GAMEDAY

Oh, what a difference a year makes.

One year ago, Roy Williams was busy preparing his Kansas Jayhawks for a Final Four run that would take him to within a few free throws of his first national championship.

  Today, Williams prepares for another possible Final Four run. Yet this year, Williams finds himself not in Lawrence, but in Chapel Hill coaching the Tar Heels of North Carolina.

"The guy was on the way to becoming an icon here, he could've become a legend, a legend second to Phog Allen here," said Chuck Woodling, sports editor at the Lawrence Journal-World. "If he'd have stayed here another ten years, I wouldn't have been surprised if they renamed it Allen-Williams Fieldhouse."

The story of Williams' temptation from Kansas begins three years ago. Fabled North Carolina head coach Dean Smith's replacement, Bill Guthridge, was just retiring, and Williams was almost immediately named as his possible successor. Yet Williams, too much a fixture at Kansas, turned down his alma mater at a highly publicized press conference in 2000, giving many the impression that he would never leave the Jayhawks.

"I do have a five-year rollover [contract]," Williams said at the famed press conference. "As far as I'm concerned, that's lifetime. If they chose not to roll it over one year, I'm heading to the first tee."

With that announcement, Williams returned to coaching the Jayhawks, who at the time had three future lottery picks--Drew Gooden, Kirk Hinrich, and Nick Collison--as returning sophomores, and the Tar Heels moved on, naming Matt Doherty as their next head coach.

Yet just a year later, Doherty's honeymoon soured. North Carolina was upset in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in Doherty's first year. Next season, the Tar Heels bottomed out, finishing 8-20, their worst record ever. After the Tar Heels missed their second straight NCAA tournament, Doherty resigned April 2, 2003 amidst threats of mass transfers.

For Williams, the timing couldn't have been worse. His Jayhawks would play in the Final Four that weekend, and the resignation placed all the speculation on who North Carolina's next coach would be squarely on his shoulders.

"I think people are still a little unhappy about Dean Smith putting the heat on Roy to go back; at least they believe, I think, that Dean Smith orchestrated this whole thing and put the pressure on Roy to come back," Woodling said. "It was a siren call that Roy Williams could not resist."

     Less than two weeks after the Doherty resignation, Williams followed the siren call back to Tobacco Road, where he was immediately proclaimed as the savior of the North Carolina program.

"I was a Tar Heel born. When I die, I'll be a Tar Heel dead. But in the middle, I have been Tar Heel and Jayhawk bred, and I am so, so happy and proud of that," Williams proudly proclaimed at the press conference announcing his hiring as the next North Carolina head coach.

Yet Williams, the same man who had triggered elation in Lawrence just three years beforehand, was now evoking bitterness from many of his fans and some of his players. Power forward Wayne Simien, now a senior at Kansas, angrily proclaimed, "I gave my right arm for that man, literally."

The jaded Jayhawk fanbase had even more vitriol. However, much of the anger was not directed at Williams, but for Dean Smith and the UNC program. "Harbor no illusions, however, that there are not many Kansas fans upset with Dean Smith," wrote Reed Herzig in an e-mail to The Chronicle. "He has arguably done some good things for Kansas with his help in bringing both Larry Brown and Roy Williams to Kansas, but with the public knowledge that he still wields far-reaching power within the UNC athletic department I find it traitorous that he 'allowed' the courtship of Roy Williams to initiate during Final Four week when Kansas was in the Final Four."

Others, such as Kansas alum Heath Mayor, had even more anger toward Smith. "Dean was a member of my Kansas fraternity. A painting of Dean used to hang in the foyer, valued at $25,000. That pic now lives in a closet. He ruined our Final Four run last year. He refused to leave KU alone for the last four years. He does not acknowledge his KU ties. He is a terrible alum," wrote Mayor. "Nearly all of my hatred is focused at Dean Smith. He is the traitor, not Roy."

Nonetheless, though many Jayhawk fans harbor resentment toward Smith, much of the anger directed at Williams for leaving has resided.

"I can't hate Roy. He gave Kansas 15 great seasons," wrote David Morantz, Kansas alum and current law student. "I can't imagine the tug he felt to save a program that started his career yet had fallen so low."

"He's not nearly as talked about now as he was last year," added Ryan Greene, men's basketball writer for the Kansas student newspaper. "I think people were more upset because of how he left. He never really had a formal press conference or anything, he just...shuttled off one afternoon, and was gone." Others close to Williams also harbored no ill will toward the current Tar Heel coach.

"I really think that that's overplayed. Yes, I have heard some people say wherewithal Duke fans now or something similar, but that's really a small percentage of the people here. He was very well-liked," said law school professor Mike Davis, who acknowledged he maintains a close friendship with Williams. "Most people here miss him, of course, but wish him well. Imagine how people in Durham would react if Krzyzewski were to leave for UCLA or Stanford. People wouldn't turn on him, would you?

"Personally here there's no bitterness," added Rob Farha, owner of The Wheel, a Lawrence tavern where Williams sometimes ate lunch. "He's a great coach, accomplished a lot, and it's his hometown."

That being said, much of Jayhawk nation will be tuned in to the Duke-North Carolina game Saturday night, eagerly watching the Cameron Crazies give Roy Williams a big Duke welcome. Many fans expressed hope that the Crazies would welcome Williams with his past, serenading him with the Rock Chalk Jayhawk chant he heard so often in Lawrence.

"There's still some angry sentiment toward him...People have taken more of a hatred towards Carolina," Greene said. "People are definitely going to be pulling for Duke this Saturday, no question about that."