Roy Williams "OK" After Collapsing During Game

UNC coach Roy Williams says he’s “alive and kicking” after a bout with vertigo that forced him to leave the Tar Heels’ eventual 68-65 win over Boston College with 15 minutes remaining. It was a scary moment: though Williams has had vertigo all his life, he had never before been forced out of a game.

During a timeout, Williams exchanged some words with an official over a no-call with which he disagreed. He then, in his words, “whirled around” to go coach up his players.

“And that’s when it hit,” Williams said. “And when I say benign positional veritgo, that’s exactly what it is. Every attack that I’ve had is when I jerk my head quickly, and I call them rocks, because my head’s full of rocks – rocks in my middle ear, one of the pebbles gets out of the alignment, and it bounces around on your inner ear, and that’s what causes the imbalance.”

Williams never lost consciousness, and was helped from the court by UNC’s head athletic trainer—he was able to walk—and given medicine for short-term relief from dizziness. After UNC hung on for the win, coached by assistant Steve Robinson, Williams was able to appear at his press conference, where he said he was fine physically, but “not well mentally.”

Here’s Williams’s presser: