University of North Carolina Athletics
Coach Bill Guthridge Stepping Down
June 30, 2000 | Men's Basketball
June 30, 2000
University of North Carolina men's basketball coach Bill Guthridge has stepped down after three years as head coach and 33 years with the Tar Heel program. The Parsons, Kan., native will remain in a yet undetermined role within the athletic department for the final two years of his contract.
No replacement has been named. A search led by Athletic Director Dick Baddour will begin immediately.
Guthridge, 62, has been a member of the Carolina coaching staff since June 1967 when he joined Dean Smith's staff as an assistant coach. Guthridge remained an assistant under Smith for 30 years until he succeeded Smith as the head coach on October 9, 1997.
As head coach, Guthridge led the Tar Heels to an 80-28 record. He shares the NCAA record for most wins by a coach after three seasons with NC State's Everett Case.
He led Carolina to NCAA Regional championships and the Final Four in 1997-98 and 1999-2000. In his rookie season, UNC won 1998 Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament championship and he was named ACC Coach of the Year.
He was named National Coach of the Year in 1997-98 by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, the Atlanta Tipoff Club (Naismith Award), CBS/Chevrolet, the Columbus (Ohio) Touchdown Club and The Sporting News. That season he equalled the school record for wins in a season with 34 and set the NCAA record for wins by a first-year head coach.
In his 33 seasons at Carolina, the Tar Heels won two NCAA championships (1982 and 1993), played in 12 Final Fours, won the ACC Tournament championship 13 times and played in the ACC Tournament championship game a total of 22 times,
The Tar Heels finished first or tied for first in the ACC regular season 16 times, finished second or tied for second in the ACC regular season 11 times, and finished third or tied for third in the ACC regular season six times, The Tar Heels never finished lower than third in the ACC regular season standings and participated in the postseason in all 33 years (29 of the 33 years in the NCAA Tournament), and the Tar Heels finished in the Top 10 of at least one of the major polls 24 times and in the Top 20 30 times.
Guthridge was an assistant coach at Kansas State for five seasons, an assistant coach at UNC for 30 years and head coach of the Tar Heels for three years. He participated in 14 NCAA Final Fours, including one as a player at Kansas State (1958), one as an assistant coach at Kansas State (1964), 10 as an assistant at Carolina (1968, '69, '72, '77, '81, '82, '91, '93, '95 and '97) and two as UNC's head coach (1998 and 2000).
Overall, he was a part of 867 wins in 33 seasons at Carolina and 960 college coaching victories overall, including 93 wins on the staff at Kansas State, and was on the sidelines for 71 NCAA Tournament victories as a Tar Heel coach.
In his three years as coach, Guthridge was 7-2 in overtime games, 8-3 in NCAA Tournament games, 5-2 in ACC Tournament games, and 32-16 in ACC regular-season games. He guided the Tar Heels to team tournament championships in the 1997 Great Alaska Shootout, 1998 ACC Tournament, 1998 NCAA East Regional, 1998 Preseason NIT, 1999 Maui Invitational, 1999 Food Lion MVP Classic and 2000 NCAA South Regional.
He coached 1997-98 National Player of the Year Antawn Jamison and 1998-99 NBA Rookie of the Year Vince Carter, both of whom entered the NBA Draft after their junior seasons.
In his tenure at UNC, he coached five (5) National Players-of-the-Year (Phil Ford, Michael Jordan, Kenny Smith, Jerry Stackhouse and Antawn Jamison), five ACC Players-of-the-Year (Larry Miller, Mitch Kupchak, Ford, Jordan and Jamison), five ACC Rookies of the Year (Sam Perkins, Jordan, J.R. Reid, Ed Cota and Joseph Forte) and 27 first-team All-ACC players. He also coached 64 players who were selected in the NBA and/or ABA Drafts.
Guthridge was an assistant coach under Dean Smith in 1976 when the United States won the Olympic gold medal in Montreal.
