President Barack Obama paid tribute to legendary North Carolina coach Dean Smith with a powerful statement. Smith passed away at 83 on Saturday.
The basketball world lost a pioneer on Saturday, as former North Carolina coach Dean Smith passed away at 83.
What made Smith such a special figure in college basketball was that his impact on college basketball extended much further than just the Xs and Os of the game.
President Barack Obama touched on that idea and more in a truly powerful statement released Sunday.
"“Last night, America lost not just a coaching legend but a gentleman and a citizen,” Obama said in a statement released later Sunday. “When he retired, Dean Smith had won more games than any other college basketball coach in history. He went to 11 Final Fours, won two national titles, and reared a generation of players who went on to even better things elsewhere, including a young man named Michael Jordan — and all of us from Chicago are thankful for that.“But more importantly, Coach Smith showed us something that I’ve seen again and again on the court — that basketball can tell us a lot more about who you are than a jumpshot alone ever could. He graduated more than 96 percent of his players and taught his teams to point to the teammate who passed them the ball after a basket. He pushed forward the Civil Rights movement, recruiting the first black scholarship athlete to North Carolina and helping to integrate a restaurant and a neighborhood in Chapel Hill. And in his final years, Coach Smith showed us how to fight an illness with courage and dignity. For all of that, I couldn’t have been prouder to honor Coach Smith with Medal of Freedom in 2013.”Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to his wife Linnea, to his family, and to his fans all across North Carolina and the country.”"
Smith wasn’t just an excellent coach, but an excellent person as well, and Obama captured that perfectly.
Smith is one of the most important figures in college basketball and his impact will be everlasting.
During his 36-year career at UNC, Smith led the Tar Heels to 879 wins (the most in college basketball history when he retired), 11 Final Fours and two national championships.
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