Running the Four Coroners Offense

(Can I get a whoop whoop for Joe?)

Dean Smith, whose success on the court was matched only by his graciousness off it, making it virtually impossible to lay the snark (the prick bastard), has died at the age of 83. In 36 years at the University of North Carolina, Smith made 11 Final Fours, won two national championships and a then-record 879 games, then kept busy during the 1976 offseason by coaching the men’s Olympic gold medal-winning squad. More impressively, 96.6% of his players graduated. Even given that his kids were taking gut courses at a state school, in modern college athletics, that’s still an accomplishment. Smith kept his program clean and desegregated, signing the school’s first black player and using his status as a local legend to push for equal treatment for blacks in local businesses. Smith is athletically descended from basketball greatness, having learned the game from University of Kansas legend Phog Allen, who had learned the game at Kansas from Dr. Peach Basket himself, James Naismith. In turn, Smith passed on his gift for hoops, if not his commitment to a program, to itinerant 1,000-game winning coaches Larry Brown and George Karl, two of his former players.