Roy Williams: Chapter 5 - How The Greats Obtained Personal Excellence

Tyler Hansbrough, for example, I could just say one thing, and I mean, he would try to kill, run over 12 people or anything in the next possession. Whereas Ty Lawson, and both of them were key contributors to our 2009 national championship team. It was better for Ty if I put my arm around his shoulders and said, come on, you're the best point guard I've ever coached, and you make a play like that.

And I'm in there with one of my long player conferences with Mia, and I'm just sort of wondering what she wants. And so I just threw the question out. I said, mia, what do you want? And all of a sudden she says, and I loved it. She says, I want to be the best player in the world. And from then on, trust me, we went after everything because nothing was going to be good enough.

Foreign.

You'Re listening to the Vision of a Champion podcast with Anson Dorrance, eight time coach of the year, 22 time national champion coach of the 1991 Women's.

World Cup Team hall of Famer, leader.

And mentor to so many in the soccer community.

On this podcast, Anson brings on players and coaches to discuss what it means.

To be a champion. The drive, the passion, the desire, and, yes, the stories.

Here's your host, Natalie Boddy.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Vision of a Champion podcast. I'm your host, Natalie Bode, a color analyst for the Tar Heel Women's soccer program and the North Carolina Courage. For today's episode, Anson, Roy Williams, and myself will be dissecting chapter five of the Vision of a Champion, titled Toward Personal Excellence. First, as always, we have a National Soccer hall of Famer, Anson Dorrance, UNC women's soccer head coach and the holder of 22 national championships and a women's World Championship. We are honored to also be joined by the great Roy Williams, UNC men's basketball head coach. He's a North Carolina native, a UNC grad, and a member of the Basketball hall of Fame as well as the College Basketball hall of Fame. It is such a privilege to have these two amazing men who are considered among the best coaches in their respective sports here with me today. I'm going to go ahead and just kick it off with you, Coach Williams. I mean, with so much talk about the last dance and personal excellence that's mentioned in this chapter, what's your view of excellence? Who's a player that embodied this idea of excellence or any occasions that you can remember that really sum it up for you?

Okay, Natalie, thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. Especially happy to be with Anson. Said this many times. And he doesn't believe that I'm being truthful, but I really am. He's the greatest coach that I've ever been around. A friend, but a guy that I admire greatly. You know, when you're talking about the Last Dance, that was a great documentary. And it was very special to me because I lived a great deal of it. And those first couple of episodes, when you see Michael Jordan on a bicycle going around Chapel Hill, was really a good look also. But when I do think of excellence, I do think of Michael Jordan. He's the first person that I think of. I also think of Tiger Woods. A few other guys like that, but not many. Tyler Hansbrough had that kind of drive. But when I think of excellence with those guys, and particularly Michael, his focus and his competitive spirit, his ability to not let anything distract him away from what he was trying to do. And I know that sounds like the same word as focus, but there were so many distractions that Michael never allowed them. He was the most competitive person I've ever been around. Regardless of what you were doing, the most focused about being the best basketball player that he could be. And I've used that as an example with other guys with many of my teams and told different stories. But the one thing that even I can't remember if it was on, I was on the first two or three episodes of that. But I can't remember if they said this or not. But Michael's freshman year I was the third assistant, which meant full time job, part time pay. But I was running air conditioning program in the fall. And in fact I gave Anson's women's soccer team some pub on one of the deals I was doing the other day because their girls had to help two of our guys make their mile time in the indoor facility on the end of the track one time. But in our conditioning program, I really pushed them. I really did try to bury them. And I wanted them to be happy, to stop conditioning and get out on the basketball court. And when the season started, I wanted to give coach Smith the most highly conditioned team that I could possibly give him. So early on we're out there and we're running two twenties in the hills and laps around the soccer field. And it was great because at the end of the conditioning we would sit on the grass at the end of the soccer field. And Anson spent a lot of time there. But I'll never forget, and this is just like it was Yesterday, Michael waited till a bunch of the guys left and he told me, he said, you know, I want to be the best player to ever play here. And I thought, for a freshman, just come right out and say that that was awesome. And I had gotten thrilled about Michael the summer before his senior in high school when he attended our camp and we loved him and he had a great year and he was McDonald's All American leading scorer in the McDonald's game and all those things. But when he said, I want to be the greatest player to ever play at North Carolina, I said, well, Mike. In fact, we called him Mike at that time. I said, mike, you've got to work a lot harder than you did in high school. And he made the statement that I guarantee you that he would remember right now. He said, I worked as hard as everybody else. And I said, oh. And I put my hands up, it's sort of right in front of us. And excuse me, I thought you just told me you wanted to be the greatest player to ever play here. You have no chance, no chance if you think you worked hard enough in high school. And I really went after him pretty hard. And we did it every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, so I can't remember which one it was, but the next time we're out there, he walked by me at the start of the workout and said, I want to talk to you at the end. And I said, okay. So I tried to bury them again in the 220s and everything. And at the end, a lot of guys were laying on the grass and we're sitting there and one leaves and two leaves and another guy leaves. And then it was just me and Michael Jordan. And he said, I've been thinking about what you said to me. And he pointed his finger right in my face and I guarantee nobody will ever work harder than I work here. And it was a huge, huge thing with him. And so his freshman year, he deferred a lot to James Worthy and Jimmy Black and Sam Perkins. But he was a great player and needless to say, made the shot that won the national championship. But his work ethic was tremendous. And I know it was not like that in high school. I'm not saying it was terrible. But his work ethic from that point and in his sophomore year, it was even higher. And he got bigger and stronger and faster and quicker. He was a six, four and a half inch freshman. He came back as a sophomore at six six and was faster on the 40 yard sprint. So I think the excellence there started with Michael with his work ethic and the competitive spirit that he had that nobody was going to outwork him. And I think he showed that for the three years here. And none of us, Dean Smith, Bill Guthrie, J, Eddie Foger or me could see what was coming. And we knew we had a great player. But what he did, nobody predicted. And I think it's because of his attitude.

Coach Williams, I just want to ask you a follow up along those same lines. And then, Anson, I want to flip it to you and you answer the same question, but talking about Michael Jordan and the Last Dance, one thing that really stood out to me in the documentary was he quoted, and I'll kind of paraphrase, but Michael essentially said that winning will always contain sacrifice. And in some ways that sacrifice can actually interfere with being seen as a nice guy or, you know, a nice teammate. So when you have a strong will to win and you're trying to push your teammates, what did you see from Michael or even other players and striking a balance between those two and still contributing positively to the team.

I remember reading somewhere sometime that Mia Hamm said she did not want to be known as the best player. She did not want to accept that because, and I think, and I'll paraphrase a little bit if I remember, it's a long time ago, but is that she didn't want to feel that secure that she wanted to keep. Is that close to what it was. Anson, spot on.

She never wanted anyone to think that she's arrived because she wanted a gap so she could keep getting better.

Well, Michael, it was a little bit the other way because he felt like he was the best player and he wanted everybody to know it and he wanted to push even harder. And I think that you're exactly right. The. When you're making sacrifices and he made sacrifices, there's no question. But when you're doing that and you are the best player and Michael, the only thing he ever did better than play was talk. Okay, he was, he was world class as a talker, but his team, he drove those guys and he sacrificed some of that feeling of, you know, their feelings towards him. But he was a great teammate. And I think that's the difference. He, he drove them, drove them, drove them. And it may have been uncomfortable, and that's okay. And I've always thought, I don't want you to stay in your comfort zone. And I think Michael pushed those guys. He made sacrifices. He pushed those guys. He won every sprint. He demanded their concentration. And, you know, you'll see in his comments in the game sometime, like Ron Harperson, he said, no, no. He said, I've got this. You do this. I mean, because he saw the big picture. But I think that you're exactly right. When you are demanding and when you are the best and you are beating people, it. Sometimes they retreat. They don't like that. But Michael would not let his guys get by with that. And I think that there were several times throughout the documentary that I'll always remember. But when he started at that end of one night, I think it was probably seven and eight episode when he had. He said break. Because he was getting emotional, because he told. He said something that he never had to say. But it's the first time I've ever seen him say it. He said he drove those guys so hard because he wanted the maximum that he could get out of them. And it might not have been comfortable for them, but it was his way of trying to make sure he got those players to the highest level that he could possibly get. And you saw him getting a little emotional and he said, break and stop. But, you know, I've talked to a lot of guys. Hubert Davis, who's on my staff right now, played with Michael at the end of his career when he was 38, 39, 40 years old with the Wizards, and he talked about it being a great teammate. I've talked to Steve Kerr, who's the coach of the Golden State warriors, and Steve even said something, you know, that I thought was the most fitting for what we're talking about right now is that after the last dance was over with, they had won the championship and they knew the team was going to break up, that they met everybody, wrote down some things to say to their team, and then they read them, and then they put them in the trash can, and Phil Jackson set them on fire. And Steve Kerr almost got emotional talking about what Michael had said. And to me, it was in the words of that was a great teammate that he drove us, drove us, drove us. But his feeling that he had for his teammates let him get by with that. And it's not only I say this to my team all the time, it's not only what you say, but how you say it. And can you imagine, you're in game six of the world's championship and Michael Jordan's on the bench, and he turns to Steve Kerr, and Steve Kerr is a journeyman working guy, and he says, if they double team me again, be ready. Steve Kerr almost jumped off the screen. And this was live action shots from the game. And you can see Michael say, and Steve Kerr, I'll be ready.

I'll be ready.

But it was that Michael drove him. And now this is the biggest moment of Steve Kerr's professional basketball career. And Michael had him at that level. I'll be ready. And he did, and he made the jump shot. That was the biggest play down the stretch of that game.

You know what else I really love, Roy, is the understanding that Michael had. And he said this several times during the documentary. He said, you know what? I earned the right to basically drive and lead my team because basically I had the credibility to ask people to do things because I was doing them myself. And so what's really interesting, when you're developing an elite leader, I think, in any sport, in order for them to lead in any aspect of the game, they have to be basically killing themselves and setting an example in that part of the game. And that's what I loved about Michael basically standing there, because I could sense his little bit of discomfort with that sort of aggressive question. And he came back with, you know, I earned the right to drive teammates because no one outworked me. No one was more competitive. And that put himself in a position to lead his team. And that's exactly where I want all my leaders to go, because what I tell them all the time is, listen, there is no way you're going to lead anything unless you have the credibility to show everyone that you've mastered at. So you can't tell anyone to work hard if you're not working hard. You can't tell anyone to compete if you're not competing. And the thing I loved about Michael and the documentary, Roy, is he checked every single box.

