coach roy williams with michael jordan, left, and coach dean smith on September 4, 2009 at the Smith Center. Jeffrey A. Camarati/UNC Athletic communications
The day I give in, that will be the day I quit coaching.
and then you start thinking about the next game. The highs aren’t
nearly as high as the lows are low. That’s the tough thing about my
profession, is that the high moments don’t last nearly as long, don’t
go nearly as high as the lows happen to you. So that’s something
you have to come to grips with, and at the end of the season you’re
totally, totally exhausted. You’re mentally and physically spent. So
it’s the reason WB is pretty important to me.
WBM: You said that most of your friends consider you to be
the most competitive person they have ever met. Is there a time
when you are not competitive?
RW: No.
WBM: Are you competitive when you sleep?
RW: I’d like to think I am because I want to make sure I stay
in the bed because I don’t sleep very much at all. Assistant coach
Steve Robinson and I are having a little contest right now about
the number of pushups, sit ups we’re doing in the month of May,
and my God, how much sillier can you get than that? We go to
dinner; we always flip to see who buys dinner. I don’t mind paying.
I just hate losing the flip.
WBM: You have said that in every game somebody’s got
to give in. When do you give in, in life?
RW: I like to think, not. I get discouraged like everybody
and I get hurt, sad, depressed, whatever, but what that usually
does is drive me even more. I’ll put it to you this way: The day I
give in, that will be the day I quit coaching. Because I think that I
couldn’t handle it if I did. I’d feel I had let down every player that’s
ever played for me if I didn’t.
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WBM july 2012