52 Facts About Dean Smith

Dean Edwards Smith was an American men's college basketball head coach.

Dean Smith had the ninth-highest winning percentage of any men's college basketball coach.

Dean Smith played college basketball at the University of Kansas, where he won a national championship in 1952 playing for Hall of fame coach Phog Allen.

Dean Smith coached and worked with numerous people at North Carolina who achieved notable success in basketball, as players, coaches, or both.

Dean Smith retired in 1997, saying that he was not able to give the team the same level of enthusiasm that he had given it for years.

Dean Smith was born in Emporia, Kansas, on February 28,1931.

Dean Smith played quarterback for his high school football team and catcher for the high school baseball team.

Dean Smith majored in mathematics and joined Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.

Dean Smith was a member of the Air Force ROTC detachment.

Dean Smith was commissioned as a second lieutenant on June 7,1954, in the United States Air Force and was stationed at Furstenfeldbruck Air Base in Germany where he was on a team that won the Air Force championship for Europe.

Dean Smith later worked as a head coach of United States Air Force Academy's baseball and golf teams.

In 1958, North Carolina coach Frank McGuire asked Dean Smith to join his staff as an assistant coach.

Dean Smith served under McGuire for three years until 1961, when McGuire was forced to resign by Chancellor William Aycock in the wake of a major recruiting scandal, and consequently, an NCAA mandated probation.

Dean Smith was waiting in McGuire's car outside South Building, so Aycock called him in and asked him if he wanted to take over as head coach.

Dean Smith accepted, and the hiring was formally announced the following Monday.

However, this run occurred in the middle of UCLA's stretch of 10 titles in 12 years, and in fact Dean Smith lost to UCLA's John Wooden in the 1968 title game.

Dean Smith missed both free throws, but Georgetown had no timeouts left.

Dean Smith had said that if he ever felt he could not give his team the same enthusiasm he had given it for years, he would retire.

Dean Smith's announcement was unexpected, as he had given little warning that he was considering retirement.

In 2003 Dean Smith talked to Roy Williams regarding his decision about whether or not to replace a struggling Matt Doherty as head coach.

In July 2010, journalist John Feinstein disclosed that he had planned to write a biography of Dean Smith, but had to shelve it due to Dean Smith's deteriorating memory.

Shortly after, Dean Smith's family released a letter stating that he had a "progressive neurocognitive disorder", which had not been publicly disclosed as Alzheimer's or anything else.

Dean Smith had trouble remembering the names of some of his players, the letter said, but he could not forget what his relationships with those players meant.

Dean Smith remembered words to hymns and jazz standards, but did not go to concerts.

Dean Smith had difficulty with traveling but continued to watch his former team on TV.

Dean Smith-coached teams varied in style, depending on the players Dean Smith had available.

Strategically, Dean Smith was most associated with his implementation of John McLendon's four corners offense, a strategy for stalling with a lead near the end of the game.

Dean Smith's teams executed the four corners set so effectively that in 1985 the NCAA instituted a shot clock to speed up play and minimize ball-control offense.

Dean Smith was the author of Basketball: Multiple Offense and Defense, which is the best-selling technical basketball book in history.

Dean Smith instituted the practice of starting all his team's seniors on the last home game of the season as a way of honoring the contributions of the substitutes as well as the stars.

At the conference, Dean Smith was presented a tape by a lecturer who used doctored images to achieve his goal of losing weight.

Dean Smith took a picture of the scoreboard from the 1982 Championship, modified it to read 1993 and erased the name Georgetown, leaving that space blank.

Dean Smith proceeded to place copies of the doctored photo in all of the players' lockers.

Dean Smith married Ann Cleavinger in 1954, shortly before his deployment overseas with the United States Air Force.

Dean Smith married psychiatrist Linnea Weblemoe Dean Smith on May 21,1976.

Dean Smith died on the evening of February 7,2015, at age 83, at his Chapel Hill home surrounded by his family.

Dean Smith received a number of personal honors during his coaching career.

Dean Smith was named the National Coach of the Year four times and ACC Coach of the Year eight times.

Dean Smith was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame on May 2,1983, two years after being enshrined in the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame.

In 1982, Dean Smith was the recipient of the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member Coach Tom Landry.

The basketball arena at North Carolina, the Dean Smith Center, was named for Smith.

In 1997, upon his retirement, Dean Smith was named Sportsman of the Year by the magazine Sports Illustrated.

On November 17,2006, Dean Smith was recognized for his impact on college basketball as a member of the founding class of the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.

Dean Smith was one of five, along with Oscar Robertson, Bill Russell, John Wooden and Dr James Naismith, selected to represent the inaugural class.

In 1964, Dean Smith joined a local pastor and a black North Carolina theology student to integrate The Pines, a Chapel Hill restaurant.

Dean Smith integrated the Tar Heels basketball team by recruiting Charlie Scott as the university's first black scholarship athlete.

In 1965, Dean Smith helped Howard Lee, a black graduate student at North Carolina, purchase a home in an all-white neighborhood.

Dean Smith opposed the Vietnam War and, in the early 1980s, famously recorded radio spots to promote a freeze on nuclear weapons.

Dean Smith was a prominent opponent of the death penalty.

In 2006, Dean Smith became the spokesperson for Devout Democrats, an inter-faith, grassroots political action committee designed to convince religious Americans to vote for Democrats.

Dean Smith was featured in an ad that ran in newspapers across North Carolina and was featured in an Associated Press article.

Dean Smith was part of the coaching tree of James Naismith, by way of playing under Phog Allen at Kansas.