CHAPEL HILL — UNC coach Roy Williams is recovering well, say doctors at the UNC
Hospitals’ Center for Skin Disorders, after undergoing an experimental treatments to
counteract a chronic skin condition which recently took a turn for the worse.
Dr. Dolph Frejgen, a dermatologist with the Center, said that Williams appeared to be
responding well to the treatments which consist of continuously applying a topical
ointment to Williams’ entire epidermis. With successive treatments, said Frejgen, a
protective crust will form over the patient’s skin surface. Even without substantive
changes to the skin, said Frejgen, the treatment effectively thickens the skin.
Because of the progressive thinning of his skin, a condition known as tergum ieiunium,
said Frejgen, it was not advisable to wait until the basketball season ended to begin
treatment. Said Frejgen, “If his skin got any thinner, it would be possible that his
‘innards,’ as Coach Williams would call them, would be have become visible.”
Frejgen said that he has accelerated the medication regime in the hope that Williams’
course of treatment will be completed by the tipoff of the Duke-Carolina game. “I know
I’m not missing it in any case,” he added.
As to the origin of the disorder, one noted medical researcher says it is likely genetic
but some viral trigger must have set off this most recent episode. A scientist at the
Center for Dermatology’s research laboratory who works extensively with animal
models, Darl Kleinschmidt, said that a careful examination of Williams’ skin showed a
number of compact lesions that appear curiously similar those commonly experienced
by their lab techs.
“We don’t know exactly what to make of it, but they look a lot like small animal bites,”
said Kleinschmidt. “Based on the tooth marks, they seem to be those of a smaller
member of the rodentia family. One incident involving rattus polisicus could explain the
latest flare up in Williams’ condition,” he noted. Polisicus, said Kleinschmidt, is noted to
carry the R. Knightitus retrovirus, which has given the thin-skin syndrome its common
name: B. Knight’s Disease.
A slightly agitated Kleinschmidt said the most recent episode could have been avoided
altogether if the rats had “stayed in their own [darn] lab.”
Friends and fans of the coach are being asked not to contact UNC Hospitals about
Coach Williams’ condition. The UNC men’s basketball office will be releasing regular
updates on his injury status as they become available.
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NCAA to make coach buyouts fairer
INDIANAPOLIS — Following the uproar ensuing after a series of school-imposed
sanctions on coaches fired for NCAA-rules violations, the National Collegiate Athletic
Association is revising their sanction guidelines to make them “fairer to all parties
involved.”
The latest brouhaha involved the termination of head men’s basketball coach at
Indiana University Kelvin Sampson for repeated phone calls made recently to recruits
outside the times and limits set by the NCAA. For his offenses, Sampson, who was
under sanctions for previous violations of a similar nature several years ago at the
University of Oklahoma, and for subsequent similar violations at Indiana, received a
$750,000 buyout by the university to step down as head coach.
“Where others have made much more serious violations, with some coaches even
paying bribes to high school players in an effort to get them to sign with their schools,”
said the NCAA’s Myles Brand, “it seems patently unfair that some of them have
received much smaller buyouts, in some cases, no payments at all for their efforts.”
“While we must give credit to Coach Sampson for his persistence in continuing to
violate the rules, it is hard to believe that others who have expended much more
energy, and incurred much greater personal costs, should not receive commensurate
rewards from their schools for their efforts,” said Brand.
Brand said a committee will be established to create fairness guidelines for such
“separation-agreement” payments from schools to coaches they fire to “ensure such
egregious injustices do not occur in the future.”
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NCAA bans Indian in all its variations
INDIANAPOLIS — The NCAA pledged today to take its program to eliminate “hostile,
abusive or offensive nicknames, logos and mascots” from NCAA-sanctioned events to
its ultimate conclusion.
Following up on its earlier move to force the College of William and Mary to remove
two feathers from its school athletic logo, the NCAA has moved to ban all NCAA-
related events and meetings from the city of Indianapolis, the state of Indiana and all
the campuses of the Indiana University system until each change their respective
names to something less offensive to Native Americans.
Gary D. Gaddy, who is, according to some informal genealogical estimates, one-
sixteenth Native American, was deeply offended even as a small child when his mom
read to him from “The Little Engine that Could.”
A version of these articles were published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday February
28, 2008.
Copyright 2008 Gary D. Gaddy
garygaddy.com 