University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
Mike Gore's "40-for-40": Roy Williams and Jerry Green
06.29.2026 | General
ASHEVILLE, N.C. - For the first time in 38 years, the head coach of the current national championship men's basketball team left his school to take a job in the NBA. That happened earlier this week when Michigan head coach Dusty May left the Wolverines for the Dallas Mavericks.
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And the last time it happened it came in the summer of 1988 and UNC Asheville was right in the middle of this news. It also helped screw up my summer vacation!!
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Kansas won the national championship in April of 1988 and the Jayhawks were coached by Larry Brown. Brown was a great coach but was known not to stay in one job for too long. There were also rumors that Kansas could be facing some NCAA violations soon.
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So it wasn't a total surprise when Brown left Kansas to take the San Antonio Spurs' head coaching job. The Spurs were a year away from getting first-round draft pick David Robinson from the Navy. Robinson enjoyed a spectacular career at the Naval Academy, nearly taking the Midshipmen to the Final Four in 1986. However, he had a two-year commitment following graduation before he could play in the NBA.
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I thought it was interesting that Brown had moved on to San Antonio but didn't think much more about it because it wasn't going to affect me in anyway. I was wrong about that one!!
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Losing your head coach is never easy but losing your head coach in June is a tough time for any collegiate program. Usually these things happen after the season ends in March and April and while not ideal, schools can deal with them a little easier.
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Kansas needed to act fast and they did. A lot of names were thrown about but in a bit of a surprise move they hired Asheville native and UNC-Chapel Hill assistant Roy Williams as their next head coach.
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Coach Williams had been in Chapel Hill for 10 years as an assistant to legendary head coach Dean Smith. Previously, he had been the head boys' basketball coach at nearby Owen High School. During his time at Owen, he had struck up a friendship with UNC Asheville assistant coach at the time Jerry Green. Whenever the Bulldogs would play Kansas or Chapel Hill, Williams would comment that he had played more pick-up games at Justice Center than anybody on the current Bulldog team.
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I started working at UNC Asheville in 1986 and had the pleasure of working with Jerry Green when he was head coach. Green was an outstanding coach who got the most out of his players. The word in the athletic department was that if Roy Williams ever got a head coaching job, the first person he would call would be Jerry Green.
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And that's exactly what happened. Though it was 38 years ago, I remember it as if it were yesterday. My brother Kerry, who was a basketball coach at Conway HS in the Myrtle Beach area, met Williams earlier that year at a prep tournament called the Beach Ball Classic. They struck up a conversation and Coach Williams told my brother that no one prepared a team for an opponent than Jerry Green.
Kerry called me at my office one morning to ask if I had seen that Roy Williams was going to Kansas. I told him I had. He reminded me of the conversation he had with Williams the previous winter. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I had not seen Coach Green that morning.
We still had rotary phones back then (look it up) and I put my brother on hold and called in to the main office. I asked Diane Marlowe, our athletic department secretary, if she had heard from Jerry this morning. She said she had and that Coach Green had called in early in the morning and that he wouldn't be in for a few days because of a family emergency.
I was set to visit my brother at the beach later that week but when I got off the phone with Diane, I knew that trip was going to have be postponed. I told my brother thanks for calling me and I would let him know when I could come down because it wasn't going to be this weekend.
Things were a whole lot different in 1988 than they are today. No cell phones. No fax machines (look it up), no email, no texting, no internet, etc.
Our Athletic Director at the time was an excellent man named Ed Farrell who was always prepared for any situation. He thought the world of Jerry but knew that one day someone would grab him. Ed had compiled a file of replacements and wanted to start quickly on hiring a new head coach.
The problem was that Ed was not in Asheville. He was on vacation in Brewster, New York and had decided to go hiking that day. Remember no cell phones and there was simply no way to get a hold of Ed.
We also didn't know how to get a hold of Jerry Green. Again, no cell phones. No texts. We assumed we knew that Jerry was in Lawrence, Kansas but we didn't know for sure.
I called out to Kansas and talked to my colleague out there. I told him this might seem to be a strange question but was Jerry Green out there. He laughed and said he knew how we felt because Larry Brown had done that to them every year when he was in Kansas. However, while he felt for me, he simply couldn't confirm or deny that Jerry was going to be Roy Williams' assistant coach.
With the phone ringing off the hook from local media outlets, players, recruits and just interested Bulldog fans, we had nothing to tell. We just didn't know.
And that's how the way the day went. Ed was on a long hike unfortunately and Jerry was busy. We were in a state of uncertainty.
