The best profile ever on Bill Guthridge was in the 1995-96 issue of our annual Carolina Court magazine series, written with depth and humor and insight by Lee Pace. It was a long, 13-page story that you could not put down, start to finish.
It began with a few Guthridge-isms, such as a typical exchange he would have with someone asking him a question.
“Coach, heard a score on the Wake-State game?”
“Yep.”
“What was the score?”
“80 to 74.”
“Coach, who won?”
“State.”
“Guess, I should have asked you that in the first place.”
“Yep.”
Guthridge, who died Tuesday night after an extended illness, was a beloved member of the Carolina Athletics Department, known for even more than being Dean Smith’s right-hand man for 30 years and then taking two Tar Heel teams to the Final Four in three seasons as head coach. Such as his legendary dry sense of humor.
He was supportive and popular, endeared by almost everyone who knew him. He was a wonderful family man, raising two sons and a daughter with wife Leesie. He was a devout St. Louis Cardinals fan from his childhood days of listening to Harry Caray call the games on radio to almost his final days watching the Redbirds on the MLB Extra Innings package.
Pace tells story after story on “Coach Gut” in the article entitled “The Man Behind The Man.” The Carolina Court series ran from 1986-2001 and those of you who still have copies have true Tar Heel collector’s items. Pace penned what is easily the most definitive look at Guthridge ever published.
It tells stories you’ve heard before about how Guthridge would schedule departure times and meeting times at 5:27 instead of 5:30, so players would not generalize and be early. If they weren’t on time, they were from then on because they were running the campus the next morning at 6 a.m. – with Coach Gut.
How his favorite lunch spot was China Chef in Eastgate, where Guthridge ate sweet-and-sour chicken every time with assistants Phil Ford and Dave Hanners. And of his legendary sweet tooth.
It talks about Guthridge, damn near a scratch golfer in his youth, quitting the game to spend more time with his family in the few hours he had away from basketball. And, besides, he had just parred “Amen Corner” at Augusta National and shot one-over-par on the back nine. “A 37 at Augusta – what else was there to accomplish?” he said.
Pace quotes players, managers, colleagues and friends who had the famous delayed reaction to Guthridge’s dry wit. “He doesn’t strike you as funny,” said Bill Raftery, former Seton Hall coach who now calls the NCAA Tournament for CBS. “His punch line hits you two days later as you’re driving down the road.”
And his practical jokes with players before practice and settling down to teach big men how to play the pivot as well as any coach in the country. Pace writes, “Every freshman has been caught with the old loose-ball ploy. A basketball will bounce in Guthridge’s direction during shoot-around, and he’ll take a step toward the ball like he’s going to be a nice guy and retrieve it. The innocent freshman will stop chasing the ball. But, instead, Guthridge bends over as if to tie his shoe, letting the ball roll on past. The freshman revs up again and runs the ball down, wondering, ‘What’s the deal with this Guthridge guy?’”
Guthridge was a maniacal jogger, every morning at 6 a.m., no matter the weather. And he enlisted partners along the way, like Scott Montross during the years that his son Eric played center for the Tar Heels. Scott, a lawyer in Indianapolis, made it to every game Eric played, home and away, for four years. He and Guthridge ran Chapel Hill, Hawaii, New York City, every ACC town outside of North Carolina and Final Fours in Indy and New Orleans.
At halftime of a game at Duke, when Guthridge thought the Heels were getting screwed by the officials, he told the team before running out for the second half, “Let’s beat those guys – all eight of them!”
Pace travels back to Parson, Kansas, where Guthridge grew up and had an older sister who dated a student at Kansas named Dean Smith. And how he wanted to go to KU but wound up at Kansas State, playing against Cincinnati’s Oscar Robert and Wilt Chamberlin from the arch rival. He took a charge from the “Big O” and fouled him out of a game. He tried the same ploy against the Stilt, who stepped over Guthridge and dunked the ball. “I got quite a bit of razzing over that one,” Gut told Pace.
He was tied to the hip with Smith, the Yin and Yang of Carolina Basketball. Yin’s desk was always orderly, mostly clear with papers stacked neatly. Yang’s desk looked like a tornado had just blown through the office. Guthridge arose daily before 6. Smith stayed up late into the night to watch tape. Between them they had every hour covered. When Smith was tossed from a game at Clemson, Coach Gut took over and completed a blowout of the Tigers. When Smith was ejected from the Final Four in 1991, Yin defended Yang all the way off the court and into the tunnel, yelling loud enough for all three refs to hear.
The article has pictures from each decade they worked together, usually Guthridge gesticulating behind a more-measured Smith. In the ‘60s, it was Guthridge’s blazer and slacks to Smith’s dark suit. In the ‘70s, it was Gut’s dark suit to Smith’s three-piece job. In the ‘80s, both wore patterned jackets with wide lapels. In the ‘90s, it was back to the ‘60s. Except gray hair replacing slicked down brown and black.
As the freshman coach in 1970, Guthridge chased the zebras off the court after a one-point loss to N.C. State in the prelim only to find out the varsity refs were stuck in a snow storm and the same two guys would work the big game. Guthridge made nice and the seventh-ranked Tar Heels beat the No. 5 Wolfpack for the second time that season.
And then, of course, came the turning point that Pace describes so eloquently. Guthridge had already turned down Utah State in 1973 and Arkansas in 1974 and actually got a sniff from Duke during one of its coaching transitions. But in 1978, the head job came along he thought he wanted – Penn State.
He accepted the week Carolina was playing San Francisco in the NCAA West Regional, which turned out to be a difficult loss because it was Ford’s last game in a Tar Heel uniform. Over the weekend in Tempe, Arizona, Guthridge began weighing his decision and told people close to him he wasn’t sure he made the right call. He was supposed to tell the team after the game but when Smith gave him the floor, Coach Gut waved him off. He only checked his bags to Chicago, not sure which connecting flight he would take – to Pennsylvania for the scheduled press conference Monday or back to Raleigh Durham with the team.
We know which one he took, and he never interviewed for another head coaching job. When he finally got one, he had no choice but to take over for his boss in October of 1997. “The more I thought about it,” he told Pace of the final mind-change, “I realized I have a great job at Carolina. My family liked it here. I liked it. Why, if you have something you really enjoy, why go someplace else?”
He never did and lived happily ever after. So many people are glad about that.
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