The Carolina Way - By Dean Smith - University of North Carolina Athletics

Jan. 23, 2004

The most successful coach in college basketball history, and among the most beloved, offers his comprehensive program for building and maintaining winning teams in sports, business, and life.

For almost forty years, Dean Smith coached the University of North Carolina basketball team with unsurpassed success, both in victories won and in shaping the lives of the players he led. Well known are the Michael Jordans, Kenny Smiths, and George Karls, but overall more than 96 percent of Dean Smith's players earned their undergraduate degrees, and more than 33 percent earned graduate or professional degrees. Now, in The Carolina Way, Coach Smith fully explains his entire coaching philosophy and shows readers how to apply it to the leadership and team-building challenges in their own lives.

In his wry, sensible, wise way, Coach Smith takes us through every aspect of his program, illustrating his insights with vivid stories. Accompanying each major point is a "Player Perspective" from a former North Carolina basketball star and an in-depth "Business Perspective" developing some of the wider applications of Smith's precepts from Gerald D. Bell, a world-renowned leadership consultant and a professor at UNC's Kenan-Flagler usiness School.

Each year Coach Smith gave his team the same three goals:

PLAY HARD: Insist on consistent effort. The final result is often outside your control. Create a system that demands effort, rewards it, and punishes its absence.

PLAY SMART: Execute properly. Understand and consistently execute the fundamentals. Reward their execution and punish their absence.

PLAY TOGETHER: Play unselfishly. Don't focus on individual statistics. Recruit unselfish players, reward unselfish play, and punish selfish play and showboating.

Coach Smith taught all his teams that if they kept their focus on these three goals, winning would take care of itself. And more times than any other coach in history, he was right.

QUOTES:
"Coach taught me the game....He's like a second father to me."
-Michael Jordan

"Dean Smith epitomizes what a coach can be-teacher, counselor, mentor, example, friend."
-Bill Bradley

"He's a better coach of basketball than anyone else."
-John Wooden

"I have worked in the Los Angeles Laker front office since 1986. To say that much of what I learned as a player for Dean Smith in the mid-seventies is directly applicable to the business community would be an understatement. Everything I learned during my short stay at North Carolina has helped be a better manager. To this day I rely on principles taught by Dean Smith on and off the basketball court to help me be more effective. Honesty, integrity, discipline, practice and training certainly are the cornerstones to build from. If you care for your employees, as Coach Smith cared for us, it would be easy to see why your company would have a great degree of success. The Carolina Way shows how many of Dean Smith's coaching beliefs also successfully apply to the business community away from the basketball court."
-Mitch Kupchak, General Manager, Los Angeles Lakers

"Dean Smith is one of the greatest coaches of all time and I was pleased to have the opportunity to read of the leadership principles that contributed to his success. The Carolina Way also includes terrific vignettes from his former players further illustrating Dean's powerful impact on their lives and how he was able to encourage his players to perform at their personal best."
-Congressman Tom Osborne, former head football coach, University of Nebraska

"The Carolina Way provides an invaluable primer on good leadership techniques and, if the "proof is in the pudding (product)," then there is no doubt that Dean Smith's way works. My company and I had the benefit of hiring a number of Dean's players from Phil Ford to Pete Budko. All of them were winners-ambitious, energetic, loyal team players. He never sent us a bad one."
-Hugh L. McColl, Jr. Chairman of the Board and CEO, Bank of America, retired

"I have had the great privilege of sharing a fair portion of my life with William Friday, the president of the University of North Carolina during much of the Dean Smith era. As a result, I have learned what a blessing Dean Smith was to the integrity of basketball in a collegiate setting. As co-chairs of the Knight Commission, Bill Friday and I have come to an even keener awareness of the wholesome lessons we have learned from UNC basketball and Notre Dame football. I would highly recommend The Carolina Way to anyone in pursuit of excellence with integrity."
-Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, C.S.C. President Emeritus, University of Notre Dame

"These pages make clear why Dean Smith was the greatest basketball coach of his time. I know him also as a compassionate humanitarian working hard to relieve human suffering. His exemplary citizenship has inspired many generations."
-William Friday, President Emeritus, University of North Carolina
Acting Chairman, Knight Commission on University Athletics

"There were a few truly great college coaches in twentieth-century America, and Dean Smith is one of those. In my mind, Coach Smith represents everything good about intercollegiate athletics. Call it what you want: The Carolina Way, The Smith Way, The Right Way-it's about the pursuit of excellence with integrity. Dean Smith is much more than a great coach. He is a great leader, a man of conviction, integrity and toughness. Read this book if you want to know how to survive and succeed in the most competitive of environments. Coaching is a hard, competitive arena and it attracts the most competitive of men. He did it for 36 years - unbelievable! If you're in a leadership position or aspire to one, The Carolina Way is a must read."
-Lloyd H. Carr, Head Football Coach, the University of Michigan

The Carolina Way - By Dean Smith

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