CHAPEL HILL — Roy Williams during his weekly radio show on Monday night had strong words for North Carolina fans who sold their tickets behind the Tar Heels’ bench to UNLV fans in Las Vegas during UNC’s trip there for the Las Vegas Invitational (see photos from the game).
Asked on Tuesday to elaborate on his comments, Williams didn’t back down. He said it was “disappointing” that UNC fans had sold tickets they had obtained through the Rams Club, the UNC athletic booster organization.
In other news, Harrison Barnes said he plans to practice today and his injury will be re-evaluated after the session.
Here’s what Williams said about opposing fans on Tuesday:
“It’s frustrating, it’s disappointing. Do you think ESPN likes Fox to be successful? You think Nike likes Under Armour to be successful? I mean, I’m competing out there. I don’t like our fans to help the other team by either giving or selling their tickets. That’s disappointing. And to do it right beside our families, you know, that’s the biggest thing. And then to have somebody that’s just negative, negative, negative right in five feet of an assistant coach’s wife for two nights.
“You know you get tired of that. But it’s something that’s always bothered me. It will always bother me. A hundred years ago I’m watching in Lawrence, Kansas, and North Carolina’s playing North Carolina State and there were five million red shirts in the crowd. And if I’d had a BB gun, five million red shirts would have had a burned rear end. Because I just don’t like those kinds of things. I mean, seriously. You guys like it when all the Internet people beat you on a story? I mean, that’s what it is. It’s competition. And if you were my friend, you are not going to help the competition.”
Williams was referring to the 2002 North Carolina-N.C. State game at the Smith Center, where the Wolfpack beat the Tar Heels in front of thousands of red-clad Wolfpack fans. As Williams spoke, a tape recorder begin emitting a high-pitched noise that interrupted him.
“Must be a State fan,” Williams said of the interruption. “Or a UNLV [fan]. Or maybe it’s a Ram’s Club member.”
Williams continued …
“Steve’s over here saying stop, stop, stop,” he said, referencing UNC basketball spokesman Steve Kirschner. “Guys, I’m serious. I’m in Lawrence, Kansas, watching that game and there was 5,000 red shirts in this arena. That bothers me. And it should bother you. Seriously, you think about it. The Internet people – you guys enjoy them? Be honest. You don’t enjoy that stuff. Nike does not like Under Armour. Nationwide does not like State Farm. Coca-Cola does not like Pepsi.
“It’s competition. So if you are my friend, then be my friend.”
Williams on Monday during his radio show harshly criticized UNC fans for selling their tickets.
“I am not friendly with anybody else on the other team and for some of our fans to get their tickets through the Rams Club and sell their tickets to UNLV boosters that are sitting right behind our families, I don’t like that,” Williams said. “And if the shoe fits, wear it. I don’t care who it is, I’ll tell the sucker face-to-face, I do not like that, will not like that and don’t ever forget it.”
A fan who Williams described as “negative” also drew his ire.
“Do not come back to my games,” Williams said. “Don’t act like you’re supporting us. Don’t act like you’re supporting us by showing up. If all you’re going to do is sit there and be so negative and yell negative things and say negative things beside one of our coaches’ wives.”
Comments
When UNC
Wed, 11/30/2011 - 20:12 — UNC1998beats Wisconsin tonight.. will the paper tiger talks stop? What about when they beat Kentucky? If not then the words are just those of rival fans, and are useless banter. Then again, pretty much everything on here has become that.
could you imagine
Wed, 11/30/2011 - 23:13 — gvillegatr... UNC losing a game and a Tar Heel fan coming onto ACCNow and saying, "More good than bad." Ha ! Only losing teams can make such idiotic assertions.
Imagine?
Thu, 12/01/2011 - 00:54 — JPDOhioDon't have to. There were plenty of UNC fans who called the UNLV loss "a good loss". Not exactly the same, but not much different either. Then your coach goes off on his own fans for doing what they want with tickets they bought with their own hard-earned money. One would think that the head coach of an elite program would be smarter than that.
no such thing as a "good loss"
Thu, 12/01/2011 - 01:00 — gvillegatrPeople don't really believe that. It's a coping method.
as far as Roy saying what he did. So what ? It's his house. Nobody complains when "Gretian Five" complains to the papers/radio/tv when he gets on his fans for not showing up to a game in his house.
Roy's house
Thu, 12/01/2011 - 11:03 — JPDOhioIt's not his house. It was built by the people he is complaining about.
Heads up. Roy's starting to sound like a guy who is losing it.
Sorry
Wed, 11/30/2011 - 11:34 — JPDOhioBut Roy needs to shut up and worry about his team, not the fans behind the bench. He is fortunate to do what he does for a living and his paycheck depends on those very same fans that he is "disappointed" in.
