For Tar Heel loyalists, time really flies.
You have to be at least 50 years old to have any meaningful memories of the fabled 1982 national championship, Dean Smith’s first, in New Orleans. Heck, the 19-year-old kid whose shot beat Georgetown said after the final buzzer he wasn’t even sure that was his team’s last game of the season.
Now, Michael Jordan will be 60 on his next birthday and is one of the few former athlete billionaires. And Smith, for whom every UNC fan wanted to win after six failed Final Four attempts, has been in Blue Heaven for nearly 8 years.
Like, when Roy Williams invited that team back for a reunion in 2007, we could hardly believe it had been 25 years. I felt the same way watching the 1993 team feted at halftime Saturday. And that was 30 years ago!
Smith’s two NCAA championships were different examples of his greatness as a coach.
The ’82 team had three players who would go on to be All-Americans and NBA all-stars: Jordan, Sam Perkins and James Worthy, plus solid role players in point guard Jimmy Black and small forward Matt Doherty. Their bench played mostly in emergencies.
The 1993 Tar Heels had two great college players and first-round draft choices in Eric Montross (9th pick) and George Lynch (No. 12) who both went on to be NBA journeymen, playing for a total of 11 teams. They have become beloved alumni as much for their successes after graduation as before it.
The other three starters — Derrick Phelps, Brian Reese and Donald Williams — all went on to play semi-pro or overseas and are now in coaching. But that team had a bench that Smith used regularly, all the way through the national championship win over Michigan back in New Orleans. Their sixth man was Pat Sullivan, who is currently on Hubert Davis’ staff.
The ’82 team’s lack of depth caused Smith to coach carefully, often playing zone to keep players out of foul trouble. The ’93 team was perhaps his greatest coaching job as the sum of the individual parts proved truly terrific.
Smith’s second national champions played in the shadow of Duke’s back-to-back 1991 and ’92 NCAA Tournament winners and used the motivation to get UNC’s mojo back from the Blue Devils. He reluctantly allowed ESPN to feature their first practice in prime time, and they went on to win the ACC regular season and defeat East Carolina and Rhode Island in Winston-Salem and then 12th-ranked Arkansas and No. 7 Cincinnati in the East Regional before avenging a 1991 loss to Williams’ Kansas team in the NCAA semifinals.
Forty-one and 30 years in our rearview mirror, but never forgotten.
Featured image via Associated Press/Bob Jordan
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
I watched Coach Smith’s first Championship from a motel room in Alabama, having turned down the opportunity to go to New Orleans because of a work commitment. The 2nd championship I watched from the American embassy in Paris. I took the fast train to Paris from Lyon just to watch the game.
Seems like yesterday.