#397 Roy Williams, Hall of Fame NCAA Basketball Coach with North Carolina and Kansas: "You have to leave every player you ever coach with something that is still positive 30 years later"

Way of Champions Podcast

Roy Williams served as the men's head coach for the North Carolina Tar Heels for 18 seasons and the Kansas Jayhawks for 15 seasons. With a total of 903 wins, Williams took his teams to nine Final Fours in his careers at Kansas and North Carolina and won 3 NCAA Championships at UNC. Williams is the fifth NCAA Men's Division I head coach to reach 900 wins, and reached the mark in fewer games than any other head coach with 900+ wins. He is the only coach in NCAA history to have led two different programs to at least four Final Fours each, and the only basketball coach in NCAA history to have 400 or more victories at two NCAA Division I schools. He is also 14th all-time in the NCAA in win percentage among men's college basketball coaches. He was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006 and the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.

Williams started his college coaching career at North Carolina as an assistant coach for Dean Smith in 1978. Four years later, North Carolina won the national championship. After ten years as Smith's assistant, Williams became head coach at defending national champion Kansas, in 1988, taking them to 14 consecutive NCAA tournaments, four Final Four appearances, two national championship game appearances, collecting an .805 winning percentage, and winning nine conference titles.

In 2003, Williams left Kansas to return to his alma mater North Carolina, replacing Matt Doherty as head coach of the Tar Heels. In an 18-year period at North Carolina, Williams won three national championships, reached a total of five Final Fours, finished first in the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season standings nine times, won three ACC tournament championships, one AP National Coach of the Year award, and two ACC Coach of the Year awards.

Our conversation today is one of our best ever on this podcast, as Coach Williams discusses the most important mentors in his life, his philosophy of coaching and building relationships, and what comes across most is his authenticity, vulnerability, curiosity, and honesty in discussing his storied career. Get out a pen and paper for this one.

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