One thing you said there I can jump on is that in 91, I was coaching at Kansas, and we made the national championship game and lost 72.65 against Duke. Not that I remember, but it pissed me off. And this is your podcast, so I can say that Wanda doesn't like me to use that terminology. But Mark Randle was our best player, and he was the last player drafted in the first round in 91 by the Chicago Bulls. They had just won their first world championship. So in the fall, Mark Randall was getting ready to go to training camp. And I said, mark, I've got a bet I want you to make with you. And he and I played golf and some tournaments and everything. He liked to compete. And I said, I'll bet you $10 to $1 that after one week of training camp, you will call me and say, michael Jordan's the hardest working player you've ever seen. And at that time they had won a world championship. He had been an all star like six or seven times. He had been the leading scorer in the league six or seven times. So I said, if he's not, I'll pay you $10, but if he is, you pay me one. And so I'm sitting in my home in Lawrence, Kansas, and phone rings on the third night of training camp and I pick it up and it wasn't a cell phone, so I didn't know who it was. And it was Mark Grant said, coach. He said, the bet's off. And I said, what are you talking about? He said, I'm not betting. And I said, okay, he's already shown you, honey. He said, coach, this was unbelievable. BJ Armstrong goes down, sprains his ankle and I turn around to the bench to grab a mess jersey to get on. I was going to try to show them and I was a rookie and run out there and take his spot without anybody having stopped. And I get the jersey and turn around and somebody just hits me and knocks me out of the way. And this is the third night of training camp before the 9192 season. And Michael Jordan knocked him out of the way, pushed him away and went right into pickup game or the five on five. He said, I've never seen anybody like him, coach. He wins every drill, wins every sprint. And he said, I'm canceling the bet. And that was in 91, just after they had won the first one. And he did what you're talking about. You want to check the boxes. You want to be a great leader, you have to have that credibility. And Michael did earn that.

Hey everyone, we're going to take a quick break here to tell you about our sponsor, soccer.com Anson has been coaching for 44 years and it seems like soccer.com has been around nearly that long as well. It's pretty close as the soccer.com business has been family run and based in Hillsboro, North Carolina since 1984. If you're a player or a coach who needs soccer shoes, equipment, gear, whatever it may be, do what the pros do. Head on over to soccer.com this is Dean Linke.

I hope you've been enjoying the podcast and I wanted to make you aware that Anson just released a new audiobook version of his hardcover book, the Vision of a Champion. Now you can listen to the book, narrated by Anson Dorrance, and switch back to the free podcast to hear the stars of the women's game. Discuss each chapter. The Vision of a Champion Audiobook is available on Apple Books, Amazon's, Audible, Google Play, or wherever you get your audiobooks. To find it, simply search the Vision of a Champion Audiobook. Now let's get back to the show.

And just to kind of talk about in terms of coaching style and adapting to these different work ethics of players. So I feel like both of you have kind of come from a generation where coaches build their teams on discipline and respect, but lately there's kind of been an increase in being a player's coach and if you have a Michael Jordan or a Mia Hamm. So do you feel like your coaching style changes? Do you encourage the players to lead the team in a certain way? Anson, I'll let you start that one off. Would you consider yourself a players coach or what are your views?

Well, I had a kid that's in the NWSL and she calls me up and obviously I love all these kids and whenever they've got any sort of issue with their pro coach, I get a call immediately and usually they're complaining about their coach. They and I won't put up with it. I will defend the coach that they're playing for to the limit. Even if what they're saying I know is the truth, I will defend that coach because what I want the player to understand is they have to play for this coach. So there's no way I'm going to let them whine to me about their coach and get away with it. Because if they want to play for this guy, they've got to jump on board and basically conform to whatever they're being told. And all of a sudden she's whining, complaining, I'm defending him. I'll tell you, I think he's got knowledge of the game. You're going to learn something, you know, hang in there, stay with it, you know, listen to him, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And finally she said, well, Anson, let me share this with you. You know, when I played for you, I thought when I left Carolina I could play for anyone. In other words, I was so critical of this player all the time. She was convinced it didn't matter where she went, this was going to be a vacation for her. And all of a sudden she's playing for this coach and you know, she was calling him a jerk, but she wasn't using jerk. She was using the word that starts with A and ends with E. And basically she was saying, you know, Anson, the thing I loved about playing for you is even though you were incredibly critical of me. I could feel your love through the criticism and the sarcasm. And so I think what's absolutely critical is, yeah, you got to figure out a way to get this kid to their potential. Kids all have different buttons. There's no one that's like someone else. They're all completely different. So what you've got to do is you got to figure out how to drive them to the next level. And honestly, and Roy knows this, in fact, when, by the way, the greatest honor of my life, I have to mention that in my podcast, was being asked by Roy to give a motivational talk for the men's basketball team at the University of North Carolina. And obviously, I've got these wonderful hall of Fame pictures. The picture that's the highest in my office is a picture of. Of their win over pit. I was the motivational coach the day before the pit game. That picture of that victory hangs above everything in my office. So I know about the University of North Carolina basketball. So I want Roy to know publicly where that sits in my office. It's at the absolute top. So basically, what you're trying to do is you're trying to figure out a way to drive these kids to their potential. College is the first place in my sport where talent and athletic character collide. Because now everyone's talented. Because the trouble with high school is you're so much better than everyone else. You can without even breaking a sweat. You can dominate, but all of a sudden, now you're at another level. Now everyone has your talents. So now what's the demarcation line? Now what's going to take you over the edge? And so we talk about nine different things. Roy addressed one of the things with Michael about basically being fit. We talk about self discipline, which is our code word for fitness. So self discipline, competitive fire, self belief, love of the ball, love of playing the game, love of watching the game, grit, coachability, and connection, which is basically, do you love your teammates and do they love you? You got to check all nine boxes if you want to get to your potential. And so it's not talent that takes you to the next level. Now, talent plus those nine boxes is Michael Jordan and Mia Hamm and Christine Lilly and these other people. But the thing that was interesting, when Roy asked me to speak to the basketball team, he wanted me to tell one of my favorite Dean Smith stories about Vince Carter. Dean would invite me into his practices. I was stunned. I learned so much watching. It was just extraordinary. I'm at this practice one day, and he's brought in this freshman by the name of Vince Carter. And this is a kid I've watched sub into some games and I'm thinking, yeah, the kid just doesn't compete. He doesn't really work that hard. And I just don't think he's worth investing in. And yet Dean is spending the whole practice all over Vince Carter. I mean, criticizing him, pushing him. And I'm turning to my staff saying, you know, I wish Dean would just forget that guy. That guy's not going to help us win. And then of course I saw where he ended up and I was thinking, oh my gosh, was I absolutely wrong. I think Vince Carter was worth the investment. So everyone's different. So how do you check those nine boxes? Because holy cow, Vince Carter's talent was over the moon, but he obviously didn't check those other boxes. And Dean was all over him to get him to check every box.

And, and I think adding to that too, because it's neat when somebody calls you a player's coach, but a players coach is a guy who helps his team members win. That's who a players coach is. I tell them I am not of your generation and I'm happy that I'm not. And I tell them that straight up. I tell them that their generation may be the most selfish generation I've ever seen, but it is. And I think that, you know, our job as a coach is to get someone as close as we can to play into their potential. I read somewhere and it was, it might have been MacArthur or something general said, I'm not going to treat everybody the same, but I will treat them fairly. And I never try to treat my players the same. Tyler Hansbrough, he would come and ask me about something and we would have in five seconds have it straightened out. And he may get more leeway than somebody else. And the thing they have to understand your best players is don't ever, ever let down your competitiveness, your concentration. Because then, then I do have to get on you and I will get on you 10 times harder than somebody who's not as gifted. But I think that the potential of each and every player, you're trying to get them to the max and you have to coach people differently. But you know, our. I never try to be a player's coach. I tell them when we walk off the court, I'll put my arm around you and say, how'd you do on your math test? But on the court I don't give anything about anything else but how you're playing at that moment, because I'm pushing you to try to get you to be the best player you can possibly be. And I mentioned Tyler Hansbrough and on Senior Day, his senior speech, one of the great things that I've ever heard is he turned around. He's supposed to thank the fans, and he turned around and started talking about me and said one of his greatest things about playing for me is I never told him what he wanted to hear. I told him what he needed. Help someone reach their potential, and then you've got a much better chance of somebody saying, oh, he's really a player's coach.

So Anson talking about reaching a player's potential and helping them get there. Chapter five actually has a side section about players taking responsibility for development away from practice and for their performance during games. Coach Williams, you touched on Michael Jordan's, you know, extraordinary work ethic. But Anson moving about you, what has been your experience with the players who have so much natural talent, but they don't necessarily have the work ethic to match? What would you tell other coaches about trying to get players to drill into their work ethic if they have that amazing talent, but not necessarily, you know, the will to put the time in?

Well, honestly, I'd love to pretend I have some sort of formula for them or some sort of alchemy for them to sort of inject into them. Honestly, I don't. All I can tell you is this. I have a drawer filled with recruiting failures where I would bring in an elite athlete and they didn't achieve their potential. So I don't want to pretend for a second that I've got answers to that question, because I don't. But, like what Roy was saying, I mean, what we try to do is we try to figure out what we can do to try to drive a young player to his or her potential. And if one thing doesn't work, you try another and you keep shifting around until finally maybe something works. And this is a cliche, and I think it may even be a Bobby Knight quote. You know, there's no better coach than the bench. And so one of the things, obviously, that we get to do as coaches is to let them know, well, that's not good enough. So we're going to clip your time or something. What we try to do in practice. And again, I stole all this from watching Dean Smith coach. We try to make everything competitive. If you come to our practice site, there's a bulletin board there. We've got 28 different competitive things on the bulletin board. Where the players are ranked in all 28 different categories from 1 to 30. That's something I stole from basically watching Dean Smith work. And so basically, we try to motivate them with this public, in a way, humiliation of them not being in the top four or five and where they would like to think they are. So that's one way. And the other thing is, if they do get to play and they're a starter, we have a reserve that is a tag team player against them, and we have to decide if they're the starter, where this special line is, and the line is when we substitute them. And so basically, these players are competing against each other throughout the game. And if the superior player fatigued is better than the inferior player fresh, then you leave that player in longer. So what we try to do is to basically inspire them with playing time. And that's the battle. The battle in practice is to get on the floor, or in my case, the field. And then the challenge on the field is to stay there. And I'm watching the whole time. And trust me, if your number is warming up on the bench, guess what? I haven't been satisfied with your performance. And you're coming out at my first opportunity, and that's the challenge. But I don't. Natalie, that's a great question, and I really can't answer it honestly because I don't think there's a formula. And if there is, you know, Roy, please tell it to me. I haven't discovered it yet.