There are a million reasons why a fan would make his tickets available for sale. Whether those reasons are valid or invalid in Roy's mind is irrelevant. The use or disposition of those tickets are at each fan's discretion, especially those for games over a holiday weekend.
It seems to me that UNC has some issues to address if it wants to make it to the Final Four this season, let alone win a national championship. Roy would be smart to focus on that. The program doesn't need this stupid distraction.
Ol' Roy Rides Again
Wed, 11/30/2011 - 02:58 — fan987Another example of THE univeristy of N.C. and it's superior graduation rates. We lesser peoples with smaller IQs might think the coach of the No. 1 ranked team which was getting beat by 10 points by an unranked team would have more to worry about than who sells their tickets to who, but that just goes to show why we are the little people and UNC is THE university of N.C. At least they are the laugh line of the state that keeps us entertained in defeat.
that unranked team was
Wed, 11/30/2011 - 11:45 — gvillegatr... only a 5 pt dog playing on the other side of town from their campus. Classic example of a mid major getting way up for a big dawg. We'll start getting concerned if UNC doesn't play well and lose this evening. Other wise, as Big Ed Bookman used to say, "it's bidness as usual."
Well at the very minimum, it
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 22:54 — unc098Well at the very minimum, it is entertaining....I have to hand it to Roy that he is not afraid to let his feelings known. Out spoken? Yes!!!! and maybe because of what he has accomplished, he gets to say his piece. Have to say its a bit refreshing to hear someone speak up and not be so p.....sy whipped by the media that he can't speak his mind. You go Roy!!!!
Positive or none.
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 22:28 — DaltonLeeHYou gotta back this 100%, You can't have negative energy affecting you're game. The whole reason to play at home, is so you have the energy behind your team. To sit behind your team as devotion to the support, You can't go selling out and allowing the other team to infiltrate your home ! That's the problem with people. Not enough want to tell the truth, there scared of the media ! Tell em Roy ! Gotta keep positive energy in you're house !
What happens in Vegas!!!
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 19:25 — jgegbgmgRoy - As a UNC fan I can never remember Coach Smith making these kind of comments - Coach was a gentleman of the game and would never react as you have - I guess if we had won the game we wouldn't be hearing all this lip from you - Please respect our program and just do your job - The football program has caused us enough embarrasment, we don't need this nonsense from you.
UNC Fascism
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 18:50 — izzykareemVideo of Der Fuhrer Roy kicking out a P R E S B Y T E R I A N fan, yes, that Presbyterian, exactly, the basketball school that no one has ever heard of.
www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=bGwgTjt1_qs
the fact that uniformed police escorted this guy away should be an embarrassment for any UNC fan.
This is why UNC will never be a football school, a crazed megalomanical coach runs the athletics over there.
PS. Heil Roy!
Oh, heck, I was in Vegas at
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 18:46 — bogueloverOh, heck, I was in Vegas at Walmart and got me some o' dem tickets behind da bench when I wuz byin' me a coupla Heel's tee-sheerts (XXL fur me and XXXL fur da missus). My an' da missus wuz takin' our vakashum from da trailer and wanted to see dem Heels play good. Go Heels!
Liten' up 'ole Roy-Boy, we cheered reel guud fer ya.
how do u really feel roy?
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 18:40 — izzykareemwww.youtube.com/watch?v=KvW0SGEqC5k
haha, Roy couldn't give a $%^$ about North Carolina, and Bonnie Bernstein is the lowest form of humanity there is (Roy bringing a new level of class to UNC).
needs translation
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 18:32 — izzykareemim sure the bball team was too down after the loss in Vegas to help Roy out, so i translated his msg into swahili (thanks Google translate): "kondoo waume klabu ya nyongeza, lakini bila ya kuuza tiketi yako kwa mashabiki kupinga" (rams club boosters, don't sell your tickets to the opposing fans) (ps: there's no direct translation for "dadgumit" into swahili, sorry). Im sure Hansbrough could have done it for him
"My games"? Arrogant much?
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 18:31 — awdracer"My games"?
Arrogant much?
Roy's Right
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 18:19 — cityofoaksboyI'm afraid I'm going to have to agree with ol' Roy on this one. I remember being in Reynolds one time before the Dean Dome was built and there was way, way too much light blue in there. Not only that, they had better seats than I did. That sort of stuck in my craw.
ATTACK!
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 18:03 — smithfieldsamThis is the same Roy who, as an assistant to Dean Smith, leaped over the scorer's table in Reynolds Coliseum to fight an NC State athletics representative sitting at that table. You go Roy!
Hypocrite
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 17:50 — ricobanditoSeems to me Roy is paid quite handsomely from ticket sales so it strikes me as hypocritical that he is telling people that pay his salary how to manage their affairs.
