http://www.goheels.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=3350&ATCLID=210694990
"I don’t miss Dean Smith.
That seems strange to write. Today, it’s been a year since the legendary coach passed away. It was a where-were-you-when moment for a generation or more of Carolina fans, just like it was when his teams won a pair of national titles, or when he orchestrated a comeback from eight points in 17 seconds.
But he was so withdrawn from public life near the end of his life. It’s tough to miss someone who simply wasn’t around very much.
But at the same time, it feels like we’ve seen him regularly over this past year. Bobby Frasor made the drive from Chicago to watch Carolina play Notre Dame on Saturday night. He’s a high school coach now, and his team got a big win on senior night on Friday night.
As he talked about his first year as a head coach, he said he’s running his team the same way he was taught at Carolina.
“Coach Smith did it, Coach Williams got it from him, I got it from Coach Williams, and now I’m doing it with my guys,” Frasor said.
There it is. Frasor never played for Smith. But he’s running his program exactly the way Smith would have liked, another extended branch on the Smith coaching tree.
It’s simply impossible to think of Smith being gone. There are too many examples of his influence all over the world of Carolina basketball in which so many of us spend so much of our time. Saturday night, on the way home from South Bend, my 10-year-old was upset about the loss. All of us were. A fifteen-point lead, a key road game, seemingly critical things like NCAA Tournament seeding and ACC Tournament jockeying and regular season championships at stake...and what was it Smith always said? "A billion people in China don't even know we played." That's what I told Asher.
On Tuesday night when the Tar Heels travel to Boston College, or next weekend when they’re back in the Smith Center, watch the UNC bench after a pretty assist. They’ll all be pointing to the passer, usually led by Hubert Davis, who learned it from the man himself. There are players on that bench who were one year old when Smith retired at Carolina, but it doesn’t matter—Dean Smith taught them how to point at the passer, even if it wasn’t first-hand teaching, and it's become instinctive for them.
Earlier this season, all of those same players attended a dinner honoring former Georgetown coach John Thompson as the recipient of the first-ever Dean Smith Award. Thompson told many of the stories that you have probably heard before. But the players—and these are college students who rarely go more than 60 seconds without a text or a check of their phone—were engrossed. Justin Jackson snapped photos. Nate Britt took notes on Thompson’s speech.
It was fitting, then, that a month later it was Britt who stayed long after Carolina’s win over Tulane to play one-on-one with Green Wave assistant coach Shammond Williams, who was on Smith’s final Carolina team. Here were two individuals with very little in common; Williams a middle-aged (unfortunately, it’s true) coach with his best playing years behind him, and Britt in the prime of his athletic life.
But they’d bonded during summer sessions at the Smith Center, and were using the UNC-Tulane game as an opportunity to get back together. Tar Heels in the NBA will tell you alums from other schools frequently ask them, “What is it about Carolina?”
That’s what it is—Britt and Williams on the court together near midnight. That’s what Smith created, a fraternity that spans generations and has long outlasted his tenure on the bench. We don’t have to miss him. We get to see him every day, if you just look hard enough.
Over two dozen Tar Heels played in this summer’s camp game, alums against the current roster, during UNC basketball camp. Carolina—and most other teams in college basketball—still huddle at the free throw line. Analytics and advanced stats are hot; Smith was using points per possession decades ago.
Our oldest daughter is a freshman in high school and is working on an argumentative speech as a class assignment. This is perfect for her, because she could argue with the Old Well, and the Old Well would eventually submit to her. The teacher allowed the students to pick their own topic, and her choice was why Dean Smith is more important than…uh, another coach in the area.
All six of us spent part of dinner one day this week discussing points of her speech. There was very little conversation about basketball. But there was talk about integration, and academics, and life after basketball. Dean Smith enabled two parents to talk about those topics at dinner with three virtual teenagers and a 10-year-old, and enabled the conversation to seem cool. If you’re a parent, you know: easy entry into those types of conversations are one of the best gifts we receive. Dean Smith did that for us.
We should all take a moment today to remember Coach Smith, because a vital part of our lives has been physically gone for a year.
But miss him? We don’t have to do that. He’s right here, all over the program we love, and the University we adore, and the lives we lead, every single day."
