[piano intro] - Hello, I'm Nido Qubein.

Welcome to "Side by Side".

My guest today earned 903 wins and three national titles as one of the greatest coaches of all time.

And he did it all with humble confidence and with class.

We're talking competition, championships and a life of coaching with one of North Carolina's favorite sons, Coach Roy Williams.

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To friendly faces doing more than their part.

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[upbeat music] ♪ - Coach Roy Williams I am privileged and pleased to have you on "Side by Side".

I like many, many people have admired you for years, for your talent, for your skill, for your experience, for your humility, for your capacity to build teams, you made nine Kansas and North Carolina, nine final four appearances.

You won three National Championships at Carolina for the Tar Heels, you're respected by one and all.

48 years in coaching and you decided to retire.

[Ron chuckling] - Five years as a high school coach, 10 years as coach Dean Smith, his assistant, and he was the greatest.

And then 15 years as head coach at Kansas, 18 at North Carolina.

And I hope you still feel good after the show is over with.

[laughing] - I'm sure we will.

- [Roy] Okay.

- You have been so successful at recruiting.

How did you do that?

- I had good places to recruit to, University of Kansas in particular, University of North Carolina and what I tried to do was promote the university, promote our athletic department, promote my love for the University of North Carolina.

Promote my love for the University of north Carolina's basketball program and our history, the tradition we have, it was something that was easy to promote, easy to sell.

I usually use the word promote as opposed to sell and, but it was, it was my life.

The only thing I really cared about was my family and my basketball job at North Carolina, and if I got a chance to go tee it up with my buddies in the off season, then I had a full life and my family made a lot of concessions because I wasn't there a lot, but they bought into everything too.

And our son and our daughter both went to school at North Carolina and we have four grandchildren and they'll probably go to school at North Carolina also, because they'll be very intelligent and they'll know that as long as they go to North Carolina, they'll stay in my will.

[laughing] - That's a condition that that's a makes a lot of sense.

- Yeah, makes sense.

- I think they're gonna be persuaded.

Coach, what is it that you say to a family?

Because when you recruit a player, you're also talking to a family.

What is it that you say, do you say two or three things that you know, historically have worked repeatedly for you?

- I try to give 'em the history, the tradition but also try to make sure they feel like that their son can come to North Carolina, be very successful and I have to coach in two areas, I have to try to win games or I'm gonna be fired, there's no question about that, but I've also gotta help each one of those individual reach their own individual dreams and goals and for a young man who's considering North Carolina, has that goal of being an NBA player and all the fame and the fortune and all those kind of things, so we're about winning games as a team but we also have to make sure they understand that they can be successful individually and so you try to make a decision.

Who's the most important person?

Is it mom, is it dad, is it the young man?

And try to find out what appeals to them the most.

And today's times particularly the last 10 to 15 years that lure of being an NBA player is the biggest thing that they consider.

Yes, they want education and all those things but you've gotta make sure that they understand they can reach their individual dreams as well.

- You've never been fired.

- No, I stayed in front of the posse.

- Yeah.

- You know, there's-- - 48 Years, you've never been asked to leave a position.

- There was a guy one time that gave me a little cutout and it said "basketball coaches are the last "of the real cowboys, you're always on the run "and the posse's right around the corner".

[Nido laughing] So, but I did, I had great places to coach and they knew that I was all in.

And when I say all in, I mean all in and, but I've had wonderful athletic directors and chancellors, presidents that believed in the message that I was trying to send and what we were trying to do and how we were trying to do it.

- Your personality, your relational capital, your approach with human beings are all beyond reproach.

People feel your love and your genuine and authentic personhood but then you've got all these fans.

I mean, you, if Kansas and at Carolina, these are big bases of fans, they're vocal, they are passionate and occasionally there's some criticism of whether you made the right call at that last time out.

Whether we lost that game because of a miss somehow, how did you deal over the years with criticism?

- One way was probably cheating, 'cause I didn't listen to it.

I didn't stay on social media.

Never went on social media, sometimes even stopped reading the papers.

So I had my focus in Doc Allen, a famous coach at Kansas, one time said "if the mailman stopped to kick "at every dog that barked, "he'd never get the mail delivered".

- That's true, isn't it?

- So that's probably your position too, yeah.

- Yeah.

- But it was it, so I stayed away from those things and I was a confident person and I had people that I could run things by whether it was be Coach Smith or Eddie Fogler or some people in my background that I could talk to about and that made me stay confident in what we were trying to do and I believed in what we doing and if I believe in something nobody's gonna change my mind.

