Remembering College Basketball Coach Dean Smith

Dean Smith, who had a remarkable career as a College basketball coach died yesterday at age 83.

He was best known as the coach at North Carolina University for 36 seasons, guiding his teams to two national titles and 11 semi-final appearances–better known as Final Four appearances.

His North Carolina teams were almost always at least pretty darn good. Of the 11 Final Four appearances, he lost the first six in a row, won in his 7th attempt in 1982 and again in 1993.

I remember sitting on the floor at home watching the 1982 final game. It pitted North Carolina led by James Worthy vs Georgetown led by Patrick Ewing. The radio was also on, crackling through from WBT in Charlotte, North Carolina.

North Carolina trailed by one point with about 30 seconds left when a freshman player took a cross court pass from Jimmy Black.

Legendary North Carolina announcer Woody Durham and I called it as Michael Jordan, then

a freshman, hit the first, and one of the most important shots of his great career. A short time later Dean Smith had finally won the NCAA basketball title as a coach.

Smith’s North Carolina teams played in three straight Final Four appearances from 1967-1969 against the great UCLA teams that were led by college basketball’s greatest player Kareem Abdul Jabbar, then known as Lew Alcindor.

UCLA won all three, the 1968 title vs Dean’s team which included the great player, Charlie Scott, who was actively recruited by Smith and became North Carolina’s first black scholarship player.

In addition to his eventual coaching, Smith was also a player in two semi-finals with the University of Kansas. Those appearances resulted in a national title in 1952 and a finals loss in 1953 which is pretty darn good.

Michael Jordan and Dean Smith