When Roy Williams was told he might have cancer, he said his world was turned upside down.
“It was a wild time in the Williams family for about 24 days,” said Williams, head UNC men’s basketball coach.
“I was the biggest dadgum pansy you’ve ever seen. The surgery scared the dickens out of me,” he said.
Williams spoke of his cancer scare at the eighth annual Roy Williams’ Fast Break Against Cancer event on Friday, a breakfast fundraiser that raises money for the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center.
The fundraiser began when Williams became head coach, and has since raised more than $1.2 million.
Williams said this year’s event was especially important, as he recently had a tumor removed from one kidney and a biopsy performed on a tumor on the other kidney. Both were non-cancerous.
Williams joked that he’s been scolded for faking a cancer scare to get more people to attend the breakfast, and was introduced by longtime UNC sports announcer Woody Durham as “the healthy Roy Williams.”
“You have so many unusual thoughts; you have so many thoughts that you can’t stop,” Williams said.
“But I wanted to continue seeing my grandsons — there’s no question that was the biggest thing, and I was scared to death — I wanted to continue to coach and I wanted to continue to do things so we can raise money … to give people a better chance of fighting this.”