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WRALSportsFan

Tyler Hansbrough Named Sports Illustrated's National Player of the Year

By Grant Wahl

Mar 5, 2008

Below is an excerpt from the article to appear in the March 10, 2008 issue of Sports Illustrated:

On the office desk of his Chapel Hill home, next to the portraits of his wife and children, North Carolina coach Roy Williams keeps a framed 8-by-10 picture of a young man drenched in his own blood. No, Ol' Roy doesn't harbor a soft spot for slasher films. But he does for Tar Heels junior forward Tyler Hansbrough, and to Williams the photograph—taken a half hour after Duke's Gerald Henderson broke Hansbrough's nose with a flagrant foul last season—symbolizes the epic toughness of college basketball's fiercest gladiator. "He has two cotton swabs up his nose and blood all over his arms and jersey, and he says, 'How do I look, Coach?' " says Williams, who can't help but giggle at the memory. "What a goofball."