Dean Smith by Jeff Davis

Author:Jeff Davis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rodale
Published: 2017-04-07T04:00:00+00:00

8 | THE FIGHT TO CAPTURE THE ACC

Suddenly that summer of 1961, 30-year-old Dean Smith had landed one of college basketball’s top jobs and had to begin it with his hands virtually tied. He was also getting off to a late start against the rest of the ACC and his Tobacco Road rivals: Duke, Wake Forest, and the NC State Wolfpack, who remained dangerous despite their own probation. Wake Forest was ready in 1961–62 to make a run at the national title after the Deacons beat Clemson to win the ACC tournament. The next year, Vic Bubas and Duke had the championship ingredients, led by Player of the Year Art Heyman and Jeff Mullins. Carolina was improving, finishing at 15–6 and 10–4 in conference play. But they weren’t driving on the glory road. Not yet.

Moreover, like latter-day comedian Rodney Dangerfield, Smith didn’t get any respect. Take Ernie Accorsi, a future championship-caliber NFL general manager with the Colts, Browns, and Giants, for instance. Accorsi was a student at Wake Forest late that summer of 1961 when he turned on the TV set at his Theta Chi fraternity house and sat with his fraternity brothers as they saw Smith’s introduction to the ACC. “I was watching the 6 o’clock news, and they had the press conference,” Accorsi said. “It was on about a minute and a half. I watched this soft-spoken guy, compared to charismatic Frank McGuire. Here’s this guy talking into his tie knot. So I told my fraternity brothers, ‘We’re not going to have to worry about North Carolina anymore!’

“That’s one of the great predictions of all time!” Accorsi said, before roaring in self-deprecating laughter.

For Smith, though, working with McGuire had been akin to matriculating at graduate school for a basketball coach. And, as noted, when McGuire was out recruiting in New York, Smith got to work practices and install game plans as well as his own wrinkles. Moreover, he had a full portfolio of Kansas experiences to supplement and enhance the assortment of plays he had been developing in his stops at KU, Air Force basketball in Europe, and his time with Bob Spear at the Air Force Academy. Defense came first. And he introduced new touches when he got the job itself. One was the “tired” signal a player was to display, because Smith wanted everyone as fresh as possible at all times during a game. “He instructed players to give an uplifted fist to show when they were tired,” longtime Tar Heels radio announcer Woody Durham said.

The Tar Heels played their first game under Smith on December 2, 1961, at home in Woollen Gym. It started out inauspiciously, a bit rough around the edges. “Coach had forgotten to get a game ball, properly pumped up and so forth,” Durham said, as Smith also confessed in his memoir. The official kindly reminded him that a pumped-up ball was needed to play the game, and Smith sent his manager, Elliott Murnick, to the end of the bench to pick out one of the practice balls.

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