Dean E Smith

Three-year stint as an assistant basketball coach at the Air Force Academy, where he also was head coach for baseball and golf; NIT Championship with North Carolina, 1971; NCAA championship, 1982, 1993; ACC coach of the year eight times, national coach of the year for 1977, 1979, 1982 and 1986; winning coach of the U.S. Basketball team gold medal at the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal;Sports Illustrated's Sportsman of the Year, 1997; overall head coaching record of 879-254 (.776). Education: University of Kansas on academic scholarship, degrees in mathematics and physical education Military service: U.S. Air Force, lieutenant stationed in Germany Smith chose to leave coaching in October 1997, setting up a smooth transition to longtime assistant Bill Guthridge, who had sat by his side on the bench for three decades. He began as an assistant coach at Kansas and went on to become one of only three men to win the coaching triple crown -- championships in the NCAA tournament, the NIT and the Olympics. In 1966 Smith recruited Charlie Scott, who became the first African-American to be given an athletic scholarship at UNC. In presenting Smith at 2011 ceremonies honoring the former coach with the James A. Naismith Sportsmanship Award, Scott said Smith never talked to him about being the first black athlete at the school. It was all about being a human being. That recruitment only scratched the surface of Smith's political activism. A staunch Democrat and one of the state's best-known liberals, Smith often spoke out on political issues and joined with a local pastor to help integrate a Chapel Hill restaurant at the height of the civil rights movement. Smith got all his wins at North Carolina, the place that would shape his life and career -- and honor him by naming the team's playing facility after him while he was still coaching, the Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center, popularly referred to as the Dean Dome. Smith’s survivors include his wife, Linnea, and their daughters Kristen and Kelly; and his daughters Sharon and Sandy, and a son, Scott, from his marriage to his first wife, Ann, which ended in divorce.