“I’m sad that he’s leaving because he has meant so much to basketball. He and my father formed an unbelievable bond that meant so much to me.” In 2021, Michael Jordan gave a fitting farewell speech to his coach, Roy Williams. Before winning championships in the NBA with Phil Jackson, MJ did it first with the University of North Carolina.

“And I remember sitting outside in a little holding area and somebody came behind me, and gave me a bear hug, and it was Michael Jordan. He said, ‘I just came to check on you.'” Williams recalls. The Bulls legend came back to his timing grounds in 2016 when the team reached the finals. But lost to the iconic buzzer-beater thanks to Kris Jenkins of Villanova. Coach Williams couldn’t talk to his team after the loss, so when MJ came to comfort him, he asked the Bulls legends to do him a favor.

“And ‘I said, Michael, would you do me a favor?’ Would you just go in there and tell the kids how proud you are? I said, Michael, ‘I don’t know what to say’. And I still get emotional. I mean, I was going in the locker room to talk to you guys. You’d give me everything you had, and their player made a great shot. That’s all it was. And so Michael did,” the coach narrates with all the fondness on Theo Pinson’s podcast — who was also the player on the team.

The game did absolutely amazing numbers with 17.8 million viewers. Since Michael Jordan already knew the pressure of numbers and of winning, he spoke to the team. But one of the players didn’t realize it was His Airness speaking.”Marcus was so funny later on. He told me that he had his head in the towel, and he was crying. And all of a sudden, he realized, he said, hey, it’s not Coach Williams talking to him. He said he pulled the towel down in there. It was Michael Jordan talking to the team,” via the Run Your Race podcast.

Williams was the one who instilled the habit of working hard in Michael Jordan. And despite the speech at the end of the 2016 campaign, MJ wouldn’t return to watch the finals. The reason wasn’t because of his other commitments, but because of his love for the coach and UNC.

Coach knew Michael Jordan wouldn’t return for the finals

After the 2016 loss, the team once again made the finals the next year. Even the viewership increased to 22.998 million, but Michael Jordan did not turn to the stadium like the previous year. “I want to bet you a dollar and I’ll give you about any odds you want. But I’ll bet you there’s a text message from Michael or a voice mail from Michael, and he’s going to say something about coming last year.”

Coach Williams spoke on the Dan Patrick Show and highlighted that the 6x NBA Champion wanted to avoid the jinx. Multiple people asked the coach if MJ would show up, but the 74-year-old was sure his former student wouldn’t.

“Sure enough, I got on the bus and got my phone out of my backpack.” He emphasized that Michael Jordan had left a similar text, and Williams won the bet. Because of love and respect for the coach, MJ stepped away from the spotlight. However, he was there for the Coach, when he needed him the most.