No, I agree. I think every player, you have to do that differently. And Anson loves Coach Smith like I do. And I'll tell you one short story, and I won't get carried away on that. But Michael Coren was a great player for us at North Carolina, and he was on the team my first two years as an assistant coach. And Coach Smith would push Michael, but Michael handled everything, and that was Michael. So Coren told me the story that his freshman year, I guess it was a game in Carmichael, he came down and after one pass, shot the ball and it went in. And so he strutted a little bit more down the court, and they came back the next time, and after one pass, he shot the ball and it went in again. And the next time he came down, he got it and he drove and penetrated and took a bad shot and missed it. And the ball was knocked out of bounds.

The horn went off and Michael looked over at the sideline, and sure enough, there was a substitute coming in for Michael Korn. And he came over and, oh, Corn is the one that told me the story. Said when he got close to the bench, he said, coach, I know you think those are bad shots, but I was feeling it. And Coach Smith very calmly says, we'll sit right there and see how you feel that bench.

So there is something with that being a motivator. But no, I think Anson is exactly right. Tyler Hansbrough, for example, I could just say one thing and I mean, he would try to kill, run over 12 people or anything in the next possession. Whereas Ty Lawson and both of them were key contributors to our 2009 national championship team. It was better for Ty if I put my arm around his shoulders and said, come on, you're the best point guard I've ever coached and you make a play like that. But I wouldn't do it out in front of everybody. With Tyler, he just wanted to be straight on attacked. And I think it is. That's our job, is to try to figure out how to get someone to reach their potential every day in practice so we can get that in the games.

Talking about excellence, development, work ethic and navigating that as a coach. Anson, I want to ask you, we talked about earlier Mia's mentality, about how she was vocal that she didn't want to believe she was the best player of all time because like you said, Roy, she thought if she accepted her throne, she lose the drive to continue to improve. So, Anson, do you want to just elaborate on Mia's mentality and the commonalities you've seen in these players that are the best of the best, but also maybe think about how, you know, is Mia's perspective on confidence a product of how many women generally view self confidence in sport and the difference between how men see it in sport?

Absolutely, Natalie, and I appreciate this excellent question. And I want to tee off on something Roy said because I wasn't aware that Michael made a declaration about wanting to be the best. Because one of my favorite Mia Hamm stories is exactly that. It wasn't on the field. It was actually in my office. And we have player conferences three times a year, I mean lengthy ones. And I'm in there with one of my long player conferences with Mia and I'm just sort of wondering what she wants. And so I just threw the question out. I said, mia, what do you want? And all of a sudden she says, and I loved it. She says, I want to be the best player in the world. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, she's given me this gift. And so all Of a sudden, I got up out of my desk and she was sitting across the desk from me. I walked around behind her. I turned the light switch in the room off and. And I turned it back on. I walked back around the desk and I sat down. The reason I know all the details in this is Mia Hamm told us to Marlo Thomas in a book Marlo wrote. So I know all the details in this because I've read it, that Mia is telling the story. And I thought that was incredible. So what happened with that is she threw the door open. So just like with Roy, hearing that Michael wanted to be the best, now they've given you an opportunity to. To really challenge them. And from then on, trust me, we went after everything because nothing was going to be good enough. So that's the best in the world. You think that's the best? And all of a sudden now they've given you a weapon. And so from then on, it was just sheer joy to coach her. And, you know, she would grit her teeth and then just start going after it again because all of a sudden this is what she wanted. And if that's what you want, let's get there. So that's what was fun about someone declaring it. And honestly, and you're right, Natalie, I think there's a difference in the way we raise our young boys and our young girls. And I think confidence is a huge issue in the women's game. In fact, one of the biggest problems we have is this self confidence platform. But if they will throw the door open for you to walk through it by challenging themselves publicly like that, my gosh, they've given you an incredible weapon. And then obviously it's one of these chicken and egg things. Do you have to play well in order to be confident, or do you have to be confident in order to play well? And again, I can't answer that for you, but all I know is this, if the players will tell you what they really want, you can help guide them in that direction. And that moment for me, when Mia told me that was just coaching gold. And then we became incredibly close because actually when she came to play for me here, I had adopted her. Her parents were in Rome, Italy. Her dad was an air attache, I think, to the Italian government. So they wanted to sign her over to me. So I was actually her legal guardian. She was the big sister for all of my kids. And so Mia and I became incredibly close. But that thing that Roy said Michael told him is what Mia shared with me.

And.

