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Roy Williams is perpetuating the Jayhawks basketball legend

COACH: Where did you go to high school and what did you play?

WILLIAMS: I went to T.C. Roberson High School just outside of Ashville, NC. I played baseball and basketball, and if they had had golf, I'd have played that too.

COACH: You played just one year of basketball at the U. North Carolina. Did it solidify your ambition to become a coach?

WILLIAMS: I knew I wanted to become a coach even before I got to North Carolina. My high school coach, Buddy Baldwin, was my biggest influence. He was really the first person to gibe me a lot of guidance. My mom and dad had split up when I was young and he became my role model. I had decided to become a coach the summer before my sophomore year.

COACH: How did your coaching career get started?

WILLIAMS: During the summers, even as a college student, I'd go back to Asheville and work basketball camps for my high school coach. I got a lot of great experience at an early age working with some terrific people. I learned about organization and it created the foundation for me down the road.

COACH: After coaching five years at the high school level, you returned to North Carolina as an assistant to Dean Smith. How did that come about?

WILLIAMS: I first met Coach Smith and his assistant, Bill Guthridge, when I tried out for the basketball team at North Carolina. They always knew I wanted to coach and it was a good situation for all of us.

After I became a high school coach, they'd invite me to return to Raleigh every summer and work at their basketball camp. The camps provided a great opportunity for me and I exhibited a lot of enthusiasm and learned as much as I could.

Around that time Coach Smith decided to take on a part-time assistant. Ironically, U.N.C. was probably the last major program to fill that position. Luckily for me, I was the guy they asked to come back.

COACH: How did Dean Smith impact your approach to coaching?

WILLIAMS: You don't have enough pages in your magazine to describe all the ways he impacted my coaching. Everything we do at Kansas is patterned after what I learned at North Carolina. From how we run the office every day, to the way we organize our practices to my relationship with the players, as well as all the recruiting responsibilities. It was a fabulous opportunity for me to learn from a coach who remained the best there was until the day he retired. I tried to take away as many things as I could from the N.C. program.

COACH: Did he give his assistants the flexibility to contribute to the program?

WILLIAMS: Coach Smith gave me a lot of responsibility, a lot of freedom to do some things and that was very satisfying. I think the one aspect of coaching that he did better than anyone each and every day was to prepare all the assistants to become head coaches. Coach Smith got us involved in every aspect of the program. It wasn't like you were just an academic guy or just a recruiter. You were involved in everything and I think that training made things much easier for me in my career.

COACH: After 10 seasons as an assistant at N.C., you became head coach at Kansas. Did you have any problems leaving N.C. and Dean Smith and taking over as head coach at a successful Division I program?

WILLIAMS: I had never been on the Kansas campus until the night they offered me the job as head coach. There were a lot of little things that you see as a head coach that you don't see as an assistant. But the biggest thing was the enormity of the tradition and the interest in the Kansas program that I was never able to see as an assistant at N.C.

The tradition at Kansas and the interest of the state in Kansas basketball are just overwhelming.

(Editorial note: James Naismith, the father of basketball, migrated to Kansas in 1899 to organize and coach the Jayhawks' first basketball team. The most influential coach in the early years of the game, Phog Allen, had played for Naismith and then came back to coach the team. He went on to coach Adolph Rupp and then Dean Smith. Kansas, in short, became the cradle of great coaches and great players.!

COACH: How heavily did the Dean Smith influence affect your coaching program at Kansas? For example, your teams are known for their scoring ability and high-percentage shooting. Could that be a reflection on your background?

WILLIAMS: We've always talked about North Carolina-type basketball, about trying to get the high-percentage shot all the time and pushing the basketball up the floor. Kids like to play that way and fans like to see their players work for the high-percentage shots. They appreciate teams that play very hard and unselfishly and wind up with the lay-up on the fast-break. Those are the kind of qualities I hope we always have at Kansas.

COACH: Your teams also play a swarming, tenacious, man-to-man defense. Is this something you have picked up in your career, or is it something you developed on your own?

WILLIAMS: I think it's a little of both. That's the type of defensive basketball I want to play and for which I specifically recruit. You try to recruit players than can do the kind of things you teach. I guess that if we ever get to the point where we aren't able to recruit those kind of players, we would change to zone defense. But so far, we've been able to get the kind of kids who can do it for us.

COACH: Your players are often as successful in the classroom as on the court. Do you consciously look for student-athletes or do you have a special academic support program?

WILLIAMS: We do look for the high quality student-athlete, but they were very difficult to come by in our first couple of years. Getting Jacque Vaughn was the breakthrough for us. He was our first really fantastic student-athlete, and he made things a lot easier for us. Whenever kids see a successful program and a place where players have been able to do it both academically and athletically, they want to become a part of it.

Jacque was a First Team Academic All-American two years in a row. Jerod Haase was a First Team Academic All-American in 1996-97. Remember, now, there were only five Academic All-Americans and we had two of them!

We had six seniors last year and all six graduated, and in 1995-96 we had three seniors and they all graduated. I believe those pieces of information get around and prove attractive to certain student-athletes.

COACH: How do you feel about the heavy infiltration of corporate America into our coaching programs?

WILLIAMS: It's enormous because of the amount of dollars that corporations can generate. But I try to stay out of the way and let the business people and the athletic director worry about that part of it. As a coach, I may not like it, but it has become an indigenous part of the coaching scene.

COACH: To what do you attribute your personal achievements and honors such as three National Coach of the Year awards, most victories for a coach in his first nine seasons, and six conference championships? Do you subscribe to any particular formula for success?

WILLIAMS: We've been very lucky. We've also had good kids and very good players. What it all boils down to at the collegiate level is recruiting and organization and finding players who understand that they will be working toward a common goal with their teammates.

Most of the kids we've recruited understand that the success of the team will take care of all their individual goals. Some kids buy into that kind of philosophy faster than others, and we try to look for kids who respond to the team concept.

COACH: As a coach and educator, do you find players leaving early for the pros one of the frustrations of your job?

WILLIAMS: Not really. I think everyone should be allowed to do what's best for his career and four years of college may not be necessarily for everyone. We've been fortunate in not having anyone leave early, but it's going to happen down the line.

Certainly I believe that everyone should stay for four years, get his degree, and have a great college experience. But that's my goal, not necessarily the players. They have the right to pick their own goals.

COACH: Do you believe the NCAA is doing enough to encourage athletes to prioritize their academics?

WILLIAMS: I think the cutback on practice time and the free days and things like that have been good moves. At our level, at the top level of college basketball, the demand on the players' time from the media and the public is incredible. It's a battle for your players every single second.