DEAN SMITH

'Dean Edwards Smith' (born February 28, 1931) is a retired head coach of men’s college basketball. Originally from Emporia, Kansas, Smith has been called a “coaching legend” by the Basketball Hall of Fame. Smith is best known for his successful coaching tenure at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (“UNC”) for 36 years. Smith coached from 1961 to 1997 and retired as the NCAA Division I men's basketball coach with the most wins ever with 879 wins. This record was later surpassed by Bobby Knight in 2006. Smith has the 9th highest winning percentage of any men’s college basketball coach at 77.6.^[1] During his time as head coach of UNC, the team won two national titles and appeared in 11 Final Fours.^[2]
Smith is also known for running a clean program and having a high graduation rate for his players with 96.6% players going on to graduate.^[3] While at UNC, Smith helped promote desegregation by recruiting UNC’s first African American scholarship player Charlie Scott and pushing for equal treatment for African Americans by local businesses.^[4] Smith coached and worked with numerous individuals at UNC that went on to achieve notable success in basketball, as either players or coaches or both. Smith retired as head coach from UNC in 1997 saying that he was not able to give the team the same level of enthusiasm that he had had given it for years. Since retirement, Smith has used his influence to help out in various charitable ventures and political activities.

Contents

Background

Years at North Carolina

Retirement

Coaching style

Accomplishments and recognition

Accomplishments

Recognition

Political activities

Coaching tree

Record of coaching at North Carolina

See also

Further reading

References

External links

Background

Smith was born in Emporia, Kansas on February 28, 1931.^[5][6] Both of his parents were public school teachers. Smith's father, Alfred, coached basketball himself and coached the Emporia High Spartans to the 1934 state title in Kansas with the first black basketball player in Kansas tournament history. While at Topeka High School Smith lettered in basketball all four years and was named all-state in basketball as a senior.^[7] Smith's interest in sports was not limited only to basketball. Smith also played quarterback for his high school football team and catcher for the high school baseball team.
After graduating from high school, Smith attended the University of Kansas on an academic scholarship where he majored in mathematics and joined the Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta.^[8] While at Kansas, Smith continued his interest in sports by playing varsity basketball, varsity baseball, and freshman football. During his time on the varsity basketball team, Kansas won the national championship in 1952 and finished second in 1953.⁸ Smith's basketball coach during his time at Kansas was the legendary Forrest "Phog" Allen, who in turn was coached in college by James Naismith,⁸ the inventor of basketball. After graduation, Smith served as assistant coach at Kansas in the 1953–54 season.^[9] Ironically, after leaving Kansas Smith watched with disappointment as the University of Kansas team that he had helped coach lost to UNC in the 1957 national championship game in triple overtime.^[10]
Smith next served a stint in the United States Air Force in Germany, and then worked at the United States Air Force Academy as head coach of its baseball and golf teams. In 1958, North Carolina coach Frank McGuire asked Smith to join his staff as an assistant coach. Smith served under McGuire for three years until 1961, when McGuire was forced to resign by Chancellor William Aycock in the wake of recruiting scandals. Aycock asked Smith, then 30 years old, to become the new head coach.

