Tough news about Dean Smith

Did anybody here cover him? I dealt with him twice and never got a good read on him. To be fair, the two times I dealt with him were a UNC-Duke game and in the tournament when he was about to break the wins record, so that's not the best way to find out what a guy is like.

 

Covered his teams for a spell, covered teams he coached against. One of my favorite coaches to deal with, and as long as he thought you were fair, he was accessible. A lot of coaches play the accessible game for the national media, but the locals and beat guys get nothing. Coach Smith (sorry, can't use his first name, just seems wrong) took care of the local guys.

 

Exactly. Far too much is made of the NCAA Tournament, which is one of the biggest crapshoots around. One-game elimination? Are you kidding? And for many years they didn't even have a shot clock, so, yeah, inferior opponents can steal a game.

Give me consistency and class any day. And that's what Dean Smith was.

 

Looks like they've weeded out quite a few reader comments since I read the story yesterday. Good. It was deteriorating into a gold-plated smackfest at Smith's expense. Don't know why I continue looking at reader comments. All they do is piss me off.

 

Sad to hear. Fans of opposing school may say he was slipping earlier as a lark but chain-smoking Dean was a pretty good guy. Never heard too many bad things said about him.

 

Dunno if the Smith family is trying to intentionally be vague about his mental issues, or if no one can properly diagnose it.

Still, sad to hear. All the best to Dean and his family.

 

Coaches and programs who say "far too much is made out of the NCAA Tournament" are generally coaches and programs whose teams generally underachieve in said tournament.

Yes, it is a crap shoot to a certain degree -- but all of those years, with all of that talent and he only figured out how to win it twice?

Sorry, that's a bullshit rationalization for not getting it done enough.

 

And the two that he did win came about thanks to major gaffes in the final 10 seconds of the game (Fred Brown throwing the ball right to James Worthy in '82 and Chris Webber's timeout in '93).

That being said, it's sad to see what's reportedly happening to Dean Smith happen to anyone.

 

No question, he is clearly a great man who really did a lot to help a lot of people.

I just think he is overrated a tad in the grand scheme of things because a few too many of his teams left you with the "should have accomplished more" feeling at the end of the season.

 

Very good stuff.