North Carolina Men's Basketball
"I don’t miss Dean Smith.
That seems strange to write. Today, it’s been a year since the legendary coach passed away. It was a where-were-you-when moment for a generation or more of Carolina fans, just like it was when his teams won a pair of national titles, or when he orchestrated a comeback from eight points in 17 seconds.
But he was so withdrawn from public life near the end of his life. It’s tough to miss someone who simply wasn’t around very much.
But at the same time, it feels like we’ve seen him regularly over this past year. Bobby Frasor made the drive from Chicago to watch Carolina play Notre Dame on Saturday night. He’s a high school coach now, and his team got a big win on senior night on Friday night.
As he talked about his first year as a head coach, he said he’s running his team the same way he was taught at Carolina.
“Coach Smith did it, Coach Williams got it from him, I got it from Coach Williams, and now I’m doing it with my guys,” Frasor said.
There it is. Frasor never played for Smith. But he’s running his program exactly the way Smith would have liked, another extended branch on the Smith coaching tree.
It’s simply impossible to think of Smith being gone. There are too many examples of his influence all over the world of Carolina basketball in which so many of us spend so much of our time. Saturday night, on the way home from South Bend, my 10-year-old was upset about the loss. All of us were. A fifteen-point lead, a key road game, seemingly critical things like NCAA Tournament seeding and ACC Tournament jockeying and regular season championships at stake...and what was it Smith always said? "A billion people in China don't even know we played." That's what I told Asher.
On Tuesday night when the Tar Heels travel to Boston College, or next weekend when they’re back in the Smith Center, watch the UNC bench after a pretty assist. They’ll all be pointing to the passer, usually led by Hubert Davis, who learned it from the man himself. There are players on that bench who were one year old when Smith retired at Carolina, but it doesn’t matter—Dean Smith taught them how to point at the passer, even if it wasn’t first-hand teaching, and it's become instinctive for them.
Earlier this season, all of those same players attended a dinner honoring former Georgetown coach John Thompson as the recipient of the first-ever Dean Smith Award. Thompson told many of the stories that you have probably heard before. But the players—and these are college students who rarely go more than 60 seconds without a text or a check of their phone—were engrossed. Justin Jackson snapped photos. Nate Britt took notes on Thompson’s speech.
It was fitting, then, that a month later it was Britt who stayed long after Carolina’s win over Tulane to play one-on-one with Green Wave assistant coach Shammond Williams, who was on Smith’s final Carolina team. Here were two individuals with very little in common; Williams a middle-aged (unfortunately, it’s true) coach with his best playing years behind him, and Britt in the prime of his athletic life.
But they’d bonded during summer sessions at the Smith Center, and were using the UNC-Tulane game as an opportunity to get back together. Tar Heels in the NBA will tell you alums from other schools frequently ask them, “What is it about Carolina?”
That’s what it is—Britt and Williams on the court together near midnight. That’s what Smith created, a fraternity that spans generations and has long outlasted his tenure on the bench. We don’t have to miss him. We get to see him every day, if you just look hard enough.
Over two dozen Tar Heels played in this summer’s camp game, alums against the current roster, during UNC basketball camp. Carolina—and most other teams in college basketball—still huddle at the free throw line. Analytics and advanced stats are hot; Smith was using points per possession decades ago.
Our oldest daughter is a freshman in high school and is working on an argumentative speech as a class assignment. This is perfect for her, because she could argue with the Old Well, and the Old Well would eventually submit to her. The teacher allowed the students to pick their own topic, and her choice was why Dean Smith is more important than…uh, another coach in the area.
All six of us spent part of dinner one day this week discussing points of her speech. There was very little conversation about basketball. But there was talk about integration, and academics, and life after basketball. Dean Smith enabled two parents to talk about those topics at dinner with three virtual teenagers and a 10-year-old, and enabled the conversation to seem cool. If you’re a parent, you know: easy entry into those types of conversations are one of the best gifts we receive. Dean Smith did that for us.
We should all take a moment today to remember Coach Smith, because a vital part of our lives has been physically gone for a year.
But miss him? We don’t have to do that. He’s right here, all over the program we love, and the University we adore, and the lives we lead, every single day."
