1 team in America. Hed been given a five-year contract when he took over for Smith, because the administration feared recruits would stop coming if they thought Guthridge could retire at any moment. When he retired as head coach in 2000, he knew he wouldnt be able to get through telling his staff about his departure. He never called me at home, unless it was something dire, Hanners says, but he said, How would you feel about meeting me in the office early on Monday at 7 to go over some things before everyone gets there? Hanners obliged, trying to ease Guthridges feeling that he was somewhat out of touch. Guthridge said a few weeks ago he planned to stay another five or six years despite intense criticism from fans and alumni after the teams worst regular-season record in decades. He was a father figure.". Coach Guthridge made his retirement official on May 13, 2015. A relatively quiet man with a wonderful and dry sense of humor. Had it worked out where there wasnt a down year or whatever, maybe things end up differently, Frederick says. He competed in one as a player at Kansas State in 1958, was an assistant coach at 11 before directing the Tar Heels at two as head coach. If I were to call Roy and ask Roy was he interested, the first question out of his mouth wouldve been, did Bill get a chance? Baddour says. Guthridge was a player and then an assistant coach at Kansas State before joining the Tar Heels staff in 1967. Elizabeth A. Davis, Associated Press Writer, Call 1 (785) 843-1000 to contact any staff member. He was 77. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Coach Smith died in January 2015 of complications from dementia, Profiles in Dementia: Zelda Fitzgerald(1900-1948), Facebook Group for Caregivers of Loved Ones with Alzheimer's Disease, Dementia, and Other Age-Related Illnesses, R. E. M. Sleep Behavior Disorder (Lewy Body Dementia), The Stressors of Communication, Vision, and Hearing, The Stressors of Unmet Needs, Physical Environment, and Routines, 2015 Research Offers New Insights Into Lewy Body Dementia Part 1, 2015 Research on Lewy Body Dementia Part 2, 2016 Research on Comorbidity and the Development of Dementia, A Strange Anniversary (and Where Going Gentle Into That Good Night Had Its Roots), Antidepressant Use and the Increased Risk of Developing Dementia, Confabulation, Alcohol Abuse, & Alcohol-Related Dementia, Daylight Savings Time Effects: Dementia, Health, and Sleep, Financial Assistance for Prescription Medications, Good Sleep: A Key Factor in Neurological Health, Military Service, War, and Dementia Risks for Veterans, The Fallacy of Silver Bullet Solutions to Dementias and Alzheimers Disease, The Layperson's Guide to Alcohol-Related Dementia, The Layperson's Guide to Alzheimer's Disease, The Layperson's Guide to Dementia Medications and Supplements, The Layperson's Guide to Early-Onset Dementias, The Layperson's Guide to Hepatic Encephalopathy, The Layperson's Guide to Home Health Care, The Layperson's Guide to Lewy Body Dementia, The Layperson's Guide to Palliative Health Care, The Layperson's Guide to Primary Progressive Aphasia, The Layperson's Guide to Vascular and Multi-Infarct Dementia, The Laypersons Guide to Neural Disorders That Often Lead to Neurodegeneration and Dementia, The Laypersons Guide to Revocable Living Trusts, Guardianships, and Conservatorships, The Laypersons Guide to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE), The Link Between Brain Injuries & Neurological Disease, The Rare Dementias: Corticobasal Degeneration (CBD), The Rare Dementias: Fatal Familial Insomnia, The Rare Dementias: Progressive Supranuclear Palsy, How Life Experiences Factor into Behavior, How Personality, Quirks, Foibles, and Flaws Factor into Behavior, How Temperament Factors Into Dementias and Alzheimers Disease, Smart Drugs, "Brain Enhancers," and "Mental Magic" (Nootropics), Comfortably Numb or All Jacked Up: Prescription Addiction, Technology and Neurology A Perfect Storm For A Lifestyle Dementia, Creating Life With Words: Inspiration, Love, and Truth, The Long and Winding Road: A Journey Through Alzheimer's Disease, "Less Medicine, More Health" H. Gilbert Welch, "Patient H.M.: A Story of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets" Luke Dittrich, "When Breath Becomes Air" Paul Kalanithi, Bad Pharma: How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients Ben Goldacre, The Tale of Dueling Neurosurgeons Sam Kean, How We Do Harm: A Doctor Breaks Ranks About Being Sick in America by Otis Webb Brawley, Pt. He formed a successful partnership with Dean Smith that lasted three decades until Smith retired in 1997. How close did