The Reverend Robert Seymour was not much of a basketball fan.

Despite his famous friendship with Carolina coach Dean Smith, Bob Seymour did not follow the Tar Heels nearly as much as his wife, Pearl. The Seymours met Smith when he brought his family to the congregation on campus that would become Binkley Baptist Church.

Over the years, I was privileged to interview Dr. Seymour, who passed away last week. He confirmed that his friendship with Smith was far more spiritual and personal than UNC basketball-related. He chuckled about Pearl being more into the games than he was.

They had met when Smith was still an assistant under Frank McGuire. Dr. Seymour knew the influence basketball had in town. When he wanted to take a black theology student with him to the segregated Pines restaurant, he asked Smith to go along because it would increase their chances of being seated. It worked, although the Pines wasn’t officially integrated until years later.

That story says a lot of Dr. Seymour and Coach Smith. They were both civil rights activists, and sometimes the reverend worked one of Smith’s thoughts on desegregation into his Sunday sermon. Even after he became the head coach, Smith was yet to win any championships and had to be careful what he said in public about racism.

During the demonstrations in Chapel Hill in 1964 before and after passage of the Civil Rights Act, Dr. Seymour, Smith and other members of Binkley tried to pass local legislation as the first open community in the South. They failed and had to wait until a federal public accommodation law was passed.

A few years after that, when Howard and Lillian Lee moved to Chapel Hill and tried to buy a house in an all-white neighborhood, Smith and Seymour talked to the developer and convinced them the Lee’s had the right to live wherever they wanted.

They were all dear friends for life. While the reverend talked more theology than basketball with the coach, he did attend games occasionally. But it was Pearl who you could hear cheering.

 

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