And if a player will basically take the huge risk to make that sort of statement, which is basically a very vulnerable thing to say because you might think, oh, my gosh, that's incredible arrogance. It's not. You're opening yourself up when you say that's what your goal is. And so I clearly loved her and loved coaching her, I think.

Anson, I'll add one quick thing. They were doing a special on Tiger woods in his first professional golf tournament. Curtis Strange is interviewing him. And he's this skinny face little kid, smooth tin and everything. 18 years old, not 19, I think. And he said, what is your goal this week? And Tiger woods said, to win. And, you know, Curtis was sort of trying to put him in place a little bit. And later Curtis became one of his great supporters. But Tiger said, no, if I'm not going out to win, then why am I going out at all? And it was so strange. But Curtis was really taken aback by this kid just after his second year, I think, of college, and he's playing in his first PGA event as a professional. Well, he didn't win, but he won the fifth tournament, and then he won the ninth tournament. And I remember hearing Curtis talk about him later and talk about that tremendous desire to win, because I do think the great ones, when they say it, they really mean it. You'll have a lot of good players and some very average players. Oh, I'd do anything to win. And that's not true. But if they do, as Anson said with me, if they give you that, if they open the doors now, you can coach them in any level you possibly want to push because they told you what they want. But I just thought, and this was just two or three nights ago, they were doing a special on Tiger. And I've always said there's another extremely focused athlete with great talent but with tremendous work ethic. And I think you have to have both to be the best.

So, Anson, in this chapter, and kind of elaborating on these stories you both are telling about the great and the elite players you mentioned in the book that you really encourage young players watching high level women's soccer and modeling parts of their game after these outstanding players, is there a place in your coaching that you refer to Amia Hamm or Roy, in your case, a Michael Jordan, to help encourage these players? And in what spot do you do? So, Anson, I'll let you start that one off.

Oh, thank you, Natalie. Well, I'll tell you, absolutely, you're always telling stories about the former players because the players can identify with them. And boy, did I luck out this year because all of a sudden, Heather O'Reilly, right after being on the field for a professional championship, decided to retire and jump onto my staff as my volunteer. And oh my gosh, when she opens her mouth, I mean, she's one of the 10 greatest American players of all time. I mean, she comes with incredible credibility. So, yes, we tell stories about our kids constantly. And obviously sometimes they're wondering how often I'm going to tell the same story about this particular player. And honestly, the trouble with, you know, when you get up to my age, you can't remember if you've told this in the last four years. So sometimes you are telling the same story again and again. But the reason you keep bringing up these great players and the things that are unique about them is because you want the players that you're coaching to select to be like them. On last week's podcast, of course, we had Yael Aver Bush and her mom, who co wrote the second book with me, and I love Yael. And there's an amazing example of a kid whose talent level wasn't extraordinary, but what she achieved was extraordinary. And so I talk about her. So to be, I guess, talked about in my program, you don't have to be one of the greatest of all time. You can be the one that improved the most of all time, which is the Al Waver Bush story because she came into the level and by the next year, oh my gosh, her jump was unbelievable. And the fact she even got one cap with the US full team is extraordinary. And she got between 20 and 30. So my admiration for where she took her game and is absolutely off the charts. So yes, all these players are wonderful fodder for just different stories. I've got the other thing. Of course, my wife knows this. I've never let the truth interfere with a great story. So I might embellish it here or there because obviously I'm trying to motivate these kids. And of course, if Melissa is near me, she's correcting all the stories. But of course, these kids I'm talking about can't correct the story. They're not there. So I'm telling the story the way I want to. And of course I've embellished it a bit. But honestly, Natalie, it's a great way for the players to be motivated. And I use it all the time.

Natalie, I do also, and I think that same thing because I've been coaching a long time. Anson, I even say if I've told you this story just sit there and listen and get more out of it this time, you know, I tell them to pay more attention than you did last time, get more out of it. And I do. And I think that we have to talk about the great players because every one of them come to us and say they want to be a great player. And I give them this. I said, if you don't like this story, just think how much you're going to like it four years from now when I'm telling one of these stories about you succeeding and doing great things and using you as an example.

Well, Coach Williams, just to follow that up, you know, we're talking about the conversation of excellence, which will undoubtedly include adversity at times. So when you're dealing with a specific place, even your entire team, where does you know when adversity comes into play? A player has a bad game, your team has a bad game as a whole, what do you tend to do? Do you go for trying to pick out what the issue is or balancing it with encouragement?

