Dean Smith, the coaching innovator who won two national championships at North Carolina, an Olympic gold medal in 1976, an induction into basketball’s Hall of Fame more than a decade before he left the bench, and built a church that supported LGBT issues has died. He was 83.
The retired coach died “peacefully” at his North Carolina home Feb. 7, the school said in a statement from Smith’s family. He was with his wife and five children.
Smith had health issues in recent years, with the family saying in 2010 he had a condition that was causing him to lose memory. He had kept a lower profile during that time. His wife, Linnea, accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom on his behalf from President Barack Obama in November 2013.
Roy Williams, the current North Carolina coach who spent 10 years as Smith’s assistant, said Smith “was the greatest there ever was on the court but far, far better off the court with people.”
“I’d like to say on behalf of all our players and coaches, past and present, that Dean Smith was the perfect picture of what a college basketball coach should have been,” Williams said in a statement. “We love him and we will miss him.”
In a career that spanned more than 40 years, Smith coached the likes of Michael Jordan and James Worthy and influenced the game and how it is played in ways that are unrivaled.
His “Four Corners” time-melting offense led to the creation of the shot clock to counter it. He was the first coach at North Carolina, and among the first in the segregated South, to offer a scholarship to a black athlete. The now-common “point to the passer,” in which a scorer acknowledges a teammate’s assist, started in Chapel Hill and became a hallmark of Smith’s always humble “Carolina Way.”
As progress advanced into LGBT issues, Smith continued leading the way for equality.
Smith’s church served as a base for his advocacy. He joined the Baptist congregation soon after arriving in Chapel Hill, helping build it from a 60-person gathering on campus to a full church with 600 parishioners. It was booted from the Southern Baptist Convention and the North Carolina Baptist State Convention in 1992 for licensing a gay man to minister.
“He was willing to take controversial stands on a number of things as a member of our church—being against the death penalty, affirming gays and lesbians, protesting nuclear proliferation,” said Robert Seymour, the former pastor at Binkley Baptist Church. “He was one who has been willing to speak out on issues that many might hesitate to take a stand on.”
Professionally, the numerical record of his accomplishments is staggering. His only losing season came in his first, and he left the game having surpassed Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp as the winningest men’s basketball coach in Division I history.
Smith remained in the background after his retirement, keeping an office at the Dean E. Smith Center—the arena that opened while he was still coaching in 1986. He often consulted North Carolina players as they considered whether to leave school early for the NBA, and would occasionally watch Williams direct practice and take notes. He was hesitant to give them to his former assistant, fearful of suggesting something that might not work.
Though he never ran for office, Smith also helped shape political and social views in North Carolina as coach of the state’s beloved Tar Heels. At the urging of his pastor, he recruited blacks to his team, and in 1967 made Charlie Scott the first black scholarship athlete at North Carolina and one of the first in the South.
He was active in politics, often supporting Democrats and liberal candidates. He donated money to the presidential campaigns of Howard Dean and Bill Bradley, and supported former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards—a North Carolina alumnus—in his two presidential bids before later endorsing Barack Obama.
