Dean Smith

Dean Smith was born on 28 February 1931, in Emporia, Kansas. His father, Alfred Smith, was the coach of the Emporia High Spartans basketball team and his mother was a public school teacher.

Smith attended the Topeka High School and excelled in basketball throughout high school. He was named as all-state in basketball as a senior. He was also interested in other sports like baseball and football.

For his higher studies, he went to the University of Kansas and did major in mathematics and kept his involvement in sports alive by playing varsity basketball, varsity baseball and freshman football.

After graduating from Kansas, Smith worked as an assistant coach at the university from 1953-54 and right after that, he served as a head coach of United States Air Force Academy’s baseball and golf teams, for a few years.

In 1958, Smith was hired by North Carolina coach McGuire to serve as an assistant coach. He worked at that position for three years and when McGuire was forced to resign, Smith became the head coach of the team.

Smith’s first season with the team in 1961-62 was his only losing season. Slowly and steadily, his team started winning consistently and by 1966 season, the team never finished worse than a tie for third.

Smith achieved first great success in the late 1960s––North Carolina won three back-to-back regular seasons and ACC tournament championships. But it took him seven trips to Final Four to get to his first national championship title.

In 1982, Smith earned the biggest high of his career by winning his first national championship. His team consisted of players like, Michael Jordan, James Worthy, etc. The team won the match playing against Houston in New Orleans.

Smith is known for achieving 879 wins in 36 years of coaching North Carolina basketball team. He is the 4th most in men’s college Division I basketball history and a winner of two national championship titles.

He also coached the US team to a gold medal at the Summer Olympics at Montreal in 1976. That makes him one of only three coaches to have coached teams to an Olympic gold medal, an NIT championship and an NCAA championship.

Smith was named the National Coach of the Year four times and ACC Coach of the Year eight times. In 1983, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.