Well, it depends on who you're talking to a little Natalie, because you do again. And Anson does the same thing. You have to treat everybody differently. Marcus Page died with every play that wasn't successful. He died with me on a lost game. And so you don't have to encourage him to give more effort. You just got to have to encourage him continue doing the same thing and it will succeed. And I do believe that a great deal. If it's a player that is pretending he's dying, but he's really not dying like you are, then I think I scold him more at that point right there. Don't act like this is that important to you, because it can't be. If it was that important, you would play harder, you'd play smarter, you'd play more together, those kind of things. But I do think that it depends on their level. You know, some players, you're not going to get them to as high a level as a me or Hammer Michael Jordan for sure, but you want to get them as close to their potential as you possibly can. But adversity is really challenging, and it's something that I think can make them take a step forward. 2016, we lose the national championship game on a last second shot. After Marcus Page had made the most unbelievable shot in my lifetime as a basketball player or coach. I kidded Michael Jordan, in fact, and said that if we had gotten that game into overtime and won the game, but Marcus Basket had sent it to overtime before Chris Jenkins Made the shot. That would have been the most famous shot in North Carolina basketball history, Michael, that would have taken place of yours. But it is the adversity. It is who is feeling that adversity? Is it the toughest guy, the guy who does try to reach his potential? Or is that guy who plays the role and acts like it is, but it's really not? Because if it's not, then I'm going to challenge him even harder. But no, those, those ways that you get feedback from those kids, I learned from them every day. You know, it's like Anson said, what comes first, the chicken or egg? I tell them all the time, guys, you want me to give you confidence, play well. The better you play, I have more confidence and I will give you more confidence. And I had a player one time, he said, well, coach, I love when you do that. That makes me feel even better. And I play even better. I said, well, good, because I'll do it some more. But we have to get confidence from them, and sometimes we have to con them explaining how confident we are in them, or con them into feeling that they really can be much better than they are playing that day. But it's not a big con at our level. Still, we'll have some guys who are role players. They have to understand what is to say. And regardless of what my assignment is, it's my responsibility to carry out that assignment to the best of my ability. And it may be something really small, but I think that the way you handle adversity depends a lot on who it is and what their role is.

Anson, do you want to also kind of comment and expand on the role adversity has played in your coaching and how you tend to respond to a player or your entire team?

Well, I guess a lot of our training environments are built on failure. And I think a part of what we try to do with the competitive cauldron is we try to basically make, I guess, the kids that we're training comfortable when they're constantly having to pick themselves up after a loss in practice. One of my favorite stories about that. And again, you know, getting back to the stuff that Roy and I are talking about, this failure thing comes. It's a story about Danielle Egan. Danielle Egan married Claudio Reyna. Claudio Reyna is one of the greatest male soccer players in the history of the United States. Their son, Gio Reyna is the greatest player in in the United States in his age group. He is a 17 year old that's already started for Borussia Dortmund. He's Gotten an assist in the Champions League game. No one that young plays in the Champions League. So this player is unbelievable. His mom played for me, and she married basically the greatest American player of all time. She was in Europe playing with Clive Charles, the Portland soccer coach, the great national champion Portland soccer coach. He was coaching the U20 National Youth Team. And this was during that stretch when no one could beat us. And all of a sudden we're playing, I don't know, Holland or Belgium or someone, and The United States U20 team ends up losing. And Clive was a great guy. And he walked right up to Danielle to teaser, and he says, hey, Danielle, how did that feel? How did losing feel? Obviously implying that you have never lost because you're playing at North Carolina. And I loved her response because when Clive got back to the United States, he calls me up and he's laughing. He says, anson, I have to tell you what Danielle Egan just slapped me down with over in Europe. I said, clive, you know, gosh, I hope she wasn't rude to you. No, no, no, Anson, she was great. I was teasing her about losing to Holland or Belgium or whoever it was. And I said, you know, Danielle, what does it feel like to lose? And Clive is telling the story. He says, danielle looked at me with steely eyes and said, coach, at North Carolina, we lose every day in practice. I absolutely loved it. And obviously, what that's telling anyone that has a clue is I am so steeled. Nothing like this is going to get me down. I'm going to get right back up, you know, steel, sharpened steel. And I absolutely loved it.

So I want to bring up and not let anyone listening to this forget that both of you have multiple national championships. That is not common by any means. And I just want to pick both of your brain. Roy, we'll start with you. During these national championship seasons, is there something that is common to that season or that group of players? Something that is recurring in this type of feat? What have you seen in your career?

Well, I'm flattered again. Nancy's got 22, I've only got three, but I've been very fortunate to have great staffs with me. But every one of those teams. And I'll go back to something I said the previous statement, too. You know, we lose it on the last second shot in 16, and we win the national championship in 17. And in our sport, it is so hard to go through 68 teams because if you have one bad game, you're gone, and that kind of thing. But anyway, it's. We won it in 17. And they had this saying, you know, they wanted retribution, you know, And I'm trying to figure out, where did this come from? But it came from those guys. And I think in 2005, 2009 and 2017, it was a common goal that everyone was willing to make sacrifices for. A common goal. Tyler Hansbrough could have gone pro after his freshman year. Sophomore, junior year after his junior, he was national player of the year in every poll. He won every national player of the year award that there is. And I said, big fella, you need to go now. He said, coach, I haven't won a national championship. And we had just lost in the Final Four his junior year, and he came back to win the national championship. And he drove those guys differently than Michael Jordan did, but he drove those guys. We lose in 16 on the last second shot. Those returning players, they wanted to understand the kids that were you coming in, you do what we tell you to do, because we know where we're going, we know what we want. And so it was that focus. And the first one in 2005, the greatest gift I've ever been given by a media person was, we're in St. Louis and we're getting ready to play for the national championship on Monday night. And the headline was team versus Talent. Because they said that Illinois had the greatest team, but we had the talent, which implied that we weren't willing to make sacrifices, we weren't willing to do everything that we could for the team to win, that we were individuals. And that was the greatest lob dunk, the pass anybody's ever thrown to me, because I was deeply insulted by that and put it up on the board, showed it to everybody, talked to it, and even to the point of making reference to it with four minutes left in the game at a timeout. And so for me, every one of those teams have been on the court, been much different, but in the locker room and their motivation, very, very similar. Very, very similar, that their desire was off the charts.

