stopping by to say hello and introduce themselves. Every day we were living in hotels (until we found houses)—Hampton Inn and Suites on Farrington Road right off 54—so every day seemed the same. It was just busy, busy from the time you woke up until you went to bed in your hotel room. … None of us had family there. None of us had friends there. My wife was still in grad school—she didn’t come until July.”

    ‘FROM THE FIRST CONVERSATION WE HAD, I WAS IN’
    [​IMG]
    Jawad Williams, Melvin Scott, Sean May applaud during Roy Williams's introductory press conference.

    In the opening weeks of Roy Williams’s tenure, the players and the coaching staff felt each other out. Williams had meetings with players to discuss their role in the coming year, with external perceptions in mind.

    “The next day (after the press conference) I met with the team individually and as a group and I told them I was going to help them win. I said, ‘I expect you to play unbelievably hard. I expect you to sacrifice and in the end you will be rewarded for those sacrifices. You will never work harder than I work, and you will never care more than I care, but I will ask you to come awfully close. This is the plan. You do what I tell you to do and we will make the NCAA Tournament this year. Then I’ll get you a little help and next year we’ll have a chance to win the whole blessed thing.’ Some of the kids looked at me like I was crazy, some were skeptical, and some bought into it a little bit more.” -- Roy Williams (“Hard Work”)

    Jawad Williams: “Coach Williams put his foot down right away. Some of the perceptions about us were true, a lot of them were not. But he came in and put his foot down and forced us to work together as a team and put aside what we wanted to accomplish as individuals … We were pretty selfish as individuals. We all came in with high ratings and things like that and everybody had goals of coming and going. Stepping foot on campus for a year and going on to the NBA. We had to put some things on the back burner and do what was right for the team. Eventually we bought into doing what was right with the hopes of if we win, everybody will be taken care of and it worked out in the long run.”

    Damion Grant: “From his first second on the job, the expectations were clear. You were going to run your ass off and you were going to play hard. That was it. … When Coach Williams came in, we learned about 33s, where you go down and back the full length of the court three times in 33 seconds. We had to do 12 of those as part of our preseason conditioning test. It might sound easy but it’s really not. After about the ninth 33, the rest is just mental to get through it. That was probably the toughest thing mentally. Getting through that definitely help set the tone for the season. That showed us we were able to accomplish anything.”

    C.B. McGrath: “We’re coming in and we’re different people, and not the ones who recruited them. So they had to adjust to a few things but they did a nice job. They all believed in what we were talking about and tried their best. It was an adjustment for them but they didn’t necessarily mind. Some adjusted quicker than others but I don’t feel like it was ever a ‘fight.’ They didn’t win a lot of games and they wanted to win. They came from successful high school basketball programs and had always been successful. Coach Williams had always been successful and had that track record.”

    Jackie Manuel: “The structure was the same. It was more of the mentality, the mindset that was different. Coach Williams had a mindset of, ‘I’ve been there before. I’ve been doing this a long time. I know exactly what we need to do.’ There was no second guessing any of it. That was the biggest thing: regardless of whether we liked it or not, this is what we’re doing. We’re staying on this straight path, and that’s it.”

    Jawad Williams: “I’m a very private person. It's hard for me to open up to new people, so I didn't have much contact with them outside of the basketball court. It took a while for me to warmup to them. It took a while for me to get comfortable with those guys. ... (About a month in) I had a conversation with Coach Holladay and he explained why they didn't recruit me. He said they didn’t feel like they had a chance, so they didn't want to waste my time or theirs. It was understood. They were right (laughs).”

    Sean May: “There was an immediate respect and buy-in before he ever said a word. Here’s a guy who’s arguably a hall of fame coach before he ever came and had all this success. We all knew that so there was a lot of buy in early and he did a great job of coming in and laying down the foundation of what he expected and how he expected us to operate. We tried to piggyback off that and build every day.”

