The last time Roy Williams left North Carolina, he was a virtually unknown assistant who was getting his first shot as a college head coach at tradition-rich Kansas.
Now Williams is retiring, leaving the Tar Heels again with a résumé chock-full of honors — as a Hall of Famer with more than 900 wins, three national championships and a legacy built on 33 seasons of success at two of college basketball’s most storied programs.
Williams has spent 18 seasons at UNC, going 485-163 while leading the Tar Heels to national titles in 2005, 2009 and 2017. He also coached Kansas for 15 seasons, taking it to four Final Four appearances before leaving for his alma mater.
Yet Williams described himself as a coach who was also bothered by losses and by his own mistakes over the past two difficult seasons, one marking the only losing record of his career and the other with a young group playing amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Tar Heels lost to Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAA tournament in his final game, his only first-round loss in 30 tournaments.