Hubert Davis, a former Tar Heel player and assistant coach of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill men’s basketball team, is taking over as head coach after Roy Williams announced his retirement last week, the school announced.
Davis, the first Black head coach in the team’s history, recorded a short video posted Monday on the team’s Twitter page. He said he was “proud, humbled and appreciative” to be selected as new head coach.
Hubert Davis: “I’m 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗱, 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗳𝘂𝗹, 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗱, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 of being your new men’s basketball coach for the University of North Carolina.”#CarolinaFamily pic.twitter.com/Lev1CwyTQD
— Carolina Basketball (@UNC_Basketball) April 5, 2021
In a statement, the university said school officials “interviewed a diverse array of candidates from coast to coast, with input from dozens of men’s basketball alumni and senior Department of Athletics officials.”
Ultimately, Davis was chosen, the statement said, “because of his dedication to student-athletes, leadership, work ethic, service and passion to win.”
Davis was a guard at UNC in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was a first-round pick by the New York Knicks in the 1992 NBA draft and spent more than a decade on various teams. After retiring, he was an analyst at ESPN for seven years.
As an assistant Tar Heel coach, Davis was head of the junior varsity men’s basketball team as well as the team’s clinics and charities.
Davis will be formally introduced during a news conference Tuesday afternoon, the school said.
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