    Jawad Williams: “I think the person who sacrificed the most was Jackie. Because the Jackie Manuel that a lot of people saw in college wasn’t the same Jackie Manuel I’ve known from high school. Jackie has always been a scorer, slasher, shooter— I’ve witnessed it— and he completely changed his game for the team. ... I’ve known Jackie since our sophomore year of high school and he was a completely different player in college. He was put into a role and he played his role great and it made us better.”

    C.B. McGrath: “Jackie Manuel bought in quicker than anybody else. Coach was hard on Jackie when he first met with him. Coach never coached any of these kids but you do have a stat sheet to look at and Jackie bought in and was a great role model.”

    Sean May: “The response Jackie was getting from the staff I think changed a lot of us. Jackie gives the effort. Jackie takes the charges. Jackie is always where he's supposed to be. Jackie doesn’t turn over the ball. He changed the amount of threes and his role, so all of us would start to buy in a little bit more. Jackie just immersed himself in ‘I'm going to do exactly what you tell me to do and how you want me to do it.’”

    Jackie Manuel: “From the first conversation we had, I was in: ‘Coach, whatever you want me to do.’ He told me the deal and I was like okay. I don't know what other guys were thinking, I can’t speak for them. But for me, I didn't want to be perceived as a bad guy because that’s not who I am. I think I kind of caught that wrap coming out of the meetings with Dick Baddour. I'm the first one walking out and the ESPN cameras are there and I see my face and I’m taking the blame for what’s going down. And I’m like, ‘wow, me? I’ve got that much power?’ So, when Coach Williams came in, I knew if I gave him a hard time, people are going to say, ‘you know what? He is a bad kid, because it’s not Coach Doherty. They have a different coach. He’s giving Coach Williams a hard time, too, he’s a bad kid.’ And that just wasn’t true. That wasn’t the way I was raised. My parents raised me to respect everyone, treat everyone how I wanted to be treated.”

    Jawad Williams: “When Coach Doherty resigned, the blame fell on Coach Doherty. If Coach Doherty is gone, we’re left. So then it turns into, (if we fail) we’re the issue. Not saying Coach Doherty deserved the blame he received, it was an accumulation of a lot of different things. But, yeah, we all knew if things didn’t go right, we knew who would get the blame.”

    REFLECTING ON DOHERTY
    [​IMG]
    Matt Doherty, Raymond Felton

    “The previous two seasons at UNC had been difficult ones. Things had gotten very personal with some of the players’ families against the coach. Matt Doherty is a good coach and a good person, but it was not a good mix at that time.” -- Roy Williams (“Hard Work”)

    Jackie Manuel: “It was a fresh start for everybody, for the university itself. Everybody around there, the players. This is no disrespect to Coach Doherty at all. Everybody just needed to hit the restart button. I think Coach Doherty needed it as well. He needed to hit the restart button and take a step back and say, what happened? As a coach, what happened? How can I get better? As a player, what happened, how can I get better? As a university, what happened? How can we be better?”

    Sean May: “I tell people all the time, he did a phenomenal job of they went (to) No. 1 in the country … two years before I got there and I enjoyed playing for him. He's a great coach, Xs and Os, it just didn’t work. It could be fit. It could be buy in. It could be whatever. I don’t know why it didn’t work, but it didn’t.”

    Jackie Manuel: “(Coach Doherty and I) talk. We talk, and I enjoy those conversations. Every time I see him, I’m trying to pick his brain because now I have perspective. I know a lot of people say, ‘If I knew what I know now,’ but I have perspective and I understand what Coach Doherty was trying to do. Building a program at that level, and the pressure and the stress and the expectations, coming here and the first year being coach of the year. I understand what he was going through. Perspective gives you a better appreciation. Now, you look back and you say, ‘I could’ve been helpful in that situation with better understanding.’ But obviously you can’t do that. So I try to use that wisdom to better myself. Him and I have had a conversation where I apologized. I was like ‘Coach, I made things difficult for you.’ By no means was I a bad kid—it’s just dealing with a young kid who thinks he’s better than he is and has an ego. The thing about athletics is, what makes you good is your ego and your belief in yourself. But what can ruin all that is your ego, your belief in yourself. So, it’s a catch 22 and I think all of us had big egos and felt we were good. It was just a humbling experience, a humbling lesson for everybody.”

    Sean May: “It was never personal for any of us. Over the years we’ve gotten to talk to Coach Doherty a lot, to Coach (Fred) Quartlebaum and Doug (Doug) Wojcik and Bob MacKinnon and some of the other coaches. It's tough because even as 18-year-old kids we feel like we had an impact on something that shaped their lives. That’s hard. Whenever I saw them, I wanted to make sure they knew it was tough and how sorry we were but hopefully the relationship can continue and it has and it’s been great ever since.”

    Damion Grant: “I only played for Coach Doherty for one year but he had a huge impact on my life overall. When he recruited me, I already made a verbal commitment and he flew down to Jamaica to meet my parents to tell them about where I’d be going to school and that I’d be in good hands. When I got to UNC, I’d only played a year and a half of organized basketball. I was still new to the game and he took the time to teach me the game, not assuming I knew what Sean or Byron (Sanders) did. He had a lot of patience while still not taking it easy on me. There was one time in practice, we were doing five-on-five drills. Sean was a load to handle. Everybody knows that. I kept boxing him out and the other team kept getting the rebound. Coach stopped practice, ‘Damion, when Raymond shoots the ball on the left wing, chances are it’s going to come off on the right wing. Don’t just box Sean out, but box him out and go get the ball.’ It was just one simple thing and the next play, that’s exactly what I did. Raymond shot the ball, I boxed Sean out and as soon as I boxed him out, I released him and got the rebound. Coach stopped practice and he was like, ‘Yeah that’s what I’m talking about Deebo! That’s what I’m talking about!’ And we were all celebrating. We were so excited and for the rest of practice, man, I felt like I was the best player on the court. I busted my ass. I really worked hard and I thanked him for that. I thanked him for really believing in me when a lot of people didn’t.”

    REBUILDING THE SUMMER
    [​IMG]
    Antawn Jamison playing in an alumni game at the Smith Center.

    C.B. McGrath: “One thing Coach really wanted to do was get the former players back (over the summer) because he wanted to bridge that gap. There had been not as many coming back the previous few years. He thought there were so many guys in the pros that it could be great if they could spend a few hours playing pickup. Teach them what they’re learning because we (weren’t allowed to do) much with them. That was huge, to try to get all the former players back—Antawn Jamison, Shammond Williams, that generation—in the summertime.

    “Coach Smith was doing well and he was active and he was around the Smith Center. That helped with any relationships that Coach needed to mend because he did turn the job down the first time. Some people with North Carolina ties were upset about that. So there were all sorts of relationships he had to build back. Coach Smith being healthy and proactive, it helped.”

    Jawad Williams: “We had the camp counselor game which was the former players vs. the current players. That was another turning moment for us. We were playing against the former guys, Antawn Jamison was still in the league, he was a max contract guy, and there was a loose ball that pretty much would have won the game for us. Antawn dives on that loose ball. Word gets back to Coach Williams that Antawn dove on that loose ball and we end up losing the game. We didn't lose to some scrubs. We lost to NBA caliber players. But it was that loose ball. Antawn dove on it and we end up losing and we had a meeting for losing a pickup game. Right there we knew how serious it was. It made us realize we needed to tighten up.”

    NO MORE DRAMA
    [​IMG]
    Roy Williams with the sophomores at 2003 Media Day.

    Steve Kirschner: “From my standpoint the biggest difference I felt was there would be a little more stability and a little bit less drama around the program. What I mean by that is in 2002-03, there was so much drama around the program. We beat Kansas in the preseason NIT, then we lose to Illinois by 26 points. Sean breaks his foot in New York and we lose to Iona, and behind the scenes that whole trip to New York was a nightmare. We beat UConn when they were No. 1 in the country and that day there’s an article about Raymond Felton transferring. We beat Maryland in the ACC Tournament two weeks or so after they beat us by 40 points up at Maryland and there’s an interview that night on WRAL with a parent of a player doing one of those anonymous, behind the screen, you can’t recognize who it is, interviews about how much the players don't like playing for Coach Doherty, how there has to be a change. We beat Duke in the last regular season game at the Smith Center and that day there’s a huge article in Dave Glenn’s ACC Sports Journal about the whole disarray of the program. It seemed like every time something good happened, the other shoe dropped. So my feeling with Coach Williams in April, May, June, July—the drama stopped. There was just stability. There wasn’t the ongoing rampant speculation about Matt’s future, which players were transferring or all that crap. Things settled down and we got back to running a basketball program.”