Well, for me, and we've touched on this a little bit, so let me drill into it a little more. One of the hardest things for us is to get a field leader. And again, it gets back to the stuff that we were talking about earlier, about the Last Dance and Michael Jordan and about how he was relatively indifferent as to what people thought about him as long as he was driving his teammates to victory. So for him, in order to lead effectively, he had a lot of fire under some people. And the way he lit the fire, maybe didn't really excite the player. He was burning, but he felt he had to to get him moving. So in the women's game, because they have this huge challenge, they have this challenge of you women set incredibly high standards for each other, and you're incredibly sensitive, so you pick up on everything. So almost any woman that's leading knows that if she opens her mouth, she's going to be subject to criticism, especially if she doesn't get her tone right, if she doesn't get her words right, if she doesn't say it at the right time. And so this burns almost every extraordinary woman and prevents her from saying anything. And so what's hard is to get a woman to agree to lead the team. And so the biggest difference between the championship teams and the ones that don't make it is to have a field leader. And so that's our challenge. Can we get a field leader? And obviously, you know, I've shared this all the time, and I mentioned this even earlier. You know, one out of four years, our girls won't vote for the leader. Because I don't interfere with who's captain. I let it be a pure vote. And sometimes I can see them not voting for the real leader. And so at the end of that practice where, you know, tears are streaming down this girl's cheeks because she knows she's the real leader, I wait until everyone leaves, you know, I put my arm around her shoulder, said, listen, to heck with them. You know, they've basically voted for a couple of, you know, sorority leaders, you know, that want to win Miss Popularity. You're my gritty, gutsy, you know, lay it on the line. You're going to tell everyone, you know, that we've got to pick it up. Don't change a lick. And so what would happen from then on is I would bring in this girl that no one voted for into the captain's meeting. And the captains knew why. They knew that I knew that this was the real leader. And no one on the team had any issue with it. The captains didn't have an issue with it because they knew who was going to lead the team as soon as the whistle blew. And so for me, that's what I absolutely have to have. And I'm with Roy. I mean, when any team wins a championship, when so many teams are invited in, especially in a single elimination tournament, there are a thousand ways you can be eliminated. You can have a phenomenal team and be eliminated with bad luck. And obviously, in basketball, that key call at the end of the Game, Is it a charge or is it, you know, a foul? Are you kidding me? And at the end of the game, as someone's hacking your arm to ribbons, was that a foul or was it not a foul? I mean, so there's so many issues in basketball. I don't know, you know, why basketball coaches live past the age of 50? Because I would have murdered several referees by then and, you know, sent to prison because there's so many games that are decided by, you know, an outside source. So for any team to win a championship with a single game is extraordinary. In the NBA, it's seven games and seven games. Usually the better team does win. In college basketball, are you kidding me? Where the referees have so much play, thank goodness, in soccer, if you can keep the ball out of your own penalty box, the referee doesn't win the game for the other team. So basketball is not that way. And I sit there with Roy, just agonizing, just throwing stuff at the TV screen and, yeah, it's impossible. It's just impossible. It just drives me crazy. So for me, it's leadership.

I agree there, Natalie. And one quick thing. My head coach, Wicked Wanda, sent me a note over here. I said, retribution about the 17 team. It was redemption. I told you, I didn't even know about it. We get to the Final Four, we get there, and everybody's asking me about this redemption, and I'm asking what. What they're talking about.

Well, Roy, I appreciate that because Melissa does come up all the time with notes to correct a story.

I crumple it up immediately into a ball and throw it somewhere. So. But anyway, Roy, we could go on forever, but clearly we've taken a lot of your day. Roy, listen, you are such a fine man to join us on this, and Natalie, you are a wonderful host.

It's been a pleasure and my honor to sit here and have this conversation with with you both. That was Roy Williams, UNC men's basketball head coach. And as always, we were joined by Anson Dorrance, the UNC Women's soccer head coach. If you like this show, one way you can support our work is to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review as well. This show was edited and produced by creative allies. If you're looking for information on full service podcast production, head over to creativeallies.com. on behalf of myself, Natalie Boddy, and our hall of Fame coaches, Anson Dorrance and Roy Williams, we'll see you next time on the Vision of A Champion Podcast.

Hey everyone, I hope you like this episode and I just want to thank all of the people involved in making this happen and all of our sponsors including attafootball.com in addition to Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all the usual podcast apps. You can listen to the show on attafootball.com which is a new women's soccer community that is helping elevate the sport. Through sharing some of the top women's matches, highlights and athletes from around the world. ADA is enabling women's football to shine its brightest now and for generations of young female footballers to come. So visit add a football.com to learn more.

Hey fans, you can follow the Vision of a Champion Podcast chapter by chapter by purchasing the hard paperback online. Simply go to anson dorrancesoccer.com if you are ordering the book use promo code Vision Champ that's Vision Championship to get a 15% discount. And thank you for listening to the Vision of a Champion Podcast.