CHAPEL HILL (June 22, 2023) – When he lists his heroes – other than his mother – Hall of Fame Coach Roy Williams lists his teachers.

“The most important people to me in my entire life were my high school and elementary school teachers. No one ever was as important to me as those people were,” former UNC Coach Williams says in the accompanying video.

As state legislators haggle over how much to pay teachers after a school year that started with more than 5,000 vacant teaching positions, Williams spoke with Higher Ed Works about the influence teachers had on his life – starting with his elementary teachers and high-school math teacher – and the need to reward them better.

“Mrs. Rosa Lee Baldwin was the toughest teacher I ever had, but she was the best. I was the head coach at Kansas and North Carolina for 33 years, and I still use something that Mrs. Baldwin gave me,” he says.

Mrs. Baldwin would grade tests – not just with red Xs, but with guidance on how to get the answer right – and return them to students the day after the test. Williams says he did the same after every game for his players, even if it meant reviewing tape until 2 a.m. 

“My teachers took Roy Williams and gave me an education. My mother quit school in the 10th grade. My father quit school in the 6th grade. But my teachers did some things for Roy Williams that made my mother really proud,” he says.

Williams was the first in his family to go to college.

“And it was because of my teachers, my coaches. Every day that I coached basketball, I treated the basketball court as my classroom. I wanted to do as good a job on the basketball court as my teachers and coaches did when I was in elementary school and in high school,” he says.

“And we’re sitting here in North Carolina – my home, my state – where we’re 34th in the nation in teachers’ pay, 46th in the nation in beginning pay for our teachers. And that’s a shame, and I could almost say it’s a sin, but I know it’s a shame.

“What do we have that is more important than our young people? And who touches our young people more than anybody else, other than their parents? Our teachers, and they do that every single day.”

Williams credits Rosa Lee Baldwin and Coach Dean Smith as “the best teachers that I’ve ever known. And they had everything to do with Roy Williams and the success that we have had.”

“I wish and hope that our legislators will try to understand that we need to do more for our teachers. We want to attract the best teachers and we want to keep the best teachers,” Williams says.

Then his voice slows.

“They’re teaching my son and my daughter. They’re teaching my grandchildren. We’ve got to do a better job with them.

“Help me talk to our politicians, talk to our legislators. We’ve got to do a better job for teachers’ pay and keep those great teachers, who are gonna have some young man that’s gonna do a lot more than he would have done if he didn’t have the love and the care and the intellectual ability of our teachers.”

Williams borrows a phrase from NFL pre-game shows.

“They say, ‘Come on, man!’ So that’s what I’d say: ‘Come on, man!’ Let’s do more things for our teachers.

“I love the state of North Carolina, and I love those people that take care of our kids. Thank you.”