    Jackie Manuel: “People are always going to question you, and don’t get me wrong—Coach Doherty was a great coach and great recruiter. It’s just when you have experience in certain things, you know how to handle it. You know how to deal with it when you’ve already experienced it and Coach Williams being in college basketball for whatever it was, 20 years, he just had an understanding. People are going to question you, it’s just a matter of when. For Coach Doherty, it’s probably a little quicker than Coach Williams. It’s like when you have a track record of winning and Final Fours and national championship games, they tend to not question you so quickly because, ‘maybe he knows what he’s talking about.’ When you don’t have that, as soon as you make a decision, good or bad or whatever, somebody is going to question you.”

    Sean May: “We knew we had a great coach (in Williams). His first year we lost a game at Kentucky and in the locker room, he had so much emotion: ‘You can take away my houses, cars, whatever, take all my money’—anything except his kids and Wanda you can have everything else. He just wanted to compete. That still sticks in my head today. How important it was and how much the game meant to him. Literally, we were riding the bus home and we were like ‘man, we’ve got to give more. If this s--tmeans that much to him, we’ve got to give more.’”

    ‘THIS IS THE GUY WE WANT TO FIGURE IT OUT’
    [​IMG]
    Roy Williams talks to players on the bench during the 2005 NCAA Tournament.

    Steve Kirschner: “That group that won in ’05, they hadn’t done anything. You look at the three previous seasons, ’02—losing record no postseason, ’03—NIT, ‘04—second round of the NCAA Tournament as a six seed. Then all of a sudden in ’05 you win a national championship? … The years we don't win the national championship, the speech in the locker room after the season-ending game, Coach Williams always gives assistant coaches an opportunity to say something after he does. Sometimes they do and in most cases, most of them don’t. But Coach Robinson did in 2004 and I remember in Denver, he really let them have it. We were supposed to open the door after 10 minutes and I think I had to bribe the guard, send him a sweatshirt, to let us keep the door shut a couple extra minutes because Coach Rob was laying down the law, ‘You guys have to do what we tell you to do. We’ve been very successful. We were very successful at Kansas. Coach Williams has been very successful, and you say you want to win, but you don't do what we tell you to do.’

    “That’s why I say, I don't think it happened in that first year. I really don’t. They had to figure out that he knew what he was doing and you have to listen to him. If you play the way he tells you, you’ll win. I really believe it happened between that Saturday practice in Maui (in 2004-05) and the three games—it was BYU, Tennessee, Iowa. I think in those five days is when the Roy Williams era really took hold.”

    Damion Grant: “When things started really feeling normal was in Hawaii in the Maui Invitational, his second year. Everyone came back to school, we’d busted our butts that summer. Sean had lost a bunch of weight. I had lost a bunch of weight. Guys were just fit. After we lost our first game to Santa Clara, we were running through teams, it was no competition. That’s when I felt we really started being the team we should be. We were a very close knit team. I thank Coach Williams for that, for pushing us and helping create that.”

    Jawad Williams: “We really turned the corner and knew we were going to win after my junior year. That's when we lost in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. We hadn’t seen the tournament before. And after making it and losing in the second round to Texas, at that point we knew we’d made that turn and now it was time to just get it done. We knew what it took to get there, and now we knew what it’d take to win it.”