Years at North Carolina

Smith's first years as head coach were difficult. In his first season as head coach, the ACC had canceled the Dixie Classic, an annual basketball tournament in North Carolina, because of a national point shaving scandal that included four N.C. State players (Don Gallagher, Stan Niewierowski, and Terry Litchfield) and one UNC player (Lou Brown).^[11] As a result of the scandal, both N.C. State and UNC de-emphasized basketball by cutting their regular-season schedules. In Smith's first season from 1961–62, UNC played only 17 games and went 8-9.^[12] As it turned out, this would be the only losing season he would ever suffer. In 1965, he was famously hanged in effigy on the university campus after a disappointing loss to Wake Forest. After that game, his team ended up winning nine of the last eleven games.^[13] After a slow beginning, Smith turned the program into a consistent success. After the 1966 season, Smith would never finish lower than third in the ACC.^[14] His first major successes came in the late 1960s, when his teams won three consecutive regular-season and tournament championships in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and went to three straight Final Fours. It took Smith seven trips to the Final Four before winning his first national title, and then it took him nine more years to return, and two more to get another national championship.^[15]
His first national championship occurred in 1982, when the team was comprised of future NBA players such as Michael Jordan and James Worthy.^[16] Before entering in the NCAA Tournament, Carolina had a record of 32-2.^[17] Upon reaching the Final Four, the other teams that advanced with Carolina were Georgetown, Houston and Louisville. In the semi-finals, Carolina defeated Houston 68-63 in New Orleans while Georgetown defeated Louisville with the score of 50-46. In the final game in New Orleans, Georgetown faced Carolina in front of 61,612 spectators. The Carolina squad faced a Georgetown team stacked with another future NBA star, Patrick Ewing. There was a constant lead change between the teams; Georgetown was leading with a full court press and Carolina was put on the defensive. The climax of the game occurred when Jordan, with 18 seconds left on the clock, caught a pass and making the shot. This, along with a foul on Worthy at the two second mark, sealed the game and the NCAA Championship for Carolina.
His second and last championship run in 1993 almost began with a tragedy. One of the Carolina players during an invitational tournament in Hawaii nearly drowned during a parasailing activity. Fielding players such as Eric Montross, Brian Reese, Pat Sullivan, and Derrick Phelps, the team started out with an 8-0 record until losing to Michigan at a last minute shot. With wins over Duke and Tennessee at the final games of the season, this placed the Carolina as the top seed in the ACC tournament. The tournament was eventually won by Georgia Tech, which faced Carolina without the injured Derrick Phelps in the final match. Starting at the national tournament, North Carolina dispatched East Carolina, Rhode Island and Cincinnati while playing in the regionals. After defeating Kansas in the semi-finals, Carolina was set to play Michigan in New Orleans. Stacked with Chris Webber, the Michigan squad could not defeat Carolina again as they did earlier in the season.^[18]
While Smith was generally known for being a fairly even-keel coach, he was ejected from the 1991 Final Four game between UNC and Kansas after receiving two technical fouls.^[19][20]

Retirement

Smith announced his retirement on October 9, 1997. He had said that if he ever felt he could not give his team the same enthusiasm he had given it for years, he would retire.^[21] His announcement was a shock to the basketball community and fans, as he had given little warning that he was considering retirement. Smith had been the only coach many UNC fans had ever known. Bill Guthridge, his assistant for 30 years, succeeded him as head coach.
Even in retirement, some believe that Smith still has a large influence on the current North Carolina basketball program. For example, in 2003 Smith talked to Roy Williams regarding his decision about whether or not to replace a struggling Matt Doherty as head coach.^[22] Williams had previously declined the head coaching position three years earlier when Guthridge retired.^[23]

Coaching style

Smith-coached teams varied in style, depending on the players Smith had available. But they generally featured a fast-break style, a half-court offense that emphasized the passing game, and an aggressive trapping defense that produced turnovers and easy baskets. His teams always shot the ball well. From 1970 until his retirement, North Carolina shot over 50 percent from the floor all but four years.
Smith is credited with creating or popularizing the following basketball techniques: The "tired signal," in which a player would use a hand signal (originally a raised fist) to indicate that he needed to come out for a rest,^[24][25] huddling at the free throw line before a foul shot, encouraging players who scored a basket to point a finger at the teammate who passed them the ball, in honor of the passer's selflessness. Instituting a variety of defensive sets in one game,^[26] having the point guard call out the defense set for the team,^[26] and creating a number of defensive sets, including the point zone, the run-and-jump, and double-teaming the screen-and-roll.
But strategically, Smith is most associated with his implementation of the four corners offense, a strategy for stalling with a lead near the end of the game. Smith's teams executed the four corners set so effectively that in 1985, the NCAA instituted a shot clock to speed up play and minimize ball-control offense.^[28] Although fellow Kansas alum John McClendon actually invented the four corners offense, Smith is better known for utilizing it in games. Smith is also the author of ''Basketball: Multiple Offense and Defense'', which is the best-selling technical basketball book in history.
Smith also instituted the practice of starting all his team's seniors on the last home game of the season ("Senior Day") as a way of honoring the contributions of the subs as well as the stars.^[29] In one season when the team included six seniors, he opted to put all six on the floor at the beginning of the game – drawing a technical foul – rather than leave one of them out.^[30]
During the 1993 run for the national title, Coach Smith used a method that was introduced to him. At a conference in Switzerland, Smith was presented a tape of a lecturer who used doctored images to achieve his goal of losing weight. The photo showed him of what he will look like if he was thin, which gave him motivation to reach that goal. Using this tactic in mind, Smith took a picture of the scoreboard from the 1982 Championship and modified it to say 1993 and erased the name Georgetown and left it blank. He proceeded to place copies of the photo in all of the lockers so the players can look at it and achieve the goal that Smith wanted.

