Dean Smith, called a “coaching legend” by the Basketball Hall of Fame, coached for 36 years at UNC, had the ninth-highest winning percentage of any men’s college basketball coach.[1] Smith was best known for running a clean program and having a high graduation rate, with 96.6% of his athletes receiving their degrees. While at North Carolina, Smith helped promote desegregation by recruiting the university’s first African-American scholarship basketball player, Charlie Scott, and pushing for equal treatment for African Americans by local businesses. Smith coached and worked with numerous people at North Carolina who achieved notable success in basketball, as players, coaches, or both.
And Coach Smith authored The Carolina Way which he helped define and which has lived on–across campus, through countless students, staff, faculty, alumni and fans–as among the University’s guiding principles: play hard, play smart, play together. I’m a huge believer in the lessons in The Carolina Way for education, leadership, conflict, negotiations, everything–and I’ve taken to using this graphic a lot in my teaching:
And, for more details, I found this terrific summary: The Carolina Way: Leadership Lessons From a Life in Coaching by Dean Smith [thanks to the Rabbit Hole].
And you can purchase Dean Smith’s book at Amazon.