Raleigh come to getting an NFL team? He couldnt generate enough energy to get through all of that., Some background: In the years leading up to his retirement specifically every spring after the conclusion of the NCAA Tournament Smith expressed a sense of exhaustion to the people around him. After waiting an uncharacteristically long time to respond, he smiled and thanked me. The people who knew him best werent surprised he went to two Final Fours in three seasons.. He coached 1997-98 National Player of the Year Antawn Jamison 99 and 1998-99 NBA Rookie of the Year Vince Carter 99, both of whom entered the NBA draft after their junior seasons. When employees came to work at the GAA on a rainy day, Elizabeth Morgan, warm, Bill Guthridge, who made his college basketball reputation as Dean Smiths trusted right-hand man then took Carolina to two Final Fours in three years as head coach after his mentor retired has died after a long illness. Smith died on Feb. 7 after suffering for years from a neurological disorder that robbed him of his memories. The little doo-doos, Smith called them, the administrative tasks just within the purview of his job responsibilities. Former UNC Director of Athletics Dick Baddour: Bill was one of the most respected and admired people I have known. He was 77. It has to be one of those., Williams talked Thursday night with Kansas athletic director Bob Frederick. But in hindsight, Hanners says there were clues that everything might not have been like normal. Coach Guthridge was the right choice to lead the transition to another, younger leader of the famed basketball program at the University of North Carolina. Whether Williams would have returned at that time is impossible to say. He was like Coach Guthridge in that both of them loved and bled Carolina blue so much that they never wanted to leave the program.. 2 "The End of Absence" Michael Harris, Pt. When Smith was needlessly ejected from the 1991 Final Four, it was Guthridge who was furious in the tunnel after the game. With a wealth of returning talent, Guthridge instituted a "six starters" system, whereby the team's top six players, Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter, Ed Cota, Shammond Williams, Ademola Okulaja, and Makhtar N'Diaye rotated positions in the starting five. He was a kind soul with a strong, competitive spirit. If Williams had said no, then who might have been offered the job? Revisionist history does offer some diverging paths, though. If you previously used a social network to login to WRALSportsFan.com, click the Forgot your password link to reset your password. But more than just that team, Smith left behind a mound of questions. One of his most tempestuous relationships had been with guard Shammond Williams, who even walked off the court at Virginia on one occasion. His desire to be a coach I dont think ever stopped, Hanners said. Its one game, Jamison says. And by the end of every summer, Smith returned freshly rejuvenated. At one point he thought he wanted to be a head coach, but he also decided that he really enjoyed Coach Smith and the program here and why should he leave when he has what he thought was the perfect job., Bill was uniquely special. In fact, most of that team reconvened in St. Louis in 2005 for Williams first championship game at North Carolina. Assistant coach Phil Ford is at right. But looking back, Hanners now believes Guthridge already had an inclination something was afoot. There is one final thing, though, that seems to be consensus, the one aspect of this entire hypothetical that no one can seem to get over: that the reason there are still enduring questions about what Smith could have accomplished in those extra four seasons is because those are the same questions Smith himself always carried. He said Friday he now knows how Smith felt in 1997 when he stepped down. I was just happy that the team had success. The inconsistent season came on the heels of a first-round NCAA Tournament loss in 1999. That's exactly what they did. You will be missed. Hed have retired with a championship trophy, and then let someone else step right in, Ndiaye says. He had recently been in an assisted living facility in Chapel Hill. After Smith retired in October 1997, then-athletic director Dick Baddour elevated Guthridge to the top job. He was a perfect sidekick for Coach Smith. He was named National Coach of the Year in 1997-98 by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, the Atlanta Tipoff Club (Naismith Award), CBS/Chevrolet, the Columbus (Ohio) Touchdown Club and The Sporting News. For more than three decades, Coach Guthridge served this University