Accomplishments and recognition

Accomplishments

Among the accomplishments of Smith:

★ 879 wins in 36 years of coaching, 2nd most in men's college Division I basketball history behind Bobby Knight.^[31] Adolph Rupp's 876 wins came after 41 years of coaching.^[32]

★ 77.6% winning percentage, which puts him 9th on highest winning percentage.¹

★ Fourth total number of college games coached with 1,133.¹

★ Most Division I 20-win seasons, with 27 consecutive 20-win seasons from 1970–1997 and 30 20-win seasons total.¹

★ 22 seasons with at least 25 wins

★ 35 consecutive seasons with a 50% or better record.

★ Two national championships (1982, 1993)

★ 11 Final Fours (second all-time to John Wooden's 12).

★ 17 regular-season ACC titles, plus 33 straight years finishing in the conference's top three and 20 years in the top two

★ 13 ACC tournament titles

★ 27 NCAA tournament appearances, including 23 consecutive.

★ 96.6% graduation rate among players.^[33]

★ Recruited 26 All-Americans to play at North Carolina under him.

★ His players were often successful in the NBA. Five of Smith's players have been Rookie of the Year in either the NBA or ABA. Among Smith's most successful players in the NBA are Michael Jordan, Larry Brown, James Worthy, Sam Perkins, Phil Ford, Bob McAdoo, Billy Cunningham, Kenny Smith, Walter Davis, Jerry Stackhouse, Antawn Jamison, Rick Fox, Vince Carter and Rasheed Wallace. Smith coached 25 NBA first round draft picks.

★ In 1976, Smith coached the United States team to a gold medal at the Summer Olympics in Montreal.

★ Smith is one of only three coaches to have coached teams to an Olympic gold medal, an NIT championship and an NCAA championship. The others are Pete Newell and Bobby Knight.

★ Smith is one of only two people that have both played on and coached a winning NCAA championship basketball team. The other is Bobby Knight.

Recognition

The Dean Smith Center, from the back.

Smith received a number of personal honors during his coaching career. He was named the National Coach of the Year four times (1977, 1979, 1982, 1993) and ACC Coach of the Year eight times (1967, 1968, 1969, 1971, 1976, 1977, 1979, 1988, 1993). Smith was also inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on May 2, 1983, two years after being enshrined in the North Carolina Hall of Fame.
Smith was the first recipient of the Mentor Award for Lifetime Achievement, given by the University of North Carolina Committee on Teaching Awards for "a broader range of teaching beyond the classroom." He has also been awarded honorary doctorates by Eastern University and Catawba College.^[34]
The basketball arena at UNC, the Dean Smith Center, was named for Smith. It is also widely referred to as the "Dean Dome". In 1997, upon his retirement, Smith was named Sportsman of the Year by the magazine ''Sports Illustrated''. ESPN named Smith one of the five all-time greatest American coaches of any sport. In 1998 he won the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, presented at the annual ESPY Awards hosted by ESPN.^[35]
On November 17, 2006, Smith was recognized for his impact on college basketball as a member of the founding class of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. He was one of five, along with Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, John Wooden and Dr. James Naismith, selected to represent the inaugural class.^[36] In 2007, he was enshrined in the FIBA Hall of Fame.

