Roy Williams: "The day before practice started I always got everybody’s height, their reach, their vertical jump, and then we went outside and did the forty yard dash and I timed every single one of them for ten years… I’m not going to remember his [Michael Jordan's] forty yard dash time exactly from his freshman year -- he was really athletic and fast, and it was like a 4.5. But I’ll never forget this... His sophomore year we ran the 40-yard, and me, coach [Bill] Guthridge, and our trainer, Mark Davis, all had hand stop watches. We’re not professional timers by any means but he crossed the line and I looked and I said ‘Wow, coach Guthridge, what did you get?’ and he looked at me and Mark Davis said ‘I got 4.39’, and coach Guthridge said ‘I got 4.38’, and I said ‘I did too.’ So I went to Michael and said ‘Michael, we messed up your start, c’mon I need you to run it again’… And he comes back and runs it again and all of us got below 4.4 again.” (Full Segment/Interview Above)
Listen to Hall of Fame North Carolina basketball coach Roy Williams join The Herd to detail his experience coaching Michael Jordan at UNC when Williams was an assistant coach under the late coaching legend Dean Smith.
Williams brought up a story in which he said that the coaches at UNC used to measure all the heights, reaches, vertical jumps, and 40-yard dash of their players before the first practice of the season.
Williams told Colin Cowherd that himself, the trainer, and another assistant were all timing Jordan's forty on a stopwatch, and all three of them had times of 4.38, 4.38, and 4.39. Williams says they were so stunned by Jordan’s speed that they lied and told MJ that they had messed up the timing of his start and made Jordan run the 40 a second time. To the coaches amazement, Jordan's second attempt drew a sub-4.4 from all three once again.
Check out the full segment and full interview above.