RIP Dean Smith

[Orangello]

Sorry Deano only Satan allows you to play the 4 corners in the big game. St. Peter is definately a 2-3 zone kinda guy.

 

[SWC75]

I remember the 1975 Eastern Regionals. I believe that NC was ranked number one. SU beat NC in a great game. NC was up something like 36 to 27 with a couple of minutes to halftime. Smith was famous for pulling his srtatting five and then running the four corners to run out the time. Only this time it didn't work. SU went into a full court press and bingo they scored 8 straight points. Chris Sease stole the in bounds pass a couple of times during the run.

I might have the details a little wrong but that was the day SU basketball arrived.

North Carolina was ranked #6. We were ranked #20.

 

[Briancuse]

A sad day in the college bball world, we lost a legend.

 

[WaHoos4Me]

I remember Coach Smith beating UVa with the 4 corners and how because of his tactics the NCAA finally went to a shot clock. I remember watching UNC v GTown in the '82 Final, and pulling for them to win, waiting with baited breath for the final tickets to tick off, running up and down my uncle's house in Olney, MD screaming and yelling in excitement... I loathed GTown, but my relatives were pulling for GTown because they were Maryland fans and I HATED Maryland... RIP Coach Smith...

 

[Symphony Steve]

Dean Smith was a major force for civil rights. And it predated any advantage UNC might have realized on the basketball court. This story is but one of many:

"Other than his wife, perhaps no one knows that side of Smith better than Robert Seymour, who was pastor of the Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church for 30 years. Seymour met Smith when he came to Chapel Hill in 1959 to help found the church.

At the time, Smith was in his second year as an assistant coach under Frank McGuire. He joined the church in its first year, primarily because it included everyone, Seymour said.

In 1959, Chapel Hill still had a segregated school system, and it wasn’t until 1961, the year Smith took the reins as head coach, that the system would become the first in the state to activate a plan for voluntary integration.

“People think of Chapel Hill as this liberal place, but back in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, it was as rigidly segregated as Mississippi,” Seymour said.

A few years later, people staged marches and sit-ins to integrate restaurants and movie theaters, but The Pines restaurant on Franklin Street, where the basketball team ate its program meals, was already integrated.

Smith, when he was still an assistant coach, walked to the restaurant with Seymour and a theology student from Binkley, who happened to be black. Then they did something radical for the day: The three stood by the door waiting to go inside.

“The manager looked through the door and saw that we were there,” Seymour said. “There was a look of consternation, but the door finally opened and we were served like everybody else.”

 

[kirbivore]

I hated UNC growing up but thought he was all class

 

[rrlbees]

February 24, 1979: #6 Duke 47, #4 North Carolina 40[edit] Jim Spanarkel’s Senior Day game turned into one of the strangest afternoons in ACC basketball history as Duke held Carolina scoreless for a half before knocking off the No. 4-ranked Tar Heels 47-40. Dean Smith resorted to the four corners offense and the Tar Heels held the ball throughout the first half, but Duke led 7-0 as Spanarkel forced two turnovers, assisted on a basket to Mike Gminski and scored the last bucket of the half on a short jumper. (Smith later said, "It should have been 2-0, or something like that, at the half.") Carolina's only two shots of the first half were air balls, that resulted in the first-ever chants of "Air ball . . . Air ball!" from the Cameron Crazies. Sparnakel added 15 points in the second half and finished with a game-high 17, hitting 8-of-9 field goal attempts. The win allowed Duke to tie North Carolina for the ACC regular season title. Duke coach Bill Foster wasn't amused by Smith's tactics in the first half and the next day said, "I've been doing this a long time, but during the first half last night I began to think maybe I've been doing it for too long." He then added this infamous dig: "I thought Naismith invented basketball, not Deansmith." ************* Great line by Bill Foster. I think there was another game where it was 4-2.

Yea, found the 4-2 halftime game. Was NCSt vs Duke. Final was 12-10 NCST in the 68 ACC tournament.

 

[Fireball Jr.]

Dean Smith was a major force for civil rights. And it predated any advantage UNC might have realized on the basketball court. This story is but one of many:

"Other than his wife, perhaps no one knows that side of Smith better than Robert Seymour, who was pastor of the Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church for 30 years. Seymour met Smith when he came to Chapel Hill in 1959 to help found the church.

