CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- North Carolina coach Roy Williams told ESPN he hasn't been asked to attend the NCAA's Division I Committee on Infractions hearing and is optimistic he won't need to go, despite the fact that the school still hasn't been notified of who will be expected to be in attendance.
Williams said he was uncertain of the actual date of the hearing, only to say he's hopeful "it's very soon."
North Carolina officials have not been told the date of the meeting and don't yet know who will be asked to attend.
Williams' name was mentioned once in the initial NCAA report, and it was to reference the date of the interview. He wasn't mentioned at all in the amended notice. The NCAA has alleged five Level 1 violations -- none involving the men's basketball program.
If Williams isn't asked to attend the COI hearing, it would further the notion that the Tar Heels coach and his program won't be hit with significant sanctions following a lengthy academic fraud investigation at the school.
Williams said he has been investigated as much as anyone over the past few years.
"Five investigations, five different groups that concluded Roy Williams didn't know what was going on, didn't know anything about it," he said. "We're down the stretch run now."
In fact, UNC athletic director Bubba Cunningham confirmed to ESPN that there were a total of eight investigations.
Williams said that the investigations haven't just affected recruiting, but also worn on him emotionally. Williams said that three knee surgeries in the past year, along with a vertigo attack on national television last season, contributed to the growing speculation he was going to retire.
"Add that, limping around and I'm not feeling good, I can understand it last year," Williams said. "The other thing with me is all the junk I was putting up with that I was not involved. Nobody's been investigated as much as I have. We were not involved. ... With the whole thing, you put it together, I can see why somebody said it last year because of the way I looked."
However, the 66-year-old Williams said he played golf eight times since his latest knee surgery and has no intention of stepping away anytime soon.
"As long as I'm healthy, I'm going to keep coaching," Williams said. "Coach [Dean] Smith told me years ago he retired too early and I'm not going to do that."
Williams said he also recently has had to deal with the ramifications of the HB2 controversy -- in which events have been moved out of the state of North Carolina as a result of the controversial House Bill 2 law that limits the legal protection of the LGBT community.
"I get asked about it in recruiting," Williams said. "It's put our state in a very negative situation. I'm embarrassed by it, I'm sad about it, I don't like it. Very, very passionate about it. In a way you've got to be very careful because people going to say your school -- state supported. But we're wrong. We're wrong. That's all you can say is we're wrong. The worst thing about it is it's given people a different image of our state than what it truly is.
"That's the saddest thing," he continued. "A guy asked me the other day, 'How can you live there?' I'm thinking, 'Gracious.' That's the saddest thing. It's given people outside the state a terrible opinion of our state, and a terrible opinion of the people of our state -- and I think they're wrong. I just think it's wrong. That has caused things to happen that is harmful to our state -- and is harmful to the reputation of the people of the state."