North Carolina coaching great Dean Smith dies at 83 - Chicago Daily Herald
North Carolina head coach Dean Smith yells at his players during ACC basketball action against Florida State in Tallahassee, Fla. Smith, the North Carolina basketball coaching great who won two national championships, died "peacefully" at his home Saturday night, Feb. Dean Smith, the coaching innovator who won two national championships at North Carolina, an Olympic gold medal in 1976 and induction into basketball's Hall of Fame more than a decade before he left the bench, has died. The retired coach died "peacefully" at his North Carolina home Saturday night, the school said in a statement Sunday from Smith's family. His wife, Linnea, accepted the Presidential Medal of Freedom on his behalf from President Barack Obama in November 2013. Roy Williams, the current North Carolina coach who spent 10 years as Smith's assistant, said Smith "was the greatest there... "I'd like to say on behalf of all our players and coaches, past and present, that Dean Smith was the perfect picture of what a college basketball coach should have been," Williams said in a statement. His "Four Corners" time-melting offense led to the creation of the shot clock to counter it. He was the first coach at North Carolina, and among the first in the segregated South, to offer a scholarship to a black athlete. Source: www.dailyherald.com