Roy needs to seek Medical Attention
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 17:48 — ViperRetCoach Williams' Vertigo is becoming more frequent and acute and it is impacting his ability to reason and do simple mental tasks like hold a press conference or be on a radio show.
I would hope that all the good UNC doctors can huff and puff and put Coach Williams back together again.
His personal policing of the Dean Dome was a bit over the top....
Coach Williams will NOT let Coach Withers (for the interim....which will not be long) outdo him in totally inappropriate remarks.
I read the account of the UNLV game and it did not seem like the Runnin' Rebels fans were the issue.....although, one sage poster obviously picked up some body language in the first few minutes and posted that he KNEW that the Ref's would NOT let UNC win.
Obviously a fine representative of the Flagship.....I think that he and Coach Williams could start a support group.
And this is only the first couple of weeks....with 7 games played.....it will be decidedly WORSE if UNC does not have a nice season....probably blame it on Global Warming or the Tea Party.
I really hope that Coach Williams does talk to his personal physician and get his meds regulated.
Roy Rant
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 17:31 — ecp1951i remember a coach from unc wearing another team's sweater and that was o.k. give us a break roy. grow up.
Huge Carolina basketball
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 17:21 — wooten78Huge Carolina basketball fan....just thought I should preface with that.
Coach Williams is right, but so are Rams club members with basketball tickets. Four endowed seats to the Dean Dome now require an initial donation of $500,000 with an annual upkeep of $5000 (Coach's Circle giving level), and then you have to actually buy the tickets.
So yes Roy you are right and it is hard to disagree with your point. But you should also understand that individuals who have that kind of financial committment can do whatever they want to with a few game tickets to a meaningless preseason holiday invitational tournament.
Carowhina fans including Roy
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 17:18 — cool_jazzAh yes, the flagship university of North Carolina...leading the way in student-athlete mendacity and Swahili studies...a shining city on a hill for all those poor souls from lesser institutions to emulate and envy from their lower lot in life.
You grace us with your presence at any athletic event, where your superior scholar athletes dominate the lesser competition while your wise fan base regale us with glorious tales of superiority in their every endeavor in life. NO, this is not arrogance, NOT egotistical bravado, for you have earned the right to your hypocritical display of virtue known forever as the CAROLINA WAY. You are THE University of North Carolina...and no one will ever hear the end of it from your self-aggrandizing alumni and Wal-Mart supporters (aka graduates from “lesser institutions”).
Typical Carolina arrogance on display Roy...stay classy
+216 UNC-CHeat
horribull, just horribull!!
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 17:10 — dsspr1horribull, just horribull!!
Go home Roy
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:54 — nando19Sounds like he's whining just a bit, doesn't he? Whining...and he had the #1 team in th country. Go Duke!
Go get'em roy
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:53 — SurferCoach Williams is spot on with this one, it is a competition, some people just don't get it.
themambystrikes
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 22:28 — gvillegatrshe thinks you are a BUFFOON ! lol
Dear Roy,
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:53 — SpacewolfDid you know that StubHub is "The Official Fan To Fan Ticket Marketplace for the Tar Heels?" (http://www.tarheelblue.com/tickets/marketplace.html). Maybe you should talk with Bubba about that, and how anybody with a credit card can buy a ticket to a game in the Smith Center or anywhere else in Carolina's fan section. Maybe you could add a check box to the website that asks "Are you a Carolina fan?". Or maybe you could just ask him to scrap that part of the website and make your fans sell tickets the old fashioned way.
Also, shooting people in red shirts, Roy? Really? I hope Bubba takes your BB's away from you Barney Fife-style before you play State this year. With your aim, you're likely to put out some poor Rams Club member's eye if he doesn't.
How about just coaching your team and letting the ushers deal with what's going on in the stands, mkay?
Love,
Spacewolf
Ticket rant?
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:40 — christopherryder468Like it or not, tickets are a commodity. I've been to enough games that I wonder sometimes how people still manage to define a "home" and "visitors". For example, I've gotten some Belk Bowl tickets from http://amazonticketsonline.com/Belk-Bowl. I'm a Virginia fan, but if I end up on the other side, oh well.
Ol Roy just doesn't get it !!!
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:42 — TheMambaSTRIKESWhen did a person who buys a ticket not have the right to do what they want...with that ticket? Aside from what might be scalping laws (In Vegas ?)......only a BUFFOON looking to justify the ridiculous......would think Williams is not whack-o ....again.......
He better be focussed on DEFENSE..... and not playing like a bunch of Rebounding Charmins !!!!!!!!
Klassy
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:29 — Rollo_TomasiHe's no Dean Smith.
gassey!!!
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 20:03 — bluecat69bluecat69if dean was at carawhina they would still be playing that chicken -shit 4 corner crap , thaqt almost ruined the game, thank god he is no DEAN SMITH, go duke!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is NOT how it is ...