Political activities

Smith is one of the most prominent liberals in North Carolina politics. Politically, he is best known for promoting desegregation. In 1964, Smith joined a local pastor and a black UNC theology student to integrate The Pines, a Chapel Hill restaurant. He also integrated the Tar Heels basketball team by recruiting Charlie Scott as the university's first black scholarship athlete.^[4] In 1965, Smith helped Howard Lee, a black graduate student at UNC, purchase a home in an all-white neighborhood. He opposed the Vietnam War and, in the early 1980s, famously recorded radio spots to promote a freeze on nuclear weapons. He has been a prominent opponent of the death penalty. In 1998, he appeared at a clemency hearing for a death-row inmate and pointed at then-Governor Jim Hunt: "You're a murderer. And I'm a murderer. The death penalty makes us all murderers." As head coach, he periodically held UNC basketball practices in North Carolina prisons.^[38]
While coach, he was recruited by some in the Democratic Party to run for the United States Senate against incumbent Jesse Helms. He declined. But in retirement, he has continued to speak out on issues such as the war in Iraq and gay rights.^[39] Although a staunch Democrat, Smith did support one of his former players, Republican Richard Vinroot, for governor of North Carolina in 2000.^[40][41] In 2006, Smith became the spokesperson for Devout Democrats, an inter-faith, grassroots political action committee designed to convince religious Americans to vote for Democrats. Smith was featured in an ad that is running in newspapers across North Carolina and was featured in an Associated Press article.^[42]

Coaching tree

One hallmark of Smith's tenure as coach was the concept of the "Carolina Family," the idea that anyone associated with the program was entitled to the support of others. Many of his former players and assistant coaches have followed Smith into the coaching profession.

★ Roy Williams, former KU coach and UNC coach since 2003

★ Bill Guthridge, Smith's successor at UNC

★ Matt Doherty, a former Smith player and former Notre Dame and later UNC coach who now coaches at SMU

★ George Karl, a point guard under Smith, currently coach of the Denver Nuggets

★ Larry Brown, a former Smith player, the former coach of the New York Knicks, winner of championships in both the NBA (Detroit Pistons) and college (Kansas)

★ Eddie Fogler, former National Coach of the Year at both Vanderbilt and South Carolina

★ Billy Cunningham, coach of the 1983 NBA champion Philadelphia 76ers

★ Jeff Lebo, coach at Auburn

★ Buzz Peterson, Director of Player Personnel of the Charlotte Bobcats. Former coach at Coastal Carolina, Appalachian State, Tulsa, and Tennessee

★ Mitch Kupchak, general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers

★ Tony Shaver, reserve point guard under Smith, now head coach at William & Mary

★ Terry Truax, former Smith assistant and former head coach at Towson

★ Randy Wiel, former Smith player and former head coach at Middle Tennessee and UNC Asheville

★ Phil Ford, former Smith player and former assistant coach at UNC as well as the Detroit Pistons and currently an assistant coach for the Charlotte Bobcats.

★ Dave Hanners, former Smith player and former assistant coach at UNC as well as the Detroit Pistons and currently an assistant coach for the New York Knicks.

Record of coaching at North Carolina

Season	Overall Record	ACC Record	Postseason
1961–62	8-9	7-7	ACC tournament first round
1962–63	15-6	10-4	ACC tournament semifinal
1963–64	12-12	6-8	ACC tournament semifinal
1964–65	15-9	10-4	ACC tournament first round
1966–67	26-6	12-2	NCAA Final Four
1967–68	28-4	12-2	NCAA runner-up
1968–69	27-5	12-2	NCAA Final Four
1969–70	18-9	9-5	NIT first round
1970–71	26-6	11-3	NIT champion
1971–72	26-5	9-3	NCAA Final Four
1972–73	25-8	8-4	NIT semifinal
1973–74	22-6	9-3	NIT first round
1974–75	23-8	8-4	NCAA Sweet 16
1975–76	25-4	11-1	NCAA first round
1976–77	28-5	9-3	NCAA runner-up
1977–78	23-8	9-3	NCAA first round
1978–79	23-6	9-3	NCAA first round
1979–80	21-8	9-5	NCAA first round
1980–81	29-8	10-4	NCAA runner-up
1981–82	32-2	12-2	NCAA champion
1982–83	28-8	12-2	NCAA Elite Eight
1983–84	28-3	14-0	NCAA Sweet 16
1984–85	27-9	9-5	NCAA Elite Eight
1985–86	28-6	10-4	NCAA Sweet 16
1986–87	32-4	14-0	NCAA Elite Eight
1987–88	27-7	11-3	NCAA Elite Eight
1988–89	29-8	9-5	NCAA Sweet 16
1989–90	21-13	8-6	NCAA Sweet 16
1990–91	29-6	10-4	NCAA Final Four
1991–92	23-10	9-7	NCAA Sweet 16
1992–93	34-4	14-2	NCAA champion
1993–94	28-7	11-5	NCAA second round
1994–95	28-6	12-4	NCAA Final Four
1995–96	21-11	10-6	NCAA second round
1996–97	28-7	11-5	NCAA Final Four
All seasons	879-254	364-136
Source: Sports Illustrated (1997)[43] and Detroit News.[44]

