UNC Basketball: Roy Williams hopes to coach another 10-12 years
North Carolina head coach not planning to retire any time soon
The North Carolina Tar Heels are fresh off of their third national championship in the past 13 seasons, causing many to wonder if head coach Roy Williams would consider moving up his retirement.
He’s said in recent interviews that he plans to coach for another five to nine years, assuming that his health holds up. His hope, he said, is to get the basketball program through all of the “junk”, as he often calls it, before the university hires his successor.
The junk that Williams is referring to are the allegations that the school and athletic department are facing and the subsequent NCAA investigation that has yet to come to a conclusion.
After winning his third national championship since 2005, though, Williams doesn’t appear to be slowing down. In fact, he seems to be gaining momentum at age 66, as he is set to begin his 30th season as a head coach.
On Friday night, Williams attended the NBA Draft Combine in Chicago to support his former players. It was there that the Hall-of-Fame coach told Adam Zagoria that he hoped to coach for another 10-12 years.
Fortunate, I’d say, for a program that has seen as much, or more, success during his tenure, than any other school in the nation.
Specifically, Zagoria asked Williams about his thoughts on former UNC great Jerry Stackhouse taking the program over at some point. That’s when Williams shared his ideal timetable for retirement.
“We’re very fortunate,” Williams said. “We’ve got a lot of our former players in coaching so it’s a pretty good coaching tree. So we’re going to have some good choices, I just hope that’s about 10 or 12 years from now.”
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Stick with Keeping It Heel for future updates on Williams, as well as his former players who have entered their names into the 2017 NBA Draft to take place in June.