Dean Smith

In 36 years as the head men’s basketball coach at the University of North Carolina, Dean Smith led teams to a record 879 wins. Among Smith’s accomplishments are two NCAA championships and 11 Final Four appearances. He developed 26 consensus All-Americans, five NBA rookies of the year (including Michael Jordan), and 25 first-round draft picks. Smith is one of only three men to coach championship teams in the NCAA, NIT, and Olympics and the only one to play for an NCAA champion and Olympic champion.

But Smith’s basketball accomplishments tell only part of his story. A devout liberal, Smith worked to abolish the death penalty in North Carolina and openly supported gay rights. Five years before the Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education, he pleaded with officials to include black players on the school’s basketball team. After his fourth season as head coach, Smith found his most significant recruit in New York City. Charlie Scott became the school’s first African-American scholarship recipient, integrating the Atlantic Coast Conference and college basketball in the South. Scott became an All-American, led Carolina to two Final Four appearances, and earned a gold medal in the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. Smith passed away in February 2015 at the age of 83. This is the first biography of Dean Smith, who shaped the best of what college basketball has been and should aspire to be in the future.