he loved so much with a deep commitment to academic and athletic excellence. If you played for him you loved him; working with him was a joy. What if he hadnt retired when he did? Guthridge, 62, said a few weeks ago that he planned to stay on another five or six years. He was and has been overshadowed and a bit lost in the shuffle of UNC basketball coaches by his lifelong friend, former UNC head coach Dean Smith (1961 to 1997), and current UNC head coach Roy Williams, who was an assistant coach along with Guthridge at UNC from 1978 to 1988. For starters, Baddour says he still would have offered Guthridge the job first. How might everything be different? We ended up beating em easily, and I thanked him later for it, Hanners says. (Scott Sharpe/News & Observer), Standing Together With Our Black Community, Assistant Schall Named Head Volleyball Coach, After 33 Years, Volleyball Coach Sagula Retires, In Memoriam: Elizabeth B. Morgan (19302022). Following the 199798 season, several organizations named him National Coach of the Year and he received the Naismith College Coach of the Year award. At age 66 and in sound health, Smith easily could have coached another five or more seasons and done so with the same recruiting success that allowed him to turn over a team with Antawn Jamison, Vince Carter, Ed Cota and Shammond Williams to Guthridge. He directed UNC to the 1998 Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament championship and was named the ACC Coach of the Year. The family told team spokesman Steve Kirschner that Guthridge died of heart failure and that the coach had lived with a heart condition the past seven years. Of course, Smith did retire. Unfortunately, it took UNC two tries to find that leader. He is one of five people to have appeared in the Final Four as both a player and coach. If Bill Guthridge doesnt look familiar to you as a UNC-Chapel Hill head basketball coach, theres a very good reason for that. Coach Guthridge played an instrumental role in the programs success as an assistant under Dean Smith for three decades before making his own name as a head coach in leading North Carolina to a pair of Final Four appearances in three seasons. The fact that he felt like he failed us.. End of conversation.. But 1:57 was 1:57. My guess is he would not have been, and then the first call, yes, wouldve been Roy, Baddour says. But if Smith was selfless in his handling of McAdoo, it was nothing compared to Smiths shocking retirement on Oct. 9, 1997. Certainly, what a marvelous run of three years.. When Bill Guthridge retired as North Carolina's basketball coach in the summer of 2000, it set off a chain reaction that touched the lives of dozens of people in his profession. The team bus never left at 2 p.m. He was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. Bill Guthridge was consistently portrayed as a quiet gentleman. It was more a series of passing conversations, regular updates about the coachs state of mind. Smith is now 82 and with some health issues. Its funny, I talk to (Williams) players, and with the thought of the day, and the way things are run, and I go to their practices, Jamison says, its Coach Gut, Coach Smith in a younger body.. Coach Smith had so many strengths and very few weaknesses. Panthers add Parks Frazier as passing game coordinator, Duke finishes 16-0 at home after 71-67 win over N.C. 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The team fundamentally changed, that opportunity disappearing into the ether. I dont think I have ever heard of anyone that didnt like and respect Bill Guthridge. After a three-year disastrous tenure under Doherty, the University of North Carolina hired Roy Williams from Kansas and got the leadership and gravitas that had characterized the UNC basketball program under Coach Smith and Coach Guthridge. Perhaps, at last, somewhere in his mind, Coach Guthridge finally made the decision to retire from this physical life. The flip side of reality offers another interesting scenario: What if Guthridge had led that group to a win over Utah, and then over Kentucky in the championship game. Had Smith made the logical move and coached on until his 70th birthday -- the route likely to be taken by Dukes Mike Krzyzewski (66) and Syracuses Jim Boeheim (68) -- he would have finished with at least 1,000 wins and possibly two more national titles. The protege was named Naismith College Coach of the Year in his first season as Smith's replacement. On one occasion, he actually accepted the head coaching post at Penn State, but stepped down from the post a few days later.