威廉姆斯教练的最后一讲鼓舞人心，提供洞见
在旁观了一年之后, the former men’s basketball head coach shared homespun and hard-earned wisdom with seniors weeks from graduation.
罗伊·威廉姆斯的最后一讲有一种明显的快闪氛围. 起初, 4月19日的演讲只会讨论Zoom, then a message from the General Alumni Association that afternoon directed attendees to an evening event that was now exclusively in-person. 没有椅子.
那些早到7点的人.m. talk spread out blankets on the Morehead Building’s west lawn and brick courtyard. They huddled in sweatshirts and quilted jackets in the unseasonably chilly air, 拿出他们的手机指引其他老年人去那里.
“Go past the Old Well and then straight,” one senior told a friend. “我们坐在前面.”
The unintentionally stealth gathering seemed somehow appropriate for the former Tar Heel head coach. 威廉姆斯在一年前没有举行任何仪式就离开了, the only clue to his April Fool’s Day retirement announcement the parting kiss he gave to the Dean E. Smith Center basketball court after his last home game, a victory over Duke.
“我有很多谚语,威廉姆斯警告人群, 在他开始说话之前，这个数字膨胀到了大约400.
最后一句话
最后一讲的传统始于2007年卡内基梅隆大学, when professor Randy Pausch gave a special talk after he learned that his pancreatic cancer was terminal.
在卡罗莱纳, a speaker selected by the senior class gives the Last Lecture during Senior Week as an informal talk based on the premise, 如果你知道这是你最后一次演讲, 你会怎么说??”
在他的演讲中, Williams repeated a theme from the keynote address he gave the Class of 2020, when they celebrated their pandemic-postponed Commencement in fall 2021: “Be led by your dreams, 不要被你的问题所逼.”
But he also used the Last Lecture to share joyous and painful moments from his life and the inspirational sayings related to them. Most of them involved hard work, also the title of his 2009 autobiography.
About 400 people came to hear Williams deliver the Last Lecture to the Class of 2022. (Jon Gardiner/太阳城娱乐)
Williams told the seniors how he knew he wanted to become a coach because he had a high school basketball coach who said good things about him. He talked about how much Carolina meant to him because he was the first in his family to go to college, 他的父母都不得不辍学去工作.
“Wanda and I have been very supportive of the Carolina Covenant because I wish they had that when I came to school here,他说. 去年, 威廉姆斯夫妇, Wanda, 给了太阳城娱乐300万美元的奖学金, 一半的资金用于卡罗莱纳盟约, 是什么让低收入家庭的学生毕业时不负债.
毕业后不久, he was a part-time assistant coach making ends meet by selling men’s basketball season schedule posters with photos of the players. “I drove 9,000 miles, sold 10,500 calendars in nine weeks, and made $2,400,他说. “I was the best dadgum calendar seller you ever saw,他说.
But he stuck with coaching basketball because he loved it so much, 最终取得了903场胜利, three NCAA national championships and a place in the Basketball Hall of Fame. He passed along career advice from the country music song “Buy Dirt”: “Do what you love but call it work.”
不后悔
Williams shared words of encouragement he used with players over the years, 用他自己的方式, 如, 罗马不是一天建成的, but it was worked on every day” and “You don’t have to be born with a silver spoon, 但你必须生来就有欲望.”
但他也颠覆了一些体育界的陈词滥调. “我不相信110%. 那是垃圾，”他说. “只有100%.”
He talked about loyalty and urged them to maintain friendships with what he called “foxhole buddies.他的战友包括旺达, 他结婚48年的妻子, four friends from North Carolina and three friends from Kansas. The North Carolina buddies stuck by him in 2000 when he decided to remain the head coach at the University of Kansas because of a promise he had made to the players he recruited there. 2003年，他宣布要回到卡罗莱纳, the Kansas buddies stuck by him — unlike the folks at a Kansas barbershop who put his picture over the commode.
A recurring theme in his talk to the “kids” — “and when you’re 71, 每个人都是孩子”——就是要活得无怨无悔. When they are celebrating their graduation in May, he will be observing his 50th college reunion. 耶稣劝他们说:“你们不要说:‘但愿我做了那件事。’. “考虑一下，然后去做.”
One of his favorite retirement presents was a set of three dozen Titleist golf balls printed with the numbers 9, 3和00. 起初, he thought the giver had gotten the numbers for his total victories wrong. “我们赢了903场比赛，而不是9003场，”他抗议道.
But the giver had his own reasons for the numbers he selected. “Nine Final Fours, three national championships and double zero regrets,” Williams recalled. “我觉得这真是太棒了.”
