Dean Smith’s commemorative mural to be ready by end of the month
Chapel Hill artist and UNC graduate Scott Nurkin is on track to finish a mural commemorating legendary UNC basketball coach Dean Smith’s life and career by the end of this month.
Chapel Hill artist and UNC graduate Scott Nurkin is on track to finish a mural commemorating legendary UNC basketball coach Dean Smith’s life and career by the end of this month.
Alexandria Johnston, a graduate student in UNC’s School of Education school counseling program, recently won the first scholarship from the Dean E. Smith Opening Doors Fund.
The arc of a life rises, then slopes, then falls, because time is the curvature that ensures nothing is forever. And then there is the exception: the flat line that extends beyond sight, in perpetuity, faithful to its path and resolute in its straight purpose. Dean Smith is the line that flattens the arc.
He taught them what he regarded to be a man’s greatest obligation in life: loyalty. And on Sunday, they proved they’d listened and learned.
To Scott Nurkin, Dean Smith always seemed larger than life.
Students gathered around a makeshift memorial outside of the Dean E. Smith Center Tuesday night. The wind blew through the North Carolina and UNC flags, which were lowered to half-staff in honor of the man after whom the building was named.
Coach Dean Smith’s 879 wins, two national championships, 13 ACC tournament championships and 17 ACC regular-season championships will always serve as proof of his impact on the North Carolina men’s basketball program.
It was a beautiful paradox: Dean Smith, an uncommon man, dispensing gestures so kind and so voluminous to the common men who adored him, who were lucky enough to feel the lasting warmth of an uncommon heart.
The corned beef sandwich was his favorite. He almost always ordered it to go.
There are an unlimited number of titles that apply to Dean Smith, most of which will probably be brought up in the coming days.
These are the memories that especially stand out — yet they don’t involve comeback victories, his trademark four-corner offense or runs to a national title.
Rarely do four fingers incite such a ruckus. Rarely do they incite any ruckus at all.
Dean Smith would have hated this.
Remembrances of Coach Dean Smith.
None of the undergraduates who work for this newspaper are old enough to properly eulogize Dean E. Smith.
Dean Smith would have disliked this column.
CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. — Dean Smith was at once everywhere and nowhere.
[View the story "Dean Smith dies at 83" on Storify]