See also

★ North Carolina Tar Heels basketball

★ UNC-Duke rivalry

Further reading

★ Dean Smith, John Kilgo, Sally Jenkins: ''A Coach’s Life. My 40 years in college basketball.'' New York 2002, ISBN 0-375-75880-1

★ Dean Smith, Gerald D. Bell, John Kilgo, Roy Williams: ''The Carolina Way: Leadership Lessons from a Life in Coaching'', ISBN 0-14-303464-2

★ Dean Smith: ''Basketball: Multiple Offense and Defense'', ISBN 0-205-29119-8

★ David Scott: ''Quotable Dean Smith: Words of Insight, Inspiration, and Intense Preparation by and about Dean Smith, the Dean of College Basketball Coaches.'', ISBN 1-931249-27-X

★ Art Chansky: ''Dean's Domain: The Inside Story of Dean Smith and His College Basketball Empire'', ISBN 1-56352-540-2

★ Art Chansky: ''The Dean's List: A Celebration of Tar Heel Basketball and Dean Smith'', ISBN 0-446-52007-1

★ Ken Rosenthal ''Dean Smith: A Tribute'', ISBN 1-58261-003-7

References

1. NCAA stats
2. Dean Smith Biography
3. Dean Smith recognized for lifetime achievement in and outside classroom
4. ACC 50th Anniversary Team
5. Growing Up, 1931–49
6. Smith, Dean E.
7. The Dean of College Hoops
8. College Years, 1949–53
9. Starting Out, 1953–65
10. Dean Smith Unplugged
11. Dixie Classic scandal left bad taste
12. Smith's First Five Teams To Reunite Tonight
13. Installing the System, 1965–82
14. Breaking Through, 1982–1997
15. Chansky: 75 Years Worth Of Living
16. Nothing Can Be Finer
17. Tarhell Monthly A Magical Season - Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the 1982 NCAA Champs. Published March 2002. Retrieved on August 13, 2007.
18. THM: Looking Back At 1993
19. A Few Things We Missed
20. Kansas Leaves 'Heels Dejected, Smith Ejected
21. END OF AN ERA
22. Goin' to the Chapel (Hill)
23. Williams still not thrilled about move
24. The Father of Invention: Seven Innovations
25. The List: Best coaches
26. Alternating Multiple Basketball Defenses Ken Lindsay
27. Alternating Multiple Basketball Defenses Ken Lindsay
28. Basketball rules experiments may net results
29. Wallace to get honor that is long overdue
30. Dean Smith regarded as one of the best
31. Sports Illustrated By the Numbers on Dean Smith. Published by CNN and Sports Illustrated. Published in 1997. Retrieved on August 13, 2007.
32. Smith by the Numbers
33. Dean Smith recognized for lifetime achievement in and outside classroom
34. Dean E. Smith Term Professorship
35. ESPY Awards past winners
36. Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame to induct founding class
37. ACC 50th Anniversary Team
38. A Man of Substance
39. Ex-coach takes on a higher cause North Carolina basketball legend Dean Smith is working to end the death penalty in his state
40. Biography for Dean Smith (II)
41. Vinroot raises funds, stresses Republicans’ need for diversity
42. UNC's Dean Smith featured in ad for 'Devout Democrats'
43. Year by Year: How His Heels Finished
44. Men's College Basketball

External links

★ 30 minute video interview with Dean Smith by UNCTV

★ CNNSI archive movie on news coverage of retirement (.mov)

★ FIBA Hall of Fame page on Smith