Sept. 6, 2004

by Jawad Williams We're lucky, because every offseason lots of former Carolina players come back to Chapel Hill. They'll play pickup with us, and we go out to eat with them, and it's great to get that experience. On one hand, it shows you what a business the NBA can be. Antawn Jamison was here this summer, and he went out to eat with some of the guys and found out while he was at dinner that he'd been traded. His team didn't call him, he just saw it on TV. But what I really like about being around the former players is the chance to sit around and listen to them talk. They probably don't even realize I'm doing it, but I soak up everything they say, and then I go back and talk about it with my teammates. I'm a senior, this is my last time around. All I care about now is winning. And I look at some of those past teams, like the 1998 team that had Antawn Jamison, Shammond Williams, Vince Carter, Brendan Haywood, Ed Cota, and Makhtar Ndiaye, and I don't think any of those guys averaged 30 points a game that year. They were all around 15 or 20. But the big thing, and the reason people around here still remember that team, is because they went to the Final Four. That's what our team has to realize. You don't have to put up big numbers. If you average four points per game and win a national championship, people are going to know who you are. That's why I worked out more than I ever have before to get ready for this year. I was on a regular schedule: get up, eat breakfast, go to the weight room to meet my trainer and work out for an hour and a half. Then I'd come over to the Smith Center and do some running and shooting and agility drills. In the afternoon, I'd hit the swimming pool. I was never too big on getting in the pool before, but it's really helped because I don't have to put much stress on my lower back and my knees. You'll see the results of those workouts on the court this year. I think I'll shoot better. We did a lot of work on shooting when I was tired. My trainer would try to take my legs away from me and I'd still have to make shots. That's something I didn't do last year. Once I got hurt, my shooting slipped. The only good thing about getting hurt was that it slowed me down. I was putting too much stress on myself. That really gave me time to think, and what I realized was that if we win, we all look good, no matter who is taking the shots. That's how we're going to play this year, and that's why Jackie, Melvin, and I are going out with a bang.