North Carolina's Williams is not the retiring kind

HOUSTON – North Carolina coach Roy Williams has heard all the reasons a few more times than he has cared to listen.

There's the NCAA's pending investigation into a report that players from his 2005 championship team enrolled in phony classes. There is the fact that many of those closest to him — UNC coaching legend Dean Smith among them — have died in the past couple of years. There are lingering health issues for the 65-year-old. There are the up-and-down struggles of this team that seemed to take a lot out of him earlier this season.

Through it all is the implication that maybe ol' Roy just doesn't have the same zest, the same motivation anymore. Will he retire after a run that's brought him to the college basketball peak once again?

After all, a win against Villanova in the national championship game Monday would hand Williams his third title. What more could be left on his checklist? "If I'm going to retire, I think I'll retire in the next two minutes," he quipped, unprompted, after the Tar Heels' win over Syracuse in the national semifinal Saturday. "So don't ask me that stupid question either."

All right, then. It appears one thing is clear: Roy Williams is older but that folksy — and sometimes vinegary — feistiness has not waned. Not with his players and certainly not with the media.

On Saturday, when North Carolina manhandled Syracuse for most of the game, Williams saw his players getting outworked on a single possession. "I screamed loud," he said. "We let a loose ball roll on the floor and Syracuse got after it better than we did."

Later, Williams cut up with his players on the dais one day before the latest biggest game of his career.

When sophomore wing Theo Pinson crashes the news conference just to yell "How's it goin' " to the media, Williams is hunched over giggling, just like the rest of the young men at the table.

Perhaps some light banter is called for: If the Tar Heels dispense Villanova on Monday, it would tie Williams with Bob Knight and Jim Calhoun and give him one more championship than his mentor, Smith.

So why, if he hits that milestone, will he be not quite ready to retire?

None of your dadgum beeswax, Williams might reply, given another chance.

But UNC senior big man Brice Johnson has another theory: Williams is having fun. "That's just it," Johnson said. "He loves us all to death. He loves hanging out with us, he's out here dancing … over the last few years it's been pretty tough on him losing some very important people in his life, a couple of his mentors and even his best friend. Basketball has been a safe haven for him. … We're just with him. And he's a different person when he's out there on the court with us. … Why would he retire?"

Only Williams knows. But don't ask him.