![]() ![]() They honor him with what amounts to an open-ended eulogy. Even the people closest to him sometimes slip into the past tense: Coach Smith was. He is a ghost in clothes, dimmed by a disease that has no cure. ![]() The man who held the family together has broken off and drifted away. Here is the special cruelty of it: The connector has become disconnected. He has gone from forgetting names to not recognizing faces to often looking at his friends and loved ones with empty stares. Now he is 83 and almost no light gets out. He built lifelong bonds.īut for the past seven years, maybe more, dementia has drawn the curtains closed on Dean Smith's mind. He called on their birthdays and got tickets for their in-laws. They asked his advice on everything from sneaker contracts to marriages. ![]() Inside the big Carolina family, he built a smaller family - the players and coaches and staffers who came to see him as a teacher, a guru, a role model, a surrogate dad. He taught his team, and those who watched, that everyone is connected. Dean's most lasting invention was his simplest: When you make a basket, you point to the player who threw the pass. But more than that, they won with a selfless style. His teams won 20 or more games for 27 years in a row. He created a shared identity for the legions of UNC fans who still buy the tickets and wear the T-shirts and paint their dens Carolina blue. Heaven is other people.įor 36 years as the Tar Heels' head coach, Dean Smith built a family. It's a hedge against the coldness of the world. In the arena, or in a sports bar, or maybe just alone on your couch, you watch your favorite team and you plug into something bigger than yourself. WHY DO WE CARE about sports to begin with? Why do we watch? Maybe this: to connect. Gene Wojciechowski takes a look back at some of the greatest moments from a Hall of Fame career. He put his hand over his heart and sang from memory:ĭementia has attacked the memory of legendary coach Dean Smith, but the memories he created will stand the test of time. He waved at his wife, Linnea, to stand with him. He started to play.ĭean jumped to his feet. Barnes knew Dean had heard the song thousands of times. Barnes asked if he could play one more song.Īfter every basketball game, win or lose, the UNC band plays the alma mater and fight song. Barnes played old Baptist hymns and barbershop quartet tunes - Daisy Daisy, give me your answer true. About a year and a half ago, a friend named Billy Barnes came over to the house to play guitar and sing a few songs. He turns the pages past photo after photo of himself. Most of the books are about North Carolina basketball. Now he thumbs through golf magazines and picture books. The motion on the screen is too hard to follow. Dean Smith doesn't watch the games anymore. This story about the toll dementia took on the legendary former North Carolina coach was originally posted on March 5, 2014.ĬHAPEL HILL, N.C. Editor's note: Dean Smith died Saturday at the age of 83. ![]()
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