Roy Williams, the legendary head coach of the University of North Carolina Tar Heels basketball program, is calling it a career after 33 seasons. On Thursday, UNC announced that Williams would retire in a bit of news that is decidedly not an April Fool’s Day prank.
After 33 years as a Hall of Fame head coach, our beloved Tar Heel Roy Williams is announcing his retirement.
Thank you for all you have done and meant to everyone who plays and loves our game.
Release
: https://t.co/l6y5tRjB2I pic.twitter.com/FzTUmbx3v1
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) April 1, 2021
A three-time NCAA champion and a constant presence in the world of basketball over the years, Williams, a native of the Tar Heel State and a Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, won everything there is to win during his time as a coach.
Williams’ coaching career began with a high school job before he returned to his alma mater as an assistant in 1978 under the legendary Dean Smith. His first head coaching gig came at Kansas, where Williams brought the Jayhawks to multiple Final Four appearances and the kind of dominance you expect at a blue blood, but he was never able to bring a title to Lawrence. He returned to Chapel Hill in 2003, where he’s been the head coach ever since.
It was at North Carolina where Williams finally got over the championship hump. He won titles in 2005, 2009, and 2017, and coached some of the best to play the game in recent memory, with a number of Willams’ players earning All-American nods under his guidance. Williams accrued a 903-264 record in his head coaching career.