- You were assistant coach to Dean Smith.

What is the one thing you liked most about him?

- He was the greatest coach I have ever known but he was better off the court with the people than he was coaching.

And I've always tried to make sure that I understood that part of it too.

- What would be a great lesson you learned from him?

- The night before I left as an assistant at North Carolina to go to Kansas, he said, "just be yourself, "you're gonna be really successful.

"You don't have to be like me.

"You don't have to be like anybody just be yourself.

"You're the boss, be yourself."

And I started thinking about that and I said, I guess I'd better do that because that way I can defend, if I'm trying to copy somebody else, it's a bad situation.

But Coach Smith did mentor me and many, many others in so many different ways but that was the night before I left to go to Kansas and I've continued to try to be that the entire time.

- Well have great DNA from your own family and you have great roots having been born in the state of North Carolina, where were you born and how did you get into basketball?

- I was born in hospital in Marion, we actually lived in Spruce Pine up in the mountains, but Marion, North Carolina's where I was born and for me, I grew up in a somewhat tough environment.

My mom and dad split when I was very young.

It was a one parent household, basically my whole life from about nine years old on and my mother was a very intelligent, uneducated woman who quit school in the 10th grade.

My father quit school in the sixth grade and education was never talked about but my mother was always happy when I brought home good grades.

And so I liked that, but my teachers were really, really important to me and I guess they saw something in me or they just thought I was another young man they would like to help but my high school coach was the most important male in my life.

He was the first person to give me confidence and make me feel like I could do some things and that's the reason I decided I wanted to coach.

So in the ninth grade I decided I wanted to be a coach 'cause I wanted to be like my high school coach.

And so my teachers were just phenomenal to me and they really still care about me to this day.

- You've been inducted in more than one hall of fame and you've been recognized not only across our state, but certainly in this country from border to border and coast to coast and I've never met a guy or any person who doesn't like you or respect you, you somehow, some way being in the public eye all these years, you've maintained a great persona and I think it speaks of your character and your integrity.

- Teachers and coaches.

- Well that's, we all need heroes, models and mentors in our life.

- It was for me.

- I'm intrigued to find out from you a couple of secrets.

- [Roy] Okay.

- One of them is when you have that time out, when you're in a huddle, what are the two, three things, typically that you would say to the players?

- I try to give 'em a little bit of the big picture but if it's a negative situation that we're playing poorly, try to narrow it down, what we have to change to get better and do that but the last thing before they leave the huddle is try to give them some positive, that when they leave the huddle but I've had great assistant coaches who have helped along the way too, but people always criticize or kid me about not calling timeouts very often.

And I said, well, we have four each half from the TV so they have eight opportunities to listen to me and before the game and at half time, you know, they get tired of listening to me.

And so I feel like at everyday at practice, we try to prepare for all the situations so I don't have to call the time out.

And then I sort of got stubborn at the end, the way people always made fun of it, so I just said, I'm not, I'm gonna call even fewer, I'll show you even more.

[Nido laughing] - You're just gonna be yourself, as Dean Smith told you.

- That's right, you know and the thing about it is that we did try to prepare every day for all situations so we wouldn't be surprised by anything.

- And think of a time when you were halftime, you were down by 10 or 12 or even more, and you go to that locker room and you've got some serious business to do.

And it's a home game by golly.

- Yeah.

- What happens then?

- Oh, I've been known to go a little wacko in the locker room.

The worst thing is one time I tried to pick up a trash can and just move it from one location to the other.

[Nido laughing] It was very heavy.

- With vigor and energy?

- It's a lot of energy, it was very heavy and had difficult time but no, we were playing Georgia Tech at home, Tyler Hansbrough's freshman year and we were down 30.

- [Nido] At half?

- No, before the half even got there.

- [Nido] Wow.

- We still down 20 at half and we ended up winning easily and I went a little wacko and I think the kids thought I was crazy at that time 'cause I had a freshman dominated team.

- [Nido] Yes.

- They went out and played great and so I kept that in the back of my mind if I ever needed it again, but never had, [chuckling] we were never down 20.

- So I guess there's always a heavy trash can sitting next to you?

- I told 'em, I said empty those things, so before the next game, I don't have to pick that up.

- But seriously, Roy does it work when you, when you go there and say, look, darn it, guys, we are better than this, we can do better.

You've done these three wrong things.

We're gonna win this game, we've got fans here.

Does that work?

- Sometimes.

- [Nido] Yeah.

- You know, but what I tried to do is I never tried to make up my mind, I never said I'm gonna get mad today.

I never tried to do that.

I really tried to make it very legitimate and a lot of times I'd go and I'd say, hey, we played pretty well.

We just gotta play a little better.

And we played really well, but they made some big plays.

- So what happened that day with Georgia Tech?

How did you turn around at 30 plus?

- Yeah, the guys that started making shots and all I did was stand over there and clap, that was about it.

But think that that was a freshman dominated team.

It was the year after we had won the championship in '05 and Tyler Hansbrough ended up getting 40 and so he listened to what I said at halftime, but no, the kids, sometimes they would respond to that but I think if you do that all the time, they don't respond.

- [Nido] Yeah.

- And so I just tried to be all the time completely level with them and be very sincere about what I was saying and you're right, you can't give 'em a hundred things, for me it was either one, two or three.

These are the things that we're gonna focus on and if you do what I tell you to do, we'll win.

- So psychology plays a big role in playing.

I mean, you see a great player, three point shooter and then he'll do seven in a row and nothing happens.

And then all of a sudden magic.

- [Roy] Yeah.

- The guy hits six, seven, and they all work.

What is that all about?

- You know what it is, it's confidence sometimes and sometimes a shooter that makes a lot is missing and sometimes just give him one thing, just concentrate on your follow through.

- [Nido] I see.

- Use your legs.

Pick one thing, don't think about making a shot.

Think of the process.

And so I would, Joel Berry played for us one game, he hadn't made a thing and it's late in the game and I called a set play for him to make a three point shot.

And I said, "you haven't made one all game "so my gosh, you're due, you know, come on, big fella".

And as he left the huddle, I said, "use your legs".

You know, 'cause then you think about the process as opposed to result.

- Wow.

- And I think if you think about results, you put more pressure on.

And so I've had a bunch of guys that made a bunch of shots.

- That's a great lesson for life, it's a great lesson in business.

It's a great lesson, I'm gonna remember that.

- And Tiger Woods did the same thing.

- [Nido] Yeah.

- He never thought about, I've got to make this.

It was go through the process to hit the best shot and that was for us, it was free throws or whatever, it's think of process, don't think a result.

- I was at a number of your final four appearances and in fact I was at three of the championships and I was in Houston, I believe it was Houston.

- [Roy] Yep.

- Carolina playing Villanova, you had won against them before, but there we were with, I don't know, five, six seconds on the clock.

Something happened, Villanova won, shocking to every Carolina fan in the house, almost sad and depressing.

Can you take us to that moment and tell us what actually happened?

Was it a Villanova excellence in a play that they called?

Was it a mess on Carolina's part?

And I'm really interested in what happened after that?

When you went in that locker room, describe to us what happened.

- You know, we were down 10 with a little over four minutes to play and Marcus Paige made the most miraculous shot I've ever seen at that stage of any big time game.

He made a three pointer to tie it up and they've got it outta bound with 4.8 seconds to go.

And they go down and Chris Jenkins made a great shot, so you have to give them credit.

We had a failure in picking up the proper man but still he has to make one from 30 feet and he did make it, and as soon as he let it go, I knew it was going in.

It just had that feeling.

And so the first reaction as I go down and Jay Wright, Villanova's coach, I waited for him, he was sort of bouncing around, like he should have been, and I shook his hand and he hugged me.

And I said, "I'm very happy for you".

I said, "I'm dead for my team and myself, "but I'm very happy for you."

And Jay's told many people about how impressive that was but I go to the locker room and I sit down right outside the locker room and chair and trying to figure out what I'm going say.

And all of a sudden, these big arms sort of put me in a bear hug and asked me if I was all right and it was Michael Jordan, and he'd come into the locker room to check on me.

And I told him very bluntly.

I said, Michael, "would you just mind telling the kids "that you're proud of them?

"'Cause I've gotta have another few minutes "to know what I'm gonna say" because what can I say to take away this hurt?

'Cause I don't know what I can say to make it take away my hurt, much less the kids, 'cause they gave me everything they had.

And so the funny thing is, Michael goes into the locker room and Marcus Paige, who was the star of that team was crying, had his head in a towel.

And all of a sudden he told me this later, he said, "all of a sudden I realized that wasn't you talking."

And so he pulls the towel down and sees that it's Michael Jordan and that was quite a surprise for him.

