Hard Work

September 14, 2009
Williams, the men's basketball coach at the University of Kansas (1988–2003) and at the University of North Carolina (2003–present), describes his personal and professional path to a Hall of Fame coaching career and two national championships. Ignored by his abusive, drunken father and raised primarily by a cash-strapped, saintly single mother, Williams paid for his college education at UNC by officiating intramural sports. When Dean Smith, that school's legendary basketball coach, offered Williams a low-paying job on his coaching staff, Williams accepted and sold calendars and delivered videotapes to TV stations to feed his family. As a head coach, Williams's dedication extends to landing recruits and running organized, thorough practices. And he's done all this while maintaining a cohesive family life. (He's married to his college sweetheart.) Well-intentioned and upbeat, the book treads the familiar ground of glossy, inspirational sports biographies. Williams recalls passionate speeches, great players (i.e., Michael Jordan, James Worthy) and various anecdotes from the coaching life, but never delivers consistent insight on the workings of a successful coach at two legendary sports programs. However, the book is redeemed by Williams's genial (and borderline hokey) tone and the forthright revelations of his tumultuous childhood and early days coaching in high school and college. 16-page photo insert.

September 15, 2009
A Hall of Fame college-basketball coach chronicles his rise from poor son of an alcoholic father to winner of two national championships at his alma mater, the University of North Carolina.

It's difficult to take seriously a man who habitually eschews curse words in favor of epithets like"dadgum," so it's fortunate that Williams has built up serious credibility during his distinguished career as the head coach at UNC and the University of Kansas. Williams' aw-shucks demeanor masks the inner fury of an intense competitor, a man so driven to win that he invents new competitions just to give himself another chance at victory. A near-perfect embodiment of the American Dream, he endured a hardscrabble youth dominated by a violent father—who ultimately abandoned the family—before climbing down out of a family tree filled with far more scoundrels than scholars. The scrappy Williams overcame those inherent disadvantages and carved out a niche for himself as a junior-varsity player at UNC, foregoing varsity scholarships at smaller schools, before giving up his playing career to focus on coaching. While on-court emotion and intensity account for much of his success, these attributes sometimes overpower the narrative. Williams' unrelenting desire to convey his earnest belief in hard work and love for his family, friends and players (Tyler Hansbrough in particular) is as cloying as it is compelling—he opens by recalling bouts of insomnia prior to the 2009 season brought about because he so desperately wanted Hansbrough to win a championship in his senior season. Still, the legions of Carolina fans will relish stories—including the recruitment of Michael Jordan—from Williams' days as an assistant under legendary coach Dean Smith; college-basketball fans will admire his tenaciousness; and Kansas fans may finally forgive ol' Roy for leaving (well, maybe not).

Williams coaches far better than he writes, but he does spin a good yarn.

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