Division regular season champion He was a perfect sidekick for Coach Smith. But it really wasnt and we both knew it. When did Bill Guthridge coach at UNC? Guthridge also took a less talented team to the Final Four in 2000. I was just happy that the team had success. Its funny that were doing this story, Jamison says. The spring of 1997, it seemed, was no different. The next day, Kenny Smith said, assistant coach Bill Guthridge wasn't at practice. 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. Williams and Ndiaye both graduated. 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. That possibility isnt one Baddour had previously considered. The latest in the sports world, emailed daily. Guthridge was the consensus National Coach of the Year in 1998. 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. For starters, Baddour says he still would have offered Guthridge the job first. Why would you stay? And he said, Im not crying because we won. That was the presumption Baddour and the basketball program operated under. Prior to that, Guthridge served as Smith's assistant coach for 30 years. Its not fair, but thats just the way it is for assistant coaches, Smith said. North Carolina made 29 NCAA tournament appearances in Guthridge's 33 years on the staff and finished no worse than third in the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season standings every year -- with 16 first-place finishes and 10 more in second. And with Guthridge having gotten his shot, there would have been no issues of whose turn it was. "This is another terrible loss for the Carolina basketball family," former North Carolina player and current Charlotte Hornets owner Michael Jordan said in a statement to The Associated Press. Theres no way you could dream, Hanners says, anyone would necessarily do better.. On the day of Smiths retirement, The Washington Post reported Smith wants his other longtime assistant, former Tar Heels point guard Phil Ford, eventually to become the coach, a source said. Ford was arguably Smiths best player ever, and UNCs all-time leading scorer at the time. He wouldve been gone. Coach Smith had so many strengths and very few weaknesses, and the weaknesses that he did have Coach Guthridge tried to fill. . But if Smith was selfless in his handling of McAdoo, it was nothing compared to Smiths shocking retirement on Oct. 9, 1997. Really, a championship or not is the only major differentiator between Smith and Guthridge. You accomplished something that takes some other people 20-plus years to do. Ndiaye even tried cracking the ice by joking that Guthridges years as head coach probably hadnt hurt his wallet. 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. Bill Guthridge, who led North Carolina to two Final Four appearances in his three seasons as basketball coach of the Tar Heels, will announce his retirement today, the Associated Press reported. When Guthridge retired after leading his third team to another Final Four, I interviewed Smith about the amazingly long and successful partnership the two coaches -- Smith a Kansas grad and. His lack of recruiting is why they went 8-20 shortly thereafter. He was extremely special, important to every player, every coach who ever worked here. "Coach Guthridge was instrumental in recruiting me to UNC and I have so many great memories of him and the lessons he taught me. He played or coached in 14 Final Fours, more than any person in NCAA history. The closest he came to leaving Chapel Hill was 1978, when he verbally accepted the head coaching job at Penn State. But it was all as a team, no one mans fault or wrongdoing for the groups shortcoming. Why bring those up? The ones he did have Coach Guthridge tried to fill. 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. Veteran sports reporter Peter Gammons had high praise for the former coach: Saddened to learn Bill Guthridge passed away. One of the best testaments to Guthridges impact came on that retirement day, June 30. After Dean Smith retired, Bill Guthridge took over for three years and at some point, we can't remember exactly which year, Boswell struck. [5], He died at his home on May 12, 2015, after an extended illness, alongside his family. Guthridge was an assistant coach along with Hall of Famer John Thompson under Smith in 1976 when the U.S. won the Olympic gold medal in Montreal. In his first year as head coach, he led the the team . Bill Guthridge, who led North Carolina to two Final Four appearances in his three seasons as coach of the Tar Heels, will announce his retirement at a news conference Friday, The Associated Press has learned. Its very much a possibility, everyone admits. But it was as if the whole contraption was tilted, resting at an incline so that the sand would never get to the bottom. Though he was a head coach for a short time, he gracefully carried on a culture and legacy that many thought could not be perpetuated. Guthridge's did, too, and during Smith's funeral and memorial services, Williams, knowing the end could be near, told former players and current ones to spend time with Guthridge. "You get old." Bill and Dean, friends for life Smith. Tim Crothers. When Coach Smith announced he was retiring and that Coach Guthridge was taking over, then it all clicked into place for me, Hanners says. What happened, happened. 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. There were reports that Michigan was interested in him at the time His only drawback was a DUI arrest in September 1998, after which he was temporarily placed on leave. No, I couldnt even consider that, Smith said. He once told a newspaper he never left the program because the other 300 Division I head-coaching jobs weren't better than his job as an assistant. 