R.I.P. Dean Smith

Dean Smith, who coached North Carolina to two NCAA Basketball titles in a 36 year career from 1961 to 1997 died February 7th at age 83.  Smith retired with a record of 879-204; at the time, his career victory total was the most of any Division I basketball coach.

Smith played college basketball at Kansas and was a member of the Jayhawks’ 1952 NCAA basketball champions.  He came to North Carolina in 1958 as an assistant coach and became head coach there three years later.  Besides the two NCAA championships in 1982 and 1993, Smith’s Tarheels made nine other Final Four appearances and won 13 Atlantic Coast Conference championships.  Smith was also the head coach of the U.S. team that won the Gold Medal in basketball at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal.

Smith also quietly helped desegregate the ACC and his own town in the 1960s, pushing to get restaurants to serve blacks and recruiting African American athletes.  Smith recruited Charlie Scott, UNCs first African American scholarship athlete.  Scott went on to have a ten year professional career that included winning the 1976 NBA championship with the Boston Celtics. Other prominent players  who played for Smith include Vince Carter, Bob McAdoo, James Worthy, Phil Ford, Ed Cota, and some guy named Michael Jordan.  Here’s Jordan and Worthy winning the 1982 NCAA Championship against Georgetown: