Over 40 years after originally telling one of his high school players that he didn’t want him to go to North Carolina, John Thompson is the first recipient of the award that bares the name of his good friend Dean Smith.

The Dean Smith Award, was presented to him Tuesday night by the United States Basketball Writers Association.

“John Thompson was very much in the Dean Smith line of making an impact in his player’s lives off the court,” USBWA president Pat Forde said. “He just seemed like the perfect first winner of this award.”

Before Thompson coached Georgetown for 26 years and winning a national championship in 1984, he was a high school basketball coach in DC. He first met Dean Smith when Smith was recruiting one of his players, Donald Washington.

“We had a three vote system in (Washington’s) recruitment, my wife, (Washington) and myself,” Thompson said. “(Washington) and myself said no and my wife said yes.”

Washington played two seasons at UNC before playing professionally overseas and the in the NBA.

“I used to kid (Smith) all the time saying ‘you never got my vote,'” Thompson said.

Their friendship grew from there and Thompson said they became close after coaching together on the 1976 Olympic basketball team.

“Coach Smith used to tell me if the phone rang between 11 and 12 o’clock he knew it was Coach Thompson,” UNC basketball coach Roy Williams said. “I asked him ‘how about the other way’ and he said ‘yeah if it rings at his house he knows it’s me too.”

Thompson’s friendship with Smith was the reason he accepted the award. He said he would not have come if Dean Smith’s name was not involved.

“I would rather eat a bug than attend things like this,” he said. “But I think because of what he meant to me this is special.”

The idea for the award came from Washington Post sportswriter John Feinstein. He covered Thompson while he coached at Georgetown.

“I told him we had created this award and he was the first winner and there was a long pause,” Feinstein said. “And he said ‘you hit me in my heart with that one because I love Dean so much.”

The friendship between Thompson and Smith was tested when North Carolina defeated Georgetown in the 1982 national championship.

“John was a little nervous about competing against Dean for something so important,” Feinstein said.

North Carolina would end up winning the game 63-62.

After the game was over and Georgetown had lost, the first thing Smith did was run to Thompson and give him a hug, which is something Thompson said he remembers fondly.

“I always said ‘I wonder would I have done that,'” Thompson said. “If I had won would I have been running around the floor like a fool, happy and celebrating that I won, but that was reflective of Dean more than anything else.”

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