June 30, 2003

By Adam Lucas

Roy Williams recently called Jerod Haase the most competitive player he had ever been around.

It's worth noting that Williams never coached Shammond Williams.

Haase got a first-hand glimpse of Shammond's intense desire to win during Carolina basketball camp when he refereed a game between Carolina's current team and a squad of alums that included the sharpshooter from South Carolina. The game was a nip-and-tuck affair that was eventually won by the current team, but Williams suspected a little home cooking.

He was so incensed by a questionable no-call on a play against Rashad McCants that he waited in the basketball office for referees C.B. McGrath and Haase in order to voice his displeasure.

"You saw it, man," Williams said. "We're the alums. We're supposed to have the homecourt advantage on calls like that."

It's that attitude that makes Williams one of the most endearing Tar Heels of all time. The 1998 team is remembered mostly for Vince Carter's aerobatics and Antawn Jamison's lightning-fast scoring ability, but that squad never would have sniffed the Final Four without Williams's perimeter scoring ability. A two-time All-ACC selection, Williams is the only one of that trio who boasts a 42-point single-game performance (Feb. 8, 1998 at Georgia Tech), and his 84.9 career free throw percentage remains the best in Tar Heel history. He also holds the Carolina records for successful three-pointers in a career (233) and in a season (95 in 1997).

It's those achievements that make Williams, who has a home in Chapel Hill and has perfect attendance at the summer's nightly pickup games--which are on hiatus during second session since most current players have returned home--wonder if his jersey should be hanging in the rafters of the Smith Center.

"I do think about that," he said. "When you look at the record book, you see me as much as some of the other guys who are up there."

What can't be quantified in a simple honored jersey is the progress Williams made as a Tar Heel. He wore number 15 as a freshman and spent the year struggling to learn the point guard position, causing even Dean Smith to admit that he wasn't entirely comfortable when Williams was dribbling the ball. But by the time he was a senior and had switched to the more familiar number three jersey, Williams was a reliable cog in what might have been--including Carter, Jamison, and point guard Ed Cota--the most talented Tar Heel quartet of all time.

That 1998 team, which lost to Utah in the Final Four in San Antonio (a game in which Williams hit 2 of 12 shots in the cavernous Alamodome), can legitimately be argued as one of the best in Carolina history.

"To me, I think both 1997 and '98 might have been some of the best teams that played here," Williams said. "Even though we didn't win a championship, those were some very good teams."

Williams wasn't with a very good team this year, as he spent the season with the NBA's Denver Nuggets. Although the Nuggets recently changed their color scheme to feature an almost-Carolina blue, there's no guarantee that Williams, who played in 78 games this season and averaged eight points per game, will return to Denver. He becomes a free agent on July 1 and will shop around the league to find the best fit for him.

"I'll visit some teams," Williams said. "They fly you in, and I'll have to look around and then sit down with my agent and see what the best fit is for me."

Until then, he'll continue to play a big role on the Chapel Hill pickup scene. Williams, who recalls players like Derrick Phelps, Eric Montross, J.R. Reid, and Hubert Davis having a big influence on him as a rookie Tar Heel, wants to play the same role for the current squad. That's why, when he and Davis teamed up last week during one of the nightly games that mix Carolina alums with current players, they spent plenty of time pointing out how to defend a certain play or post up in a certain fashion.

"I want to help them understand how to play the game of basketball," Williams said. "They need to understand the Carolina tradition. We have to keep things going here at Carolina and that is a way to do it."

Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly, click here.