Staff

My relationship with North Carolina goes back to Dec. 13, 1966, when I covered the Tar Heels’ 64-55 victory over Kentucky in Lexington’s Memorial Coliseum. At that time, the young Carolina coach Dean Smith wasn’t far removed from the days when he was being hung in effigy on the Chapel Hill campus. I wrote a game story that complimented Carolina’s execution of Smith’s ball-control game plan – a “Picasso,” I called it – and Smith never forgot it.