Art Chansky - Deans Domain: The Inside Story of Dean Smith and His College Basketball Empire

I have what you might call a love-like relationship with Dean Smith. For more than thirty years, Ive loved his coaching style and what he stands for as a human being. Now, after he reads this book, I hope he still likes me.

Through four decades at Carolina, Smith became an idiosyncratic icon and a fiercely private person. Any book that examines several sides of this coaching legend must include some stories Smith would not want told, and Deans Domain delves into aspects of Smiths career and life that hes not likely to include in his own forthcoming memoirs. He did not try to stop me from writing Deans Domain (after all, hes a staunch believer in the First Amendment), but it is fair to say that he did not cooperate with special interviews. I once teased him about the private sittings he has granted other authors, and he said, No one has had more exposure to our program than you have had over the years.

That may be true. First as a student reporter for the Daily Tar Heel and later as a local sports columnist and editor, I was fortunate to get as close to Carolina basketball as anyone who has never been a player, coach, or team manager for Smith, or a member of the schools sports information staff. And subsequently, after producing celebratory books on Smiths two NCAA titles and publishing the Carolina Court magazine for fourteen years, I indeed have had my share of exposure to Smith and his many players.

Unlike The Deans List, which I wrote in 1996 as a tribute to his greatest teams and games, this book is far more about Smith himself, and his far-reaching influence as a basketball coach and mentor to millions. Beginning with his controversial last six months on the job and then reverting to the start of his career, Deans Domain looks at the power Smith amassed, where it came from, and how he wielded it.

To a large extent I have drawn on my own articles, books, and interview notes. In addition, I offer special thanks to Alfred Hamilton, Ron Morris, and Lee Pace for the stories they have written on Smith. Many former UNC players and team managers and friends of Carolina basketball, too numerous to list, contributed either directly through personal contact or by having been quoted in some of our earlier publications.

Further thanks to the last three sports information directors during Smiths tenure at UNC Jack Williams, Rick Brewer, and Steve Kirschner for their help with recollections and/or access to their office files. And I am grateful for the time and insight offered by John Swofford and Dick Baddour and members of their respective UNC athletic department staffs, as well as former and current coaches Larry Brown, Eddie Fogler, Phil Ford, Bill Guthridge, Dave Hanners, Dick Harp, John Lotz, Randy Wiel, and Roy Williams, who through the years have been helpful without ever once violating the confidence that Smith placed in them.

My friend Joel Fishman helped convince Longstreet Press president Chuck Perry and senior editor John Yow that this book on Dean Smith would be better than any other and, thus, worth publishing. Yows guidance and steady editing hand assured it. Helping me make the Longstreet deadlines, Jan Bolick proved to be an eager research assistant who said she even had some fun along the way. Colleagues at Tar Heel Sports Marketing seemed to understand my weird comings and goings over the eight-month writing process.

I consider myself very lucky to have witnessed, first hand, thirty of Smiths thirty-six seasons as Carolinas head basketball coach, as he rose from a young man making a name for himself to the biggest winner in major-college history, whose name became synonymous with the game. His reign as a successful coach and exemplary person will never be duplicated on any level. I hope you enjoy this inside look at one of the true giants of American sport.

ART CHANSKY is currently VP and publisher of Tar Heel Sports Marketing, the multimedia rights holder for UNC basketball. First as a journalist then as a sports marketer, Chansky has covered Tar Heel basketball for more than thirty years, beginning during his days as a student reporter on the UNC campus. He has written two previous books on Dean Smiths career: March to the Top (1982) and The Deans List (1996), now in its fifth printing. He also founded Carolina Court , an annual magazine on the Tar Heels now in its fourteenth year.

POSTCRIPT

STILL IN CHARGE

A worn-down Dean Smith left the bench, moved out of his office, and gave up his personal parking space, but he hardly walked away from the notoriety and sovereignty he had achieved. That he still came to work almost every day and did not meddle clearly indicated he had no regrets over his decision. That he continued to be inundated with personal requests meant he had underestimated what his retirement would bring. At least now Smith had an excuse to just say no.

As the last coaching days of Dean Smith moved further away in the rearview mirror, friends and associates remarked at how good he looked. Remaining tanned from after-October 15th golf, a relaxed Smith relished not having to begin the same routine he had endured through the last forty years. He and his wife spent one early November weekend at the beach, and Smith made good on his pledge to see his grandchildren more often. When informed he had been selected Sports Illustrated s Sportsman of the Year, he even allowed photographers to shoot him and grandson Luke at the home of his daughter, Sandy Combs, in Charlotte.

Returning to Chapel Hill, he heard that Mack Brown had resigned as Carolinas football coach to take the Texas job. Asked for his advice, but aware that Dick Baddour had already made contact with Georgias Jim Donnan, Smith recommended Carl Torbush if Carolina chose to stay inside. Donnan ultimately declined the UNC offer and Torbush was introduced late Monday afternoon, December 8, after Smith had been in Baddours office that morning. Torbush called the next day to thank Smith and pledged to help Bill Guthridge in the continuing recruitment of football-basketball star Ronald Curry, who would eventually sign with UNC in April.

Trying to maintain a low profile, Smith remained the major force behind Carolina basketball. He gave over his elegant office to Guthridge and moved down the hall into a smaller room once occupied by the restricted-earnings coaches on his staff, and he stopped parking in the space with the reserved sign that had been placed there for him ten years earlier. Smith had not asked for the space, but athletic director John Swofford gave it to him after continually seeing Smiths car parked at the far end of the large Smith Center lot. The old space stayed empty for more than a month following Smiths retirement no one dared park there until the sign was taken down. Somehow believing he no longer rated special privileges, Smith went back to walking across the parking lot.

He attended only a handful of games in person, watching the rest at home on television while cheering so hard. Im like a fan. My heart beats faster. Ive been yelling at them the players and coaches through the television set. He made a surprise halftime appearance during the game with Hampton Institute on December 16 to be honored as SI s Sportsman of the Year. With no prior announcement that he was coming, the crowd greeted him with a huge roar and stood cheering during the short presentation. The team had remained on the court to watch the ceremony, and cognizant that the Tar Heels had not played well together in the first half, Smith motioned with his hands at several players to pass the ball.