Like Duke’s Coach K, UNC’s Dean Smith retired after one last Final Four appearance
No one knew it at the time, 25 years ago.
Maybe Dean Smith. Maybe the North Carolina coach had an inkling, even had made the decision. If so, he was keeping it to himself.
The Tar Heels reached the 1997 Final Four in Indianapolis, only to have a horrendous shooting game. UNC lost, 66-58, to Arizona in the semifinals at the RCA Dome, its season over.
Dean Smith would never coach another game. His legendary career ended that day in Indy, in the Final Four. Arizona went on to win the national championship, and the Tar Heels went home.
On Oct. 9, 1997, Smith made the announcement that he was retiring. Long-time assistant Bill Guthridge took over as head coach, guiding the Tar Heels to Final Four appearances in 1998 and 2000 before stepping down.
“The last 10 years or so were tough on coach Smith with all the clinics and all-star games and everything he had to do,” Guthridge said in a 2013 interview with the News & Observer. “He’d say he was tired and tell me to get ready, and I’d tell him he’d be OK. But in 1997 he said it was time for me to take over.
“I really wanted Dean Smith to coach until he was 100 if he wanted to, and we had a great team that year. But he demanded I do it.”
Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski also is retiring on his own terms. He’s 75. It’s time. He said before the season this was it, and assistant coach Jon Scheyer became the head coach-in-waiting.
Krzyzewski’s career also ends in the Final Four, either with the nets around his neck after a sixth national championship or after a loss just short of the ultimate goal.
Had the UNC players known in Indy in 1997 that Smith was coaching his last, things might have been different. Maybe the Tar Heels, who had won the ACC title and 16 straight games, would have found a way to gut out a win over Arizona.
Vince Carter had 21 points but Shammond Williams, Ed Cota and nearly everyone else in Carolina blue struggled as the Tar Heels shot a season-low 31 percent from the field. Carter was left in tears on the UNC bench, a towel over his head. Williams, who missed 12 of 13 shots, succinctly called it a “nightmare.”
Said senior center Serge Zwikker, “It’s just a bad way to go out.”
At the time, Smith had won 879 games. No other Division I men’s basketball coach had won more. Then 66, he had won two NCAA titles, been to 11 Final Fours, won 13 ACC titles and coached Team USA to an Olympic gold medal in 1976.
Smith, who died in 2015 at age 83, would have no farewell tour as coach. Looking back, he simply walked off the court in Indy and into basketball history.
This story was originally published April 1, 2022 at 11:56 AM.
