Roy Williams says reporter who wrote story about him ‘better step carefully’

North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams was the subject of a recent Washington Post story that his friends apparently did not think highly of.

Kent Babb of the Post recently wrote a story about Williams, and how the NCAA investigation surrounding the program as well as the coach’s health issues have made the last year difficult. Several of Williams’s longtime friends are quoted in the story.

On Wednesday’s edition of the Dan Patrick Show, Williams hit out at the story, saying his friends weren’t happy about it.

“You know, Dan, I’ll try to treat this lightly because I could deal with it much more strongly,” Williams said, via Cindy Boren of the Washington Post. “I haven’t read it. Two of my close friends were so mad that if they were to step in front of that guy in the street, it would be a very bad scene because they felt like the guy took — lied. I started to try to say it nicely.

“One of my guys said, ‘I never said anything like that.’ It’s upset all my friends. I haven’t read it, don’t care to read it, never will read it. He’d better step carefully around any of my friends. My high school coach is one of the finest gentlemen I’ve ever known in my life and one of my assistants that was with me for 21 years — and they are so mad at that guy.”

Williams disputed that he is in poor health.

“Number 1, I had two knee surgeries last summer,” Williams said. “I don’t run like I used to, but I can still outrun that damn guy, I can tell you that right now, if I had to chase his butt down. Secondly, I’ve got a head cold right now. I feel real good. The knee surgeries have slowed me down and I’m going to have to talk to them after the season’s over about possible knee replacement, but I really feel good.”

The original story wasn’t that bad, and Williams does little to dispute anything in it aside from saying it upset his friends and insinuating that quotes were twisted in a certain way. At no point does it argue that Williams is on the verge of retirement or anything of that sort, and Williams doesn’t try to fight back against the assertion that the NCAA’s investigation of North Carolina’s academics is hindering them on the recruiting trail. Perhaps that’s just because he hasn’t read the story, as he says, and doesn’t know what was in it. But if that’s the case, why is he pushing so hard against it?

Williams has pushed hard against things like this all season. He let Doug Gottlieb have it for calling his health into question, even as things like this have happened over the course of the season. A reaction like this to a story he openly admits to not having read seems a bit over the top. If anything, the pointed, irascible reaction only furthers the point that Babb was making.