Legendary UNC Basketball Coach Dean Smith Dies At 83
Men's basketball coach Dean Smith, who coached the University of North Carolina Tar Heels for more than 35 years, taking them to two national titles, has died at age 83.
The Hall of Famer died Saturday night at his home, his family said in a statement released today.
"We are grateful for all the thoughts and prayers, and appreciate the continued respect for our privacy as arrangements are made available to the public. Thank you," the statement said.
Dave Dewitt of member station WUNC in Chapel Hill has a very thorough remembrance of Smith here.
ESPN writes: "Smith coached the Tar Heels from 1961 to 1997, going 879-254 and retiring as the winningest coach in [men's] college basketball history. North Carolina won NCAA championships in 1982 and 1993 and reached the Final Four 11 times under Smith."
He coached Hall of Fame players, including Michael Jordan. The Associated Press adds: "He reached 11 Final Fours, won 13 Atlantic Coast Conference tournament titles and coached the U.S. Olympic team to the gold medal in 1976."
Smith had health issues in recent years, with the family saying in 2010 he had a condition that was causing him to lose memory. "He had kept a lower profile during that time, with his wife, Linnea, accepting the Presidential Medal of Freedom on his behalf from President Obama in November 2013," ESPN says.
Smith's family confirmed in 2010 that he had a condition that caused him to lose memory. ESPN reported in a profile a year ago that Smith stopped watching games on television because "[the] motion on the screen" was too hard for him to follow.
According to the AP:
"Roy Williams, the current North Carolina coach who spent 10 years as Smith's assistant, said Smith 'was the greatest there ever was on the court but far, far better off the court with people.' "
" 'I'd like to say on behalf of all our players and coaches, past and present, that Dean Smith was the perfect picture of what a college basketball coach should have been,' Williams said in a statement. 'We love him and we will miss him.' "
Update at 3 p.m. ET. Obama: Smith Showed 'Courage And Dignity':
Here's part of a statement from the White House on Smith's death.
"Coach Smith showed us something that I've seen again and again on the court — that basketball can tell us a lot more about who you are than a jumpshot alone ever could," the president said.
"He graduated more than 96 percent of his players and taught his teams to point to the teammate who passed them the ball after a basket. He pushed forward the Civil Rights movement, recruiting the first black scholarship athlete to North Carolina and helping to integrate a restaurant and a neighborhood in Chapel Hill," Obama said in the statement. "And in his final years, Coach Smith showed us how to fight an illness with courage and dignity. For all of that, I couldn't have been prouder to honor Coach Smith with Medal of Freedom in 2013."
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Transcript
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
The sports world is mourning the loss of Dean Smith, the dean of college basketball coaches. He died Saturday at 83. Smith is best known for coaching players like Michael Jordan and James Worthy, grooming them for the NBA. At age 19, Jordan hit the game winner, introducing himself to the basketball world and winning a national championship for the University of North Carolina and coach Dean Smith.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: The tie. Eighteen. Shot. Jordan. Michael Jordan. Fourteen seconds. To Brown. Look for it. Look for Sleepy Floyd. Look...
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Oh, he threw it to the wrong man.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: He threw it to Worthy.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: It's over. It's over.
GREENE: Memorable sound there. When Dean Smith retired in 1997, he'd won 879 games, more than any other coach in Division I history at the time. But with his trademark humility, he gave the credit to everyone else.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DEAN SMITH: Thank you. I said the staff, but we started out with Betsy Terrell, one secretary and a fantastic one. And K. Thomas came aboard, Linda Woods, Angela Lee...
GREENE: Dean Smith's story goes much deeper than basketball. He recruited North Carolina's first African-American player, Charles Scott. And he's credited with helping desegregate restaurants in Chapel Hill by eating with black church members, daring servers to refuse them. On All Things Considered yesterday, Washington Post columnist John Feinstein remembered talking to Smith about this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JOHN FEINSTEIN: And I asked him about it because it was his minister who told me this story, and he said, I wish Reverend Seymour hadn't told you that. And I said, Dean, why? Why would you want that? You should be proud of being involved in something like that. And he looked at me, and he said, John, you should never be proud of doing the right thing. You should just do the right thing.
GREENE: Dean Smith was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War. He lobbied against the death penalty and nuclear proliferation. He even received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2013. Former UNC players say he taught them lessons that still guide them today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HUBERT DAVIS: There's not a part of my life that hasn't been influenced by him, by the things that he said, by the things that were taught, by the way that he walked. There's not a decision that I make that is not filtered through what do I think Coach Smith would do.
GREENE: That's former North Carolina Tar Heel Hubert Davis, remembering coach Dean Smith who died on Saturday. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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