Finally, I talked to Ed Farrell around 10 p.m. We had left him many messages so he knew something was up. He figured it was about Jerry leaving though he hadn't heard from Coach Green either.
However, Ed was not one to wait. He had me go back to his office late at night and get the folder out with the potential head coaching replacements. I called Ed back at 11 p.m. and gave him four names he had written down with their phone numbers. He then told me to get a press release ready to go out as soon as we knew Jerry was leaving us.
Sometime that night, Coach Green and Ed Farrell talked and Jerry confirmed he was going to Kansas. Ed called me at 6 a.m. the next morning and told me to get a release out and the search was starting right now. Ed had planned to see his first coaching candidate that morning.
My summer vacation was going to have to wait. We had a basketball coach to hire. Ed had a certain criteria that whoever we hired would have had to have been a head coach. They didn't have to be one right now but, somewhere in their background, they would have had to be a head coach in college basketball.
We hoped that would stop a lot of people from applying or calling. It didn't. All of us who worked in the UNC Asheville Athletics Department suddenly had a lot of old "friends" calling about their interest in being our head coach.
Ed would end up interviewing four people for the job; two he would invite to Asheville to interview closely.
One who didn't make the cut to come to Asheville ended up having a decent career. John Beiline, who would later be the head coach at Michigan and lead the Wolverines to two straight Final Fours, was the head coach at LeMoyne College in Syracuse. Ed interviewed him in his backyard. I talked to him about it years later and he remembered the interview fondly and would have loved to come to Asheville.
The other person he talked to was Tom Chapman, the head coach at Gannon College in Erie, Pa. Chapman had led the school to tremendous success and on his roster at the time was a back-up forward named Rick Rice. Yes, the same Rick Rice who has been doing the PA for our home basketball games for most of the last 15 years.
In the end, Mr. Farrell would hire Don Doucette from the University of Lowell (Mass.) to replace Coach Green. Ed had gone to see Don on the first day he knew the job was open. He interviewed Doucette in his office and then invited him to come down to Asheville.
 It was a good hire as Don had just led Lowell to the Division II national championship the year before. He had taken over Lowell when it was a struggling program and in five years had captured a national title. Interestingly, he would be replaced by Stan Van Gundy, who would later have a long career in the NBA as a head coach.Â
We would introduce Don in a press conference at Justice Center just two weeks after Coach Green had left. And finally I would get to have a summer vacation!!!
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And the last time it happened it came in the summer of 1988 and UNC Asheville was right in the middle of this news. It also helped screw up my summer vacation!!
Â
Kansas won the national championship in April of 1988 and the Jayhawks were coached by Larry Brown. Brown was a great coach but was known not to stay in one job for too long. There were also rumors that Kansas could be facing some NCAA violations soon.
Â
So it wasn't a total surprise when Brown left Kansas to take the San Antonio Spurs' head coaching job. The Spurs were a year away from getting first-round draft pick David Robinson from the Navy. Robinson enjoyed a spectacular career at the Naval Academy, nearly taking the Midshipmen to the Final Four in 1986. However, he had a two-year commitment following graduation before he could play in the NBA.
Â
I thought it was interesting that Brown had moved on to San Antonio but didn't think much more about it because it wasn't going to affect me in anyway. I was wrong about that one!!
Â
Losing your head coach is never easy but losing your head coach in June is a tough time for any collegiate program. Usually these things happen after the season ends in March and April and while not ideal, schools can deal with them a little easier.
Â
Kansas needed to act fast and they did. A lot of names were thrown about but in a bit of a surprise move they hired Asheville native and UNC-Chapel Hill assistant Roy Williams as their next head coach.
Â
Coach Williams had been in Chapel Hill for 10 years as an assistant to legendary head coach Dean Smith. Previously, he had been the head boys' basketball coach at nearby Owen High School. During his time at Owen, he had struck up a friendship with UNC Asheville assistant coach at the time Jerry Green. Whenever the Bulldogs would play Kansas or Chapel Hill, Williams would comment that he had played more pick-up games at Justice Center than anybody on the current Bulldog team.
Â
I started working at UNC Asheville in 1986 and had the pleasure of working with Jerry Green when he was head coach. Green was an outstanding coach who got the most out of his players. The word in the athletic department was that if Roy Williams ever got a head coaching job, the first person he would call would be Jerry Green.
Â
And that's exactly what happened. Though it was 38 years ago, I remember it as if it were yesterday. My brother Kerry, who was a basketball coach at Conway HS in the Myrtle Beach area, met Williams earlier that year at a prep tournament called the Beach Ball Classic. They struck up a conversation and Coach Williams told my brother that no one prepared a team for an opponent than Jerry Green.