But Michael told him he was proud of them and that sometimes things don't go your way.

And so then I got up and told him that for Brice and Joel and Marcus, the three seniors, I didn't have anything for them, except that I was sorry and I got a little emotional, there's no question about that.

For the other kids, I told them this feeling, don't this feeling, 'cause I want you to use it as fuel over the course of the spring and the fall and summer to make sure that you work even harder.

We can get back here, but you've gotta use this as a motivation the fuel to make you work harder than you've ever worked in your life.

And I said to Marcus, Brice, and Joel, I wish I had something for you but just know that I love you.

That was it.

- And Michael comes to a number of games, at Carolina to be supportive and you have retired, but you going into the games, give me a sort of little insight of how it feels to be sitting in the stand, watching a coach who was your assistant, whom used to and mentored and helped and who speaks very highly of you and your leadership, and occasionally may or may not agree with the play.

- You know, it's hard because as we talked about 48 years as a coach.

- Yeah.

- But I found out that I'm a lot more nervous as a fan.

I mean during the game it's my job, it's my life, it's my work.

- [Nido] You're controlling it, during the game.

- Yeah, during the game I'm thinking about what played a call or what defense to change.

- [Nido] Who to play, who to pull out.

- But I'm never thinking a result.

And seriously, I go, most of the games that I coached, I would never look at the score the entire first half.

- [Nido] Really?

- As I walked to the locker room, I would look up at the scoreboard and see what the score was.

- [Nido] Wow.

- 'Cause I wanted to make a decision whether I thought we were playing well or not.

I didn't want to just go by score.

- Process, not just results.

- You know, 'cause the score may mean the other teams playing poorly or you're playing great, but I want to know how we're playing by my own mind.

And so sitting there now as a fan, I look at score every possession.

- [Nido] You wanna win, you wanna win.

- You know, I'm just thinking result there.

- Yes.

- But that's the biggest difference, that I'm more nervous.

- Do you second guess any plays?

- [Roy] No, no.

- You sit there and say, I know what he has to do right now.

And then he doesn't do it.

- You know, I sit it there and I try not to get involved in the bench, I really do try to sit there and just clap and then come on, come on, Caleb, come on, Armondo, you know, or something like that.

But I would never say anything negative or yell anything negative about one of our players.

But Coach Davis is maybe the nicest person I've ever known in my life who is still fiercely competitive, so I love him and he's doing a great job and he's gonna be one of the all time greats.

And so I have tremendous faith and confidence in him and we'll talk every now and then and he may ask me something and if he does, I'll give him an answer.

But if he does or not, I try to stay out of his way 'cause it's his team and I'm over there and I love it.

And don't miss a game at home and I've even been to, I guess, three road games.

But as long as they're playing in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, then I'm gonna be there at the game.

- Yes, and when Coach Smith retired, did you have the same relationship with him?

Did he give you any advice?

Did you, were you worried when you saw him watching the game?

- No, you know, he was great, 'cause for the 15 years at Kansas, we would talk once or twice a week and I'd call him after my game or he'd call me after his game and we had great conversations.

And then when I came back to North Carolina, you know, he was alive about 11 years, I think nine years, I guess it was after I came back.

But after every game, early on the first two or three years, I would have a message on the phone, so I would get that every night and it was always something that I loved and it made me feel that he was still totally involved and I loved that, when he passed, I lost a great mentor.

Somebody just last night asked me about what my favorite moment was as a North Carolina coach.

And I said, it wasn't three national championships and no those were great now but after Coach Smith passed away, we were getting ready to play Georgia Tech, I think and the day before the game, we worked on the four corners for 45 seconds.

I was the ball handler in the middle, so you know how bad it was.

- [Nido] Yes.

- But so at the start of the game, we got the ball and I stood up and held up four fingers and called the four corners in Coach's honor and Brice Johnson cut back door and Marcus Paige hit him with the perfect pass and he lays it up and it happened so quickly, I thought the crowd would really get energized to see, but it happened so quickly that we got a dead layup but I really got emotional and had to turn around and go sit down and put my head down for a few moments.

- [Nido] Yeah.

- But that was my favorite moment as the head coach.

- Yeah, Coach, please forgive me if I'm being intrusive, but it's been public, you've talked about it.

You've had a little challenge with vertigo occasionally.

That had to be tough, if you're showing up at the game, you're on the court or national television, you know darn well you have little vertigo.

I got little vertigo, I understand.

