Re: Dean Smith story.

rules. You see what basketball infractions got us. The book was thrown at us. How many decades did UNC benefit from players not having to actually go to class? How many bad calls went in UNC's favor there weren't as many games on TV and basically you were at the mercy of the home cooking up there. Even the ACC tourney first round games weren't on tv for many years. I'm sorry he's passed away and wish he could have lived many more years for his family to enjoy, but I think he benefited from a different set of rules that other ACC coaches were required to follow. The situation at UNC now just provides all the evidence you need.

The funny thing is, UNC's approach to sports was to not only dare anyone to call them out on the fake classes and admissions standards, but they created this false sense that they were very nearly Ivy League in the way the operated on the academic side.

Just no respect for any of that school's accomplishments at all. And in spite of all of this, UNC football has not won a conference title since 1980, 35 years! And they have never won a division title.

epifunny

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Dean Smith was the best and worst of us....

Feb 8, 2015, 11:41 AM [ in reply to My favorite Dean Smith memory ]

I was born in NC and grew up there, following Smith for quite awhile.

Smith was innovative, a perfectionist, progressive in race relations, inclusive for those that bought in, not fond of boastful sorts yet clearly prideful to no end.

He was also a political wank, someone who gained power through success and didn't want to let it go. Two of his "prodigee's" so to speak were Jim Delaney, commissioner of the Big Ten (both he and his brother played for Smith), and John Swofford, Commissioner of the ACC (who became AD at UNC at a very early age while Smith was BBall coach - clearly Smith helped Swofford get there). These two, at varying levels (Delaney being much more influential than Swofford), along with Mike Slive and several other movers and shakers in the Bowl system, were architects behind the scenes of the BCS and have helped keep a playoff system out of the College Football scene for years. They're also behind the Big 5's grab for power and the astonishing vanishing NCAA. To say that they have enriched themselves over time is redundant. To say that it's a "conspiracy worthy of Scully and Mulder", well, that's for someone else to say.

My favorite story of Smith, who I idolized as a youngster, is the time they were playing Duke in the late 1980's. Coach K was in the ascent and had built Duke into a burgeoning power. Smith became frustrated during the game when his Tar Holes didn't seem to be getting their normal ACC-preferential calls, and for one moment lost his temper - actually slamming a fist onto the scorer's table hard enough to make a old-style rotary telephone bounce completely off the table. UNC lost that day, and more along the way - Smith never really transcended K again even as he won 2 more NCAA titles (K won what 4?).

Now it's Duke that always gets the calls...

the story of "power" never changes as as the icons pass.

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Dean Smith story.

My favorite Dean Smith memory

Wish CLEMSON had a "Dean" & won BiG!

That would require an African-American Studies major.***

Maybe we could have if we were going by the same set of

Re: Wish CLEMSON had a "Dean" & won BiG!

Dean never the HC at Kansas, was an asst.***

Thank you,

Dean Smith was the best and worst of us....

And Duke's players had to take real classes. At least we

Re: Dean Smith story.

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