[3]. Try a week on us. Smith wanted longtime assistant Bill Guthridge (age 60 at the time) to be a head coach and enjoy the competitive and financial rewards of the job. I will miss his kindness and wisdom. North Carolina made 10 trips to the Final Four and won two national championships during the time Smith and Guthridge spent together. Our condolences go out to his family and friends.. Without question, every opportunity that I would have to hire Roy Williams. Doherty was criticized from the moment he was hired, for breaking somewhat from Smith and Guthridges family dynamic; that scrutiny only intensified in his second season, when UNC bottomed out to a program-worst record of 8-20. Guthridge was the consensus National Coach of the Year in 1998. He got his taste. And then Bill can decide along the way what he wants to do.. One of the things that made (Smith) so special was his ability to be innovative so certainly, I think we would have had some other ways to attack in a game that we struggled, against Utah in the Final Four.. I wouldve gone to Roy.. The perception of Smiths program might have been that it ran without emotion. Guthridge had once accepted Penn States head coaching vacancy in the 1970s, only to return to Chapel Hill before his connecting flight to State College. At which point, Baddour faced as unenviable a position as any athletic director in the country: Who do you hire to fill Dean Smiths shoes? He was 77. He wasnt an electric radio show guest. He always knew what he was doing.. Meanwhile, Creighton coach Dana Altman withdrew his name from consideration. Guthridge could deal with Dean's irritability, his need to control the smallest things. But he was also one of the most passionate members of the Carolina basketball family in the last 50 years, and was completely devoted to the Tar Heels, to Smith, and to the University of North Carolina. in mathematics in 1960 and an M.A. So was Williams always fated to end up back at North Carolina? Im like, Coach, we won it, congrats! Jamison remembers. That team still went 34-4, losing to Utah in the Final Four. Perhaps, at last, somewhere in his mind, Coach Guthridge finally made the decision it was time for him to retire from this physical life. And with Guthridge having gotten his shot, there would have been no issues of whose turn it was. College Basketball Coach. That image of Guthridge is accurate but not complete. Copyright 2013 by Capitol Broadcasting Company. Then he retired, too. A source close to the basketball program, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Thursday that Guthridge recently decided he did not have the energy to continue coaching the Tar Heels. Guthridge retired after the season, having spent the first 43 years of his adult life as a player, high school coach, and college coach. I mean, the Plan B was there.. Its very much a possibility, everyone admits. He, like Coach Smith, was more of a mentor and father figure than anything else. I needed Bill to tell me, Dick, yes, I want to do this, Baddour says, and he was clear that he wanted to.. Go play golf. Recharge your batteries, they told him. CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Former University of North Carolina head coach Bill Guthridge, who also served 30 years as an assistant to Dean Smith, died Tuesday night at age 77, university officials confirmed on Wednesday. In 1998, Guthridge inherited a team that had been to the 1997 Final Four the previous year under Smith. The picture most Tar Heel fans will have of him is sitting slightly behind Dean Smith, perhaps leaning over to make a point to the head coach. Guthridge was criticized last season by alumni and fans for losing five games at home the most since World War II and for a record that dropped to 18-13 after a first-round defeat in the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament. School officials stressed that Guthridge was not merely a placeholder for then-Kansas coach Roy Williams, signing him to a five-year contract. That said, its worth remembering that he told Williams just a few years ago that perhaps 66 was too early to retire, given his near flawless health at the time. But it was all as a team, no one mans fault or wrongdoing for the groups shortcoming. Division regular season champion He knows where he is and who he is, but it's often difficult for him. Its funny that were doing this story, Jamison says. He led his first team to the 1998 Final Four and had two players, Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison, selected in the top five . Who was furious in the tunnel after the game Creighton coach Dana withdrew. 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