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In certain female circles, there's a checklist for what we call “evolved males.” Evolved, by our definition, means that a male has begun to develop his feminine side.
Not only can he recognize and identify feelings when they swim up – sad, angry, happy, scared – he can also talk about them.
Add to that his willingness, in a pinch, to help a woman out by carrying her purse. If he can do this in a public place, all the more points.
I can't tell you if UNC basketball coach Roy Williams ever carries his wife Wanda's purse. But in all other categories, he fits my definition.
If we didn't know it already (we've seen Roy cry on TV), his new book, “Hard Work: A Life On and Off the Court” (Algonquin, $24.95) due in local bookstores today, makes it plain that Ol' Roy recognizes a feeling when it hits him. He even teared up the first couple of times he proofread his autobiography.
Hear me loud and clear. I'm not implying Roy is a sissy. He's fiercely competitive (a two-time NCAA title-winning coach), and he likes being the boss. Friends in Kansas called him “The Committee” because he liked making all the decisions, from when to meet for golf to how much to bet.
There's also the F-bomb he dropped during a postgame news conference last winter. Not that the F-word is 100 percent gender sensitive, but it seems to tilt in the male direction. Roy quickly admitted he'd misspoken and expressed chagrin.
Now for his feminine qualities: In the book, he's willing to reveal his anger about his alcoholic father who was abusive to Roy's mother, Lallage, and his sadness that people might take away only the bad part of his late dad and not his “sense of humor, the jokester that he was.”
His decision in 2000 to not leave Kansas for the head coach job at North Carolina is particularly touching. Roy admits to “heartwrenching thoughts” at having to choose between two schools he “dearly loved.”
“It was the toughest time that I'd ever had,” writes Williams. “It far surpassed whatever pain, anger, and sorrow that I'd endured as a kid, because I didn't feel like I could make a decision that wouldn't hurt somebody that I really cared about…”
Roy also expresses hurt and sadness that his former freshman coach Bill Guthridge gave him the silent treatment for three years after Roy turned down the UNC job when Guthridge retired in 2000.
“…Some people in North Carolina that I truly loved and I thought loved me just wiped me off the face of the earth. It hurt me so much more than anything I'd ever experienced.”
Williams did take the UNC job when it was offered again in 2003, and those relationships are mended now, I would guess, in part because Ol' Roy is such a loyal guy, another gender-neutral trait.
What's so wonderful about Roy writing about his life is that when a great head coach lets the world know he has feelings, it gives other men and boys permission – and opportunity – to feel and even talk about their own.