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:25 — wsphutchRoy, and anyone who agrees with his statements, are foolish and live in LaLaLand. These games are not private events. The Dean Dome is CERTAINLY not a private arena (it is a State School). And NO SEAT in the Nose Dome is a private seat. Even the boxes can be sold. Why should a fan not be allowed to buy seats wherever he wants, if he can? To think anythig else is ridiculous. My family are Wolfpack fans and have held season tix for decades. I didn't go to State, but I cheer for them sometimes and go to the big games (i.e. - UNC/NCSU) and I have NEVER not been sitting near a Tarhole at one of those games. They are friends of Pack fans or bought tix from Pack fans, and as much as I hate the UNC fan that is there, I never got mad at the person who brought them (except fot last year when the Tarhole tried to start a physical fight). Roy needs to quit blaming UNC's big loses on anything other than his inability to get his team up for the every game. It is not that UNLV fan's fault that UNC overlooked UNLV, and if he was rude to the coaches wives, then that is an issue they can deal with just like I had to deal with that pompous, stereotypical Tarhole last year.
No wonder the fans whine so much ... the coach wrote the cottonpickin', daggum book on it! You are so sad and pathetic.
He is absolutely right. That
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:23 — SuperStuffHe is absolutely right. That is what is wrong with the program's fans. They only show up if they are winning and sell their tickets to opposing fans. The sad thing in this case is they are winning and those fans only saw a quick way to make $$$ in Vegas instead of really supporting the program. Horrible.
do you think this is possible ?
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 22:24 — gvillegatrSomething kinda severe came up ? To the point they could not fly out to Vegas and attend the ball games ? Vegas is not down the road. The old man probably put them on craigslist/Las Vegas or one of the ticket broker sites.
My guess is, at least, this family or group wasn't even in Vegas as the tourney was being played.
Ticket rant?
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:21 — christopherryder468Tickets have become a market all of their own. Does it really surprise you to see it happening in Vegas? Where the seats are located is relevant, but only so much as who holds them and why they want to sell them. If you want to get a ticket for the visitors section to risk getting beaten up, as I see it, you should have that right.
I've gotten some Belk Bowl tickets from http://amazonticketsonline.com/Belk-Bowl for December, for example. I'm interested in Virginia, but where I sit is irrellevant.
NCAA
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:21 — jrsrRoy,
you need to be more concerned with the NCAA looking at your program while they are on campus.
You know some of your players have had the same problems in the classroom that the football program had / has.
??
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 17:02 — dkellyuncyou sir are a tool...
Fans selling tickets
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:19 — LibSlayerFans selling tickets bad.
Roy wearing another teams jersey and cheering them on... No Problem!
call roy a
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:17 — carbonLibcall roy a waaaaaaaaambulance....
UNC supporters and ABC'ers.....
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:17 — GoHeels1984Any sane UNC supporter would agree with Roy on this one. Any "rants and raves" are from the Dookies and Wuffie fans....ABCers....
If you were to turn the table for NCSU and Dook, i'm sure they would want their coach to say the same thing!
Hypocrits!
or
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 17:05 — dkellyuncimagine if a drunk were ranting and raving beside Mickey Mouse K's wife during a Dook game. I bet Just for Men would have something to say about. Not sure about Gott-Fired though. He'd be okay as long as there was a co-ed close by.
You may not like the messenger..
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:16 — UNC1998or the tone of the message, but the meaning behind it is true. If it takes public cajoling of big donor UNC fans to get the message across, so be it. There is a system at UNC called "Turn it Blue". In that system you turn in any unwanted tickets to the Rams Club for credit to your account. Those tickets are then distributed to other Rams Club members who otherwise couldn't attend. That does not put money directly into your pocket, but if that's the reason you bought the tickets to begin with.. let the next guy buy them instead. The day when there's not enough UNC fans to fill their allotment is the day that Williams can stop giving out the tongue lashings.
meh! all you kids git off my
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:10 — WakeGuy2010meh! all you kids git off my lawn! meh!
another roy rant. he is
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 16:04 — bppackanother roy rant. he is sounding more and more like my 84 year olad grandma.
so what you are saying is
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 22:17 — gvillegatr... you love Roy Williams. Good to hear you're coming over to the good side, bp.
so what you are saying is
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 22:17 — gvillegatr... you love Roy Williams. Good to hear you're coming over to the good side, bp.
Roy's comments
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 15:57 — tarheelyankRoy is right, anyone that would sell a ticket in the Smith Center to a State College fan is a traitor. He/she should lose their ticket rights.
well said Roy
Tue, 11/29/2011 - 15:56 — dkellyuncman telling it like it is.. gotta love it.