
DATE: Friday, October 10, 1997              TAG: 9710100893

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C3   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Column 

SOURCE: Tom Robinson 

DATELINE: CHAPEL HILL, N.C.                 LENGTH:  112 lines

SMITH JUST A COACH? NOT IN 36 - OR A MILLION - YEARS

Briefly during his farewell performance Thursday, Dean Smith began to lament the throng of people who turned out to see him off, while somewhere in the world, the Nobel Prize winner for physics strolls to the grocery store unrecognized.

But Smith caught his tongue, mumbled something about the ills of society, then carried on in his rambling way, awkwardly discussing himself and his feelings in the basement of the building that bears his name.

He is just a basketball coach, Smith was saying.

Right. Just a basketball coach who - after 36 years at North Carolina, after coaching more victories than anyone who's ever lived, after guiding 98 percent of his lettermen and managers to college degrees - had finally tuckered out at the age of 66, 10 days from the start of a new season.

Unbelievably, Dean is done.

But on his own terms. By his own timing.

There will be no gift rocking chairs. God, how Smith ran screaming from the idea of a farewell tour around the country and the Atlantic Coast Conference, all those phony pregame presentations of golf clubs and cruises and what all.

Not a chance. Heck, even Thursday's orchestrated gathering of the nation's media obviously tested Smith's patience.

It would have been enough for Smith to break the sad news to his team, as he did Wednesday night, call some of his close friends and former players, and walk into the Chapel Hill twilight, wrestling with his inner voices.

``Some team, some day, would be my last team,'' Smith said as this season's Tar Heels, faces grim, listened in a corner of the room. ``Yes, there is guilt. I look in their faces; I couldn't handle that yesterday and I couldn't if I turned right now.

``But I still believe this is best for them, unless I could give them what I want. Because I owe them. Any player who's played for me, I owe them.''

Of course, Smith also knew he owed a public passing of the reins to Bill Guthridge, the 60-year-old man who has coached by Smith's side for 30 years.

For his part, Guthridge, a soft-spoken, funny man, practically admitted he didn't want to be there. That he'd be more comfortable walking into that twilight with Smith, the way he always thought it would be.

He would quit when Smith quit, that was Guthridge's plan. But when Smith and North Carolina's new athletic director Dick Baddour beseeched him, at this late date, to take over for the sake of continuity, Guthridge signed on.

``They thought it was best for the program,'' Guthridge said, ``and I concurred.''

It was odd, actually, hearing Baddour tout Guthridge for having ``learned well from the master, and he is ready and eager to do the job,'' as if Guthridge were a pup straining at the leash.

Hardly. But while Guthridge comes to his new title free of the word ``interim,'' he spent the day avoiding talk of how long he would coach.

``Maybe 10 years, maybe three days,'' he said, smiling. ``If I enjoy being a head coach as much as I enjoyed being an assistant coach, then I'll probably go a long time. They might have to throw me out.''

Thirty-two years ago, they actually tried to do that to Smith. Remember the legendary effigy story? The struggling Tar Heels, upon their return to campus after a loss, being met by a Dean Smith dummy hanging from a tree?

It was a different world and another lifetime, an ancient fossil buried beneath mountains of unprecedented glory; 879 victories against 254 losses, 20-wins in 30 of the last 31 seasons, 27 NCAA tournaments, 13 ACC titles, 11 Final Four appearances, two national championships. All ending with a last game in Indianapolis, a 66-58 defeat to eventual national champion Arizona in the NCAA tournament semifinals.

Those are only numbers, and in Smith's profession they are important. Yet for Smith, mere numbers always paled when held up to the people who produced them, for themselves and for North Carolina but never, Smith insists, for him.

Which is why senior guard Shammond Williams dabbed tears as he sat and talked of Smith, and the drops that he missed became black spots upon the trousers of his suit.

``The toughest thing about this,'' Williams said, ``is losing coach Smith as a coach and as a father figure.''

There is plenty in this world more worthy of tears and praise and a big sendoff than a basketball coach, you bet. But Dean Smith, just a basketball coach?

Believe that and you miss the point of the last 36 years at the University of North Carolina. ILLUSTRATION: Photos

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Smith cuts down the net after the 1982 national championship game.

Before '82, Smith had made six trips to the Final Four without a

title.

Bill Guthridge, after 30 years as an assistant for Smith, takes over

the UNC basketball program.

Graphic

DEAN SMITH Q&A

Why did Smith retire?

Smith said he stepped down in order to spend more time with his

family, and that he had lost some of his enthusiasm for coaching.