Lucas: An Early Goodbye

By Adam Lucas

We didn't know.

Twenty years after Dean Smith's retirement, that's what lingers the most from that stunning day at the Smith Center.

When the media assembled in what was then Bowles Hall and what is now the Peebles Practice Facility, we were still processing the idea that Dean Smith wouldn't be coaching the 1997-98 Tar Heels. Many of us had never known any Carolina basketball coach other than Smith. On that day, a new season was about to begin, and the Tar Heels were going to be terrific. That was supposed to be the October 1997 storyline.

We weren't used to breaking news at odd hours the way we are today. Important events happened in time for the 6 p.m. news or they didn't happen at all.

So most of Oct. 9, 1997, felt like a haze. We knew it was the end of an era, but it was so close to the beginning of practice that the shock of the immediate timing overwhelmed the notion of long-term significance. The Tar Heels had just completed the annual preseason mile run and were stacked with a roster—including Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter, Shammond Williams and Ed Cota—that had just completed a Final Four run.

The immediate question, after getting over the idea of life without Smith in charge of Carolina basketball, involved who would coach the Tar Heels during the upcoming season. Just a couple years earlier, I'd done a story on who might replace Dean Smith. The logical choice was Roy Williams. "Don't forget about Bill Guthridge," Williams said during the interview process for that story.

Guthridge was indeed announced as the next coach. Off went the Tar Heels on a terrific season, ending in the Final Four again, this time with a loss to Utah. Carolina Basketball kept going.

What we didn't realize on that October day in 1997 was how few times we had left to celebrate Smith. He was retiring early. That was part of the whole shock of the day. It wasn't really time for him to leave coaching just yet. A point of reference: Smith was 66 years old when he retired. Roy Williams is 67 years old right now. That's how young Smith seemed when we had to say goodbye to him at his retirement press conference.

And so, if Smith was retiring early, that meant we would have him around for decades. Surely he would be a fixture around the basketball office, and maybe even be spotted at home games. He'd earned the right to take some time for himself, but certainly we'd be able to point him out to our kids and explain his significance. The only frame of reference we had in the late 1990s was UCLA's John Wooden, who regularly sat at center court at Pauley Pavilion and watched his Bruins. Smith was our Wooden. We thought we were just losing him on the sidelines, not permanently.

We should have known better. Even now, writing the above paragraph, it sounds ludicrous. But we had no time to prepare, no time to consider the reality of what a UNC basketball world without Smith was likely to look like. Smith wasn't even comfortable being the centerpiece of Carolina basketball when he was the head coach of the team. Of course he wasn't going to find the spotlight after his retirement. During Guthridge's three years as head coach, he consulted regularly with Smith, but he did it the way both men preferred—in private. Smith watched games at home, where he was soon to observe that it was much more difficult to be a fan than to be the head coach, since the coach had some control over the situation.

That observation was one of the last times we were able to connect with him in such a personal way. He made a couple of appearances during halftime presentations at the Smith Center, always reluctantly. Just over a decade later, he was honored at Carolina's Celebration of a Century. And as he walked off the Smith Center court, you got the distinct impression that might be the last time he made that walk.

Twenty years ago today, on a day when disbelief was the primary emotion around Chapel Hill, we lost a coach. But it was reasonable to assume that perhaps we were gaining his influence in areas other than basketball. Free of the daily routine of practice and media obligations and recruiting, the future seemed limitless for Dean Smith, who everyone knew was much more than a basketball coach.

But we never got that full next chapter. Twenty years later, that's why today feels melancholy. Scrawled on Smith's reserved parking space in chalk by a fan 20 years ago was a sentiment that would have been even more true if we'd known the course of the next few years.

"Please don't leave."

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