Did it ever embarrass you, did it ever scare you?

Did you ever think you're out of control physically?

What might happen?

- Two times I had to leave the bench.

- [Nido] Yes.

- Once at Boston College and once at Clemson, Steve Robinson, my assistant at Boston College, it was about eight minutes to go in the game and Clemson, it was in the first half, right at the end of the first half.

But mine is called benign positional vertigo, very sharp turning on my head or something like that and it's very painful for about 30 seconds.

I don't know if my head's going to explode or what it is but then it's just a you know, a balance.

- [Nido] Equilibrium.

- Yeah, and you just feel like everything but I'd go to the locker room both times and have a pill that I can take, our trainer keeps one with him, I keep one, my wife keeps one.

but mine are very dramatic for a short period of time.

- [Nido] I see.

- At Boston College, I went to the edge of the tunnel and if we looked like we were gonna lose, I was gonna go out to the bench with our guys, but we won so I stayed out of the way.

At Clemson, like I say, late in the first half, so I talked to the team at half time, we'd had about 10 minutes to calm down a little bit but it was still very uneven.

And same thing, we had a seven to eight point lead and I was gonna stay out and then all of a sudden Clemson cut it to two, so I went back to the edge of the court again, but Steve did such a great job, we ended up winning both games, but I'd rather be on the bench.

[laughing] - [Nido] Yes.

- As opposed to being in the locker room.

But you know, mine are an hour, an hour a half later I'm okay, I'm just very cautious about driving or anything.

- Yeah, well we want you to be okay for a long time.

- Yeah, yeah.

- You've written a couple of books.

You plan to do another one?

- Probably not, you know, "Hard Work", it was Tim, one of our journalism professor, Tim Carruthers at North Carolina, at point was a writer for "Sports Illustrated", he did such a great job with "Hard Work" and it ended up making New York Times bestselling list, so I figure why I try something else and it won't be as good so, I'm very comfortable.

I do, as I said, miss the coaching desperately but I made the right decision for the right reasons.

- What was the defining moment when you said, no, I am gonna now stop and I want to focus, as you've told me, on my family, on my grandkids, and on my future, what was that?

You had to think about it for a while clearly.

- [Roy] Yes, yes.

- And then you said that's the right decision.

What was that moment?

- It was a hard moment.

- [Nido] Yeah.

- 'Cause I felt like that the bottom line I've had friends of mine who were worried I was sick or something and I said, no, I just didn't feel like I was doing it as well as I had done in the past.

And I could not handle that.

And I said, I just can't, I can't cheat the kids.

I can't cheat my school, and I felt like that I'd made some bad decisions that might have cost us games and I couldn't handle that part, that's all it was.

And I just, you know, my high school coach, who's still extremely important to me said, "well, you're an awfully critical person of yourself, "you're a hard grader."

And I said, "well, if I don't think of that way, "I don't know that I would've been as successful as I had."

But that's all it was is I couldn't handle the fact that I just didn't think I was doing it as well.

- You knew when it was time and you took a decisive action on it.

And so now more golf?

- Yeah, I hope so.

- [Nido] Yeah?

- Knee replacement, left knee nine weeks ago so I'm pretty close to going back out-- - And you're feeling good?

Well, of course just know this, that your years, 48 years of coaching will be multiplied many, many times by the impact you've had not only the lives of players, but fans who watched you, people admired you from far and near and put me down as one of the always admired your character, your integrity, your skill, your sense of love for America, and certainly love for the Tar Heels.

- [Roy] Yeah.

- And I wish you great things in your retirement and all your goings and all your comings.

And thank you for being with me on "Side by Side".

- Well thank you for having me and because all those great players is the reason I'm here.

And I know that it's not just old Roy, but Dr. Qubein, thank you very much, I've enjoyed being with you.

- Thank you, sir.

- Thank you.

- [Announcer] Funding for a "Side by Side with Nido Qubein" is made possible by.

- [Woman] Here's to those that rise and shine to friendly faces doing more than their part and to who still enjoy the little things.

You make it feel like home.

Ashley Homestore, this is home.

- [Woman] For over 60 years the everyday leaders at the Budd Group have been committed to providing smart customized facility solutions to our clients and caring for the communities we serve.

[upbeat music] - [Man] Coca-Cola Consolidated is honored to make and serve 300 brands and flavors, locally.

Thanks to our teammates.

We are Coca-Cola Consolidated, your local bottler.

[upbeat music]