Season’s Greetings From Dean Smith

Think of the length of Dean Smith’s Christmas card list.

Then imagine that he actually calls many of those people regularly, not just dropping an annual hello at the holidays.

“He tends to stay in touch,” said Middle Tennessee State Coach Randy Wiel, who was a North Carolina player and assistant coach under Smith. “He calls me every Tuesday. That means he calls somebody else every Monday.”

Buzz Peterson, the coach at Appalachian State, was only a bit player on the 1982 NCAA championship team that had Michael Jordan, James Worthy and Sam Perkins.

“But the morning after we won our first conference game, I walked in and there’s a message from Coach Smith saying, ‘Congratulations on your first conference win.’ That sticks in your mind forever.”

Many people know Smith trained Philadelphia 76er Coach Larry Brown, Seattle SuperSonic Coach George Karl, Kansas Coach Roy Williams and South Carolina Coach Eddie Fogler--and let’s not forget Bill Guthridge, who has yet to lose as coach of the No. 1 Tar Heels.

The remarkable statistics at the end of Smith’s 36-year career aren’t only the 879 wins, the 11 Final Fours and the two NCAA titles, but also the 40 lettermen under Smith at Carolina who are now teachers or coaches.

“I think that his greatest legacy will be the example he set for coaches, and how to do it,” Williams said after the Jayhawks held off a scrappy USC team at the Sports Arena on Tuesday night. “He cares about coaches and about people and trying to do things right.

“If you work under Coach Smith, he stresses that you do it with good people, people who will be loyal. You learn how to run a total program.”

You also learn how to stay in touch. It’s not only the players, Jordan among them, who return to Chapel Hill each year.

“During the summer, everyone goes back and plays basketball in Chapel Hill, and the coaches get together too,” Wiel said. “I talk to other college players and ask if they ever go back, and a lot of them don’t.”

The players play pickup games--and a smaller group of coaches returns for X-and-O sessions. It was shortly after one of those that Smith announced his retirement in October.

Here, then, is an incomplete look at the coaching legacy of Dean Smith:

Three of his proteges’ teams are in the Associated Press top 10--Guthridge’s No. 1 Tar Heels, Williams’ No. 2 Kansas team and Fogler’s No. 10 Gamecocks.

Two of his proteges are NBA head coaches--Brown and Karl--and two are NBA assistants--John Kuester in Philadelphia and Bob McAdoo in Miami.

Other college head coaches include Greensboro College’s Bill Chambers, Brevard College’s Dudley Bradley and Fayetteville State’s Rick Duckett.

The highest-profile college assistant is Matt Doherty, another member of the ’82 championship team, who is an assistant at Kansas and is primed for a high-profile job.

It was Doherty, 35, who acknowledged when Smith stepped down he’d somehow thought Smith would be on the North Carolina bench forever--after all, he had been there all of Doherty’s life.

Other college assistants include Phil Ford, Dave Hanners and Pat Sullivan at North Carolina, Jeff Lebo at South Carolina, Curtis Hunter at North Carolina A&T; and King Rice at Illinois State.

Then there are the high school coaches--not the least of whom is former 76er Bobby Jones, coach and athletic director at Charlotte Christian School in North Carolina. Jimmy Braddock and Scott Cherry are also high school coaches.

There are a few others who overlook the bench from the front offices--the Lakers’ Mitch Kupchak and the Indiana Pacers’ Donnie Walsh, as well as Jim Delany, commissioner of the Big Ten Conference.

Big names or not, from time to time their phones ring with Smith on the line.

“If you were the first man or the 15th man, everybody on the team was an equal,” Peterson said.

SOLID BRUIN BEGINNINGS

Count UCLA as a survivor. What could have been a disastrous start without Kris Johnson and Jelani McCoy is all but over with Johnson back and McCoy scheduled to return Tuesday against Illinois.

The damage? Only an ugly margin of defeat against North Carolina in a game that probably would have been a loss anyway.

Barring an upset by Nevada Las Vegas or Illinois, the Bruins will go into their first crucial game of the season, Jan. 3 against Arizona, with only one loss.

The defending national champion Wildcats already have three--to Duke, Kansas and Florida State.

As for how UCLA would have stacked up in its 41-point loss to North Carolina had Johnson and McCoy played. . . .

Let’s just say the Bruins will get a good idea Feb. 22 at Duke.

WORDS FROM THE HEART

Colgate’s players paid a tribute to their late coach, Jack Bruen, with their performance against Seton Hall (a five-point defeat Monday) after attending his funeral, and Bruen went out like a true coach in the way he broke news of his illness to them earlier this fall.

“When you’re sick, only two things can happen,” said Bruen, who died Friday at 48 after a two-month battle with pancreatic cancer. “Either you get better or you get worse.

“If you get better, no problem. If you get worse, only two things can happen. Either you live or you die. If you live, no problem. If you die, only two things can happen. Either you go to heaven or you go to hell. If you go to heaven, no problem. And if you go to hell--hey, all your friends are there.”

Bruen played at New York’s Power Memorial High School--along with Lew Alcindor--and coached Adonal Foyle, the eighth pick in the 1997 NBA draft by the Golden State Warriors.

A HAPPIER HARRICK

Jim Harrick is coming to California with his No. 22 Rhode Island team, and the former UCLA coach will get a good idea where his Rams stand against Stanford in the first game of the Cable Car Classic in San Jose on Monday.

Rhode Island (6-1) also has a game against No 24 Temple on Jan. 4.

From time to time, Harrick has a few remarks about UCLA, such as the following one that appeared in Newsday:

“UCLA’s a fine place, just some of the people in it aren’t. Plus, you never want to work for people who set standards for others that they do not live by themselves,” Harrick said.

“The wounds heal, but the scars never go away. On the other hand, I’ve gone on positively in my life and made a vow that I’ll never let [someone] ever ruin another moment of my life. . . . I’ve been to the mountaintop, I don’t need that. I’ve got a nice gig here, I’ve got a nice situation. I work for great people who are upfront and honest and respectful. They respect me, and I respect them, and with respect you have no problems.”

Knowing how the NCAA tournament minds work, we wouldn’t be surprised to see UCLA and Rhode Island in the same bracket next spring.

QUICK SHOTS

Kansas didn’t look like the No. 2 team in the nation during its 74-69 victory over USC, making 21 turnovers and only 12 of 20 free throws. Could the Jayhawks be tired? “By the end of December we’ll play 18 games, but I think that’s an excuse,” Williams said. “When I was 18, 19, 20 years old, I didn’t think I’d ever get tired.” . . . Jayhawk senior Raef LaFrentz pulled down the 1,000th rebound of his career Tuesday--only the third Kansas player to reach that mark--and could break Danny Manning’s record of 1,187 in early February. . . . Long Island University guard Charles Jones is leading the nation in scoring again, and if he repeats his 1997 scoring title, he’ll be the first player to lead the nation in consecutive seasons since Texas Southern’s Harry Kelly in 1982 and ’83. Jones is averaging 31 points, and his closest competitor is Miami of Ohio forward Wally Szczerbiak at 27.1. The shooting of Szczerbiak helped Miami upset Xavier earlier this month--Miami’s first victory over a top-10 team in 24 years. . . . Something has gone terribly wrong at UC Santa Barbara, where Coach Jerry Pimm had a player uprising and has a 2-6 team that has yet to beat a Division I opponent and is 1-18 on the road dating to the 1995-96 season. Santa Barbara went to the NCAA tournament in 1988 and ’90 under Pimm and was in the National Invitation Tournament in ‘89, ’92 and ’93. Guard Raymond Tutt’s draft prospects are slipping along with the Gauchos’ season.