Kerry called me at my office one morning to ask if I had seen that Roy Williams was going to Kansas. I told him I had. He reminded me of the conversation he had with Williams the previous winter. Suddenly, it occurred to me that I had not seen Coach Green that morning.
We still had rotary phones back then (look it up) and I put my brother on hold and called in to the main office. I asked Diane Marlowe, our athletic department secretary, if she had heard from Jerry this morning. She said she had and that Coach Green had called in early in the morning and that he wouldn't be in for a few days because of a family emergency.
I was set to visit my brother at the beach later that week but when I got off the phone with Diane, I knew that trip was going to have be postponed. I told my brother thanks for calling me and I would let him know when I could come down because it wasn't going to be this weekend.
Things were a whole lot different in 1988 than they are today. No cell phones. No fax machines (look it up), no email, no texting, no internet, etc.
Our Athletic Director at the time was an excellent man named Ed Farrell who was always prepared for any situation. He thought the world of Jerry but knew that one day someone would grab him. Ed had compiled a file of replacements and wanted to start quickly on hiring a new head coach.
The problem was that Ed was not in Asheville. He was on vacation in Brewster, New York and had decided to go hiking that day. Remember no cell phones and there was simply no way to get a hold of Ed.
We also didn't know how to get a hold of Jerry Green. Again, no cell phones. No texts. We assumed we knew that Jerry was in Lawrence, Kansas but we didn't know for sure.
I called out to Kansas and talked to my colleague out there. I told him this might seem to be a strange question but was Jerry Green out there. He laughed and said he knew how we felt because Larry Brown had done that to them every year when he was in Kansas. However, while he felt for me, he simply couldn't confirm or deny that Jerry was going to be Roy Williams' assistant coach.
With the phone ringing off the hook from local media outlets, players, recruits and just interested Bulldog fans, we had nothing to tell. We just didn't know.
And that's how the way the day went. Ed was on a long hike unfortunately and Jerry was busy. We were in a state of uncertainty.
Finally, I talked to Ed Farrell around 10 p.m. We had left him many messages so he knew something was up. He figured it was about Jerry leaving though he hadn't heard from Coach Green either.
However, Ed was not one to wait. He had me go back to his office late at night and get the folder out with the potential head coaching replacements. I called Ed back at 11 p.m. and gave him four names he had written down with their phone numbers. He then told me to get a press release ready to go out as soon as we knew Jerry was leaving us.
Sometime that night, Coach Green and Ed Farrell talked and Jerry confirmed he was going to Kansas. Ed called me at 6 a.m. the next morning and told me to get a release out and the search was starting right now. Ed had planned to see his first coaching candidate that morning.
My summer vacation was going to have to wait. We had a basketball coach to hire. Ed had a certain criteria that whoever we hired would have had to have been a head coach. They didn't have to be one right now but, somewhere in their background, they would have had to be a head coach in college basketball.
We hoped that would stop a lot of people from applying or calling. It didn't. All of us who worked in the UNC Asheville Athletics Department suddenly had a lot of old "friends" calling about their interest in being our head coach.
Ed would end up interviewing four people for the job; two he would invite to Asheville to interview closely.
One who didn't make the cut to come to Asheville ended up having a decent career. John Beiline, who would later be the head coach at Michigan and lead the Wolverines to two straight Final Fours, was the head coach at LeMoyne College in Syracuse. Ed interviewed him in his backyard. I talked to him about it years later and he remembered the interview fondly and would have loved to come to Asheville.
The other person he talked to was Tom Chapman, the head coach at Gannon College in Erie, Pa. Chapman had led the school to tremendous success and on his roster at the time was a back-up forward named Rick Rice. Yes, the same Rick Rice who has been doing the PA for our home basketball games for most of the last 15 years.
In the end, Mr. Farrell would hire Don Doucette from the University of Lowell (Mass.) to replace Coach Green. Ed had gone to see Don on the first day he knew the job was open. He interviewed Doucette in his office and then invited him to come down to Asheville.
 It was a good hire as Don had just led Lowell to the Division II national championship the year before. He had taken over Lowell when it was a struggling program and in five years had captured a national title. Interestingly, he would be replaced by Stan Van Gundy, who would later have a long career in the NBA as a head coach.Â
We would introduce Don in a press conference at Justice Center just two weeks after Coach Green had left. And finally I would get to have a summer vacation!!!
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Thursday, June 18
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Wednesday, March 11
Friday, February 06