    Jackie Manuel: “That second year we knew exactly what he wanted—his expectations, our expectations. We were a year older, more mature, a bunch of juniors, three seniors and we only had one thing in mind, one common goal, and that was winning a national championship. That’s what changed the whole thing. Coach Williams was trying to ingrain that, ingrain that, ingrain that for a full year and it finally sunk in. The reality of the situation was, this was going to be the last time we played together. I think it started coming together, once we lost to Texas, everybody took a week or two off, then from that point, it was like ‘this is it. You’re either in or you’re not.’ Just us holding each other accountable. It was set from that point on. … We didn’t know how to win. That was the great thing Coach Williams brought in was that mentality and confidence and learning how to win. Once we went through that year, we figured that out.”

    C.B. McGrath:
    “Coach Williams was going to be successful no matter where he was. Now, in terms of three national championships in 14 years? I would’ve never guessed that. You don’t take jobs thinking it’s going to be easier to win national championships there. He just wanted to revitalize the North Carolina program because it meant so much to him and to people and to players over the years. He gave everything he had to Kansas for 15 years and built the program that Coach Smith built at North Carolina, for the most part, in different ways. Like I said, they’re different people. But he built the program he wanted to build. It took him 15 years to do that at Kansas and I think it didn’t take as long at North Carolina.

    “(Fans) were excited because they felt comfortable again. His track record speaks for itself: 15 very successful years at Kansas, went to four Final Fours and won a lot of conference championships—very successful teams and fun teams to watch and all the things they equate with Coach Smith and Tar Heel basketball. They could see similarities in Kansas, so I think that made people excited and feel comfortable again. Like, 'okay it may take a year or two but this is going to be what we remember with Coach Smith with the success and the seniors and the moments you look forward to. Not necessarily just the winning, it’s all the things the program stands for. He’s going to figure it out. This is the guy we want to figure it out.'”
     
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  19. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    jeez that took a long time to format to look halfway presentable
     
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  20. momux

    momux AFAM Scholar
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    Thanks man. Just read through it all.
     
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  21. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    a luxury apt at morehead was my biggest take away
     
  22. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    had forgotten about all the clothing nonsense, can't believe how long ago that was now
     
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  23. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    illustrated by how wildly out of fashion those clothes look now lol
     
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  24. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    Super secret Nova scrimmage today :badger:

    Also football, I suppose :drunk:
     
  25. John Wilkes Truth

    John Wilkes Truth You think a pirate lives in there?
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    big ups, big ups
     
  26. Born Again Lefty

    Born Again Lefty Respect The Pouch
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    Going to the game today. Need me to yell anything at Fedora and his massive arms?
     
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  27. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    just enjoy the comedy
     
  28. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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  29. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    what a drive
     
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  30. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    THE ROUT IS ON

    ARW skirted that nerd so damn hard
     
  31. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    really impressed by how patrice has looked recently.
     
  32. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    geez he would've walked in with a better throw

    hey we held nice
     
  33. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    this defense is gonna get roasted in the 2nd half the way they're running the ball
     
  34. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    only a matter of time before noodle arm throws a pick
     
  35. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    He's had some really nice timing on some of these throws though, receivers making plays for him too
     
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  36. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    can't run for shit though
     
  37. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    he’s been brutal on the read option
     
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  38. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    Makes the wrong read again
     
  39. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    holy shit at that punt

    haha and the hold, wow
     
  40. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    I love when we have these random drives of 3 passes to the flats, always seems to work
     
  41. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    awesome punt lent
     
  42. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    Don't think I've ever seen a punt fly that far up the stands
     
  43. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    elliot is so goddamn bad
     
  44. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    another completely listless performance from offensive guru larry fedora
     
  45. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    well that was easy, Dazz with the ball in his hands is probably my favorite thing about this team
     
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  46. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    i wish we’d just go full ncaa cheese and put arw at qb and let him and dazz run around
     
  47. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    jesus Beau just heave that damn thing, looked like he was competing in the shot put with that crap
     
  48. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    DAZZZZZ
     
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  49. Shiggityshwo

    Shiggityshwo Well-Known Member
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    oh man the Dazz swoon's hitting hard
     
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  50. Tobias

    Tobias dan “the man qb1” jones fan account
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    can’t believe toe held back on that block
     
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