Roy Williams' dadgum, blankety-blanking vocabulary keeps players laughing

GLENDALE, Ariz. — As he addressed his team during practice early this season, North Carolina coach Roy Williams dipped into his famously colorful lexicon and called someone a “blankety blank.”

Freshman forward Tony Bradley doesn’t recall either the target of Williams’ anger or the context. All Bradley remembers is his own reaction.

“I actually started busting out laughing,” he said.

“Blankety Blank” is one of the many Royisms that Williams inevitably sprinkles in whenever he speaks. From “dadgum” to “give a flip” to “Jiminy Christmas,” Williams uses many of them as a way to prevent himself from saying something stronger.

When Williams first took over as head coach at Kansas in 1988, he told his team to give him seven curse words a year. He largely abided by that for a few years until folks at rival Kansas State started ridiculing him for his clean image, calling him by the derisive nickname, “Mr. Perfect.”

Williams told reporters last March that he responded to that by intentionally letting a curse word fly in his first press conference after hearing about the nickname, a decision he now regrets. The many words he uses now in place of cursing represent a happy medium born from his childhood roots in Marion, N.C.

“I try not to set a bad example for players cursing all the time,” Williams said. “I’m just being Roy. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. But I’ve never tried to be anybody else.”

The most common word in the Roycabulary is definitely “dadgum,” an expression that can be used to express anger or joy, humor or frustration. To hear Williams tell it, there are “dadgum questions,” “dadgum shots,” “dadgum tattoos” and even a “dadgum bath” after his team doused him with water last week when it clinched its spot in this weekend’s Final Four.

Williams has such affinity for “dadgum” that some of his players occasionally find it slipping out of their mouths too. Sophomore guard Kenny Williams admitted he’ll occasionally catch himself dropping it in conversation. Senior guard Stilman White singled out forwards Luke Maye and Justin Jackson as the most frequent offenders on the team.

Said White, “There’s only one source where that possibly could have come from, and that’s Coach Williams. So that definitely has an effect on us.”

Among the best things Williams’ frequent use of “dadgum” has spawned is a clever parody Twitter account. The 21,700 people who follow @DaggumRoy are regularly treated to funny tweets like this.

In addition to Williams’ many euphemisms for curse words, he also has some memorable terms of endearment. A guard who plays through injury is often called a “little sucker” or a “tough little nut.” Other players might earn the moniker “rascal” after a particularly feisty performance.

You never want to be called a “Loonytune” or “Wackadoo” though. Those are reserved for when Williams is displeased.

The expressions that send the Tar Heels into fits of laughter often occur when Williams butchers the pronunciation of something modern with which he’s not familiar. In a press conference earlier this week, he told reporters, “If we don’t beat freakin’ Oregon, we’re out there in a Yoober trying to get our butts back to Chapel Hill.”

When he was interrupted by snickering, Williams paused and asked, “Is it Yoober or Uber?”

“Sometimes he’ll make some analogies that we don’t get,” White said. “Old-timer things that we have to look up. If he tries to talk about Twitter, he’ll say Tweeter or stuff like that.

“There’s definitely a generation gap between us, but he’s a great coach to play for. That’s what we love about him is that he’s always genuine, he speaks his mind and he doesn’t beat around the bush.”

As good as Williams is about not swearing, every once in awhile he’ll get irritated and slip up. The most egregious example came live on CBS when reporter Bonnie Bernstein asked him about the North Carolina job minutes after his Kansas team lost to Syracuse in the 2003 national title game.

“I could give a s— about North Carolina right now,” Williams responded. “I’ve got 13 kids in that locker room that I love.”

Asked the same question in his press conference soon afterward, Williams cleaned up his language with a “blankety-blank.” He only gives himself seven curse words a year, so he couldn’t burn two in one night.

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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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