At the time, Smith was in his second year as an assistant coach under Frank McGuire. He joined the church in its first year, primarily because it included everyone, Seymour said.

In 1959, Chapel Hill still had a segregated school system, and it wasn’t until 1961, the year Smith took the reins as head coach, that the system would become the first in the state to activate a plan for voluntary integration.

“People think of Chapel Hill as this liberal place, but back in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, it was as rigidly segregated as Mississippi,” Seymour said.

A few years later, people staged marches and sit-ins to integrate restaurants and movie theaters, but The Pines restaurant on Franklin Street, where the basketball team ate its program meals, was already integrated.

Smith, when he was still an assistant coach, walked to the restaurant with Seymour and a theology student from Binkley, who happened to be black. Then they did something radical for the day: The three stood by the door waiting to go inside.

“The manager looked through the door and saw that we were there,” Seymour said. “There was a look of consternation, but the door finally opened and we were served like everybody else.”

As great a coach as he was, he was an even-greater man. Wish he would've accepted Carolina Dems' attempts to get him to run for U.S. Senate against Jesse Helms.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

Jim Boeheim ‏@therealboeheim
It was a thrill and a challenge to go against Dean Smith. As I wrote in BLEEDING ORANGE, he was a masterful "system coach." RIP, Coach.

 

[jekelish]

Jim Boeheim ‏@therealboeheim
It was a thrill and a challenge to go against Dean Smith. As I wrote in BLEEDING ORANGE, he was a masterful "system coach." RIP, Coach.

JB probably needs to ditch the student running that account...the book plug comes off as super tacky.

 

[SWC75]

Dean Smith was a major force for civil rights. And it predated any advantage UNC might have realized on the basketball court. This story is but one of many:

"Other than his wife, perhaps no one knows that side of Smith better than Robert Seymour, who was pastor of the Olin T. Binkley Memorial Baptist Church for 30 years. Seymour met Smith when he came to Chapel Hill in 1959 to help found the church.

At the time, Smith was in his second year as an assistant coach under Frank McGuire. He joined the church in its first year, primarily because it included everyone, Seymour said.

In 1959, Chapel Hill still had a segregated school system, and it wasn’t until 1961, the year Smith took the reins as head coach, that the system would become the first in the state to activate a plan for voluntary integration.

“People think of Chapel Hill as this liberal place, but back in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, it was as rigidly segregated as Mississippi,” Seymour said.

A few years later, people staged marches and sit-ins to integrate restaurants and movie theaters, but The Pines restaurant on Franklin Street, where the basketball team ate its program meals, was already integrated.

Smith, when he was still an assistant coach, walked to the restaurant with Seymour and a theology student from Binkley, who happened to be black. Then they did something radical for the day: The three stood by the door waiting to go inside.

“The manager looked through the door and saw that we were there,” Seymour said. “There was a look of consternation, but the door finally opened and we were served like everybody else.”

My parents retired to Chapel Hill in 1980. I visited them many times down there. I woudl accompany them on trips to the Harris Teeter Grocery Store. We passed the Olin T. Binkley Baptist Church, every time. I always assumed that Olin T. Binkley was some fire-breathing Southern preacher who was a segregationist. I later found out the significance of that church we drove by so many times.
http://mainstreambaptists.blogspot.com/2007/07/olin-t-binkley-memorial-baptist-church.html

I must say I don't remember the building looking as it does. I remember an old wood frame building in the trees. Obviously that has been updated more than a lot.
http://www.binkleychurch.org/about/index/

 

[Fireball Jr.]

JB probably needs to ditch the student running that account...the book plug comes off as super tacky.

sad

 

[kirbivore]

As great a coach as he was, he was an even-greater man. Wish he would've accepted Carolina Dems' attempts to get him to run for U.S. Senate against Jesse Helms.

Wasn't it during one of those Helms senate races that Michael Jordan uttered his famous quote "Republicans buy shoes too."? I wonder if he would have said the same thing if Dean Smith ran for senate.

 

[Fireball Jr.]

Wasn't it during one of those Helms senate races that Michael Jordan uttered his famous quote "Republicans buy shoes too."? I wonder if he would have said the same thing if Dean Smith ran for senate.

Good call http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/8264956/michael-jordan-obama-fundraiser-22-years-harvey-gantt