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Dean Smith is now coaching in Charlotte.
The Major League Soccer team in the Queen City has a new manager with a familiar name. None of the accounts I have read since Smith was hired by beleaguered owner David Tepper, who has managed to ruin the Panthers of the NFL in six years at the helm, mentioned that his latest hire has a famous namesake. Tepper sure needs a Dean Smith to lead the Charlotte FC.
The soccer Smith is 52 and was born in 1971, the year the basketball Smith officially became the Dean of the ACC. UNC’s Smith had already won three ACC championships and reached three Final Fours, but he had not fully escaped the shadow of much more famous predecessor Frank McGuire.
After All-Americans Bobby Lewis, Larry Miller and Charlie Scott had all graduated, Smith and his Tar Heels were picked sixth in the ACC and finished first in the regular season. It was also the year that Smith’s team met McGuire’s South Carolina Gamecocks in the ACC tournament final in Greensboro and lost on a last-second basket.
In those days, only the conference champion received an NCAA bid. Smith took his team to the NIT and beat Massachusetts with Julius Erving, Providence with Ernie DeGregorio and Marvin “Bad News” Barnes and Duke for the third time that season in the semifinals before blowing out Georgia Tech and All-American Rich Yunkus in the title game at Madison Square Garden.
Dean Smith of fut-bol fame turned pro in 1989, the year Dean’s Tar Heels won their first ACC championship in seven years over Duke in Atlanta. The soccer Smith was traded in 1994, when UNC basketball was the defending NCAA champion and won the ACC tournament behind All-American senior Eric Montross and freshman Jerry Stackhouse, the tourney MVP.
Soccer Smith was traded to Sheffield Wednesday in 2003, the summer Roy Williams returned to Chapel Hill to restore order to Smith’s program six years after his retirement. The Charlotte Dean retired in 2005 after Williams won his first of three national championships as the Carolina coach. That Dean entered the managerial ranks in 2009, right after Tyler Hansbrough led the Tar Heels to the NCAA championship in a dominating six-game run.
Let’s all keep careful track of how the soccer manager represents his hoops namesake.
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.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 newsletter.