1 team in America. Hanners, one of Fords close friends to this day, recalls the natural coaching instincts Ford had when the two oversaw the JV team. He was known to answer a question such as Coach, do you know what time it is? with a Yes as he walked away. Williams famously turned him down, opting to remain at Kansas, where hed built a Carolina-esque family dynamic (at Smiths alma mater, to boot). It was Guthridge who was the creator of the well-known and slightly strange departure times for Carolina travel parties. Says losing Guthridge "is another tremendous loss. 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. Hed have been a lifer, Hanners says. So was Williams always fated to end up back at North Carolina? My guess is that Coach Guthridge probably never came back from that place after Coach Smiths death and I would speculate that Coach Smiths death may have been the final straw of an increasingly-unfamiliar and disconnected life for Coach Guthridge. Guthridge also gave to the University away from basketball. The 1971-72 Tar Heels had finished 26-5 but were upset by Florida State (not an ACC member at the time) in the NCAA Final Four semifinals. Which put Baddour on the search for a long-term replacement for the first time. Hed have retired with a championship trophy, and then let someone else step right in, Ndiaye says. But theres another alternate history with extreme on-court implications that might have forced his hand. And for as much as he did enjoy those three seasons, the same obligations that wore Smith down got to Guthridge as well. The team bus never left at 2 p.m. Only in Chapel Hill would a two-time Final Four coach, an Atlantic Coast Conference champion, and a consensus National Coach of the Year award winner be best known as an assistant. When coach Smith retired in 1997, after a tenure of 36 season, Guthridge took over the job to begin a reign of great basketball playing at UNC. As an assistant, Guthridge was renowned for his success in coaching the fundamentals of pivot play to a long series of successful UNC big men, and as the Tar Heels' primary shooting coach. And had Smith gone until age 71 or 72, as did Kentuckys Adolph Rupp, Carolina would have won another 50-60 games and the transition to Roy Williams might have happened seamlessly. 2023 The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Improving child and adolescent mental health, A message from the chancellor: We are a global university, Carolina Engagement Week Returns for a Second Year, Feb. 27 Through March 3, Book Publishing I: The Process with Christopher Ahn, Parr|Bioethics Joint Lecture: Elizabeth Barnes (University of Virginia), Disability and Health: An Its Complicated Relationship, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Former University of North Carolina mens basketball coach Bill Guthridge passed away May 12. But if Williams had said no, as he did two years later, would Ford have been tapped for the job then? When Lefty Driesell declined to shake Smiths hand in the mid-1980s, it was Guthridge who was incensedand had to be prevented from chasing down Driesellnot Smith. He knows where he is and who he is, but it's often difficult for him. The Kansas native took over the role of head coach following Smith's departure. Did Bill Guthridge win national championship? The only people who came to know about that line of succession, so to speak, were Baddour, Smith, Guthridge and then-chancellor Michael Hooker, who expressed some concerns about Guthridges age early on. 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. Seeded eighth in the South region, North Carolina upset top-seeded Stanford in the second round and continued to the Final Four, where they lost to Florida. But I already had a better job than that and I was happy here. I needed Bill to tell me, Dick, yes, I want to do this, Baddour says, and he was clear that he wanted to.. Guthridge retired after the season, having spent the first 43 years of his adult life as a player, high school coach, and college coach. (Updated at 2:22 p.m.) By Elizabeth A. Davis Associated Press Writer North Carolina coach Bill Guthridge retired Friday after three years as Dean Smith's successor, a move that opens one of the . I think its time I make this decision. I wouldve never thought of that in a million years.. When Smith was needlessly ejected from the 1991 Final Four, it was Guthridge who was furious in the tunnel after the game. The next season, North Carolina earned a #3 seed in the West regional of the NCAA tournament, but was upset in the first round by Weber State in a late game in Seattle. He was on the sidelines for a record 73 NCAA Tournament victories, including 71 at Carolina and two at Kansas State. The team performs dazzling spins and flips at campus events and even competes against other universities and jump rope clubs from around the country. Its not what gets remembered for the rest of your life, at least not at a place like North Carolina. The Tar Heels then went 24-10 in 1998-99 but were upset by Weber State in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Jordan is among many Tar Heels who had tremendous respect for Guthridge. Because that was supposed to be something that we accomplished together.. "Mak said he gets this call from his mom: 'Mak, there's this man here in Africa, says he's your coach,' ". MIAMI: Tulane athletic director Rick Dickson acknowledged he has given the school permission to talk to Green Wave coach Perry Clark about replacing Leonard Hamilton. As he famously said at Smiths retirement news conference, I always thought we would ride off into the sun together.. Guthridge did it all with a dry wit and style. 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. He joined Ohio States Fred Taylor as just the second man in history to lead teams to two Final Fours in his first three seasons as a head coach. (LogOut/ In fact, most of that team reconvened in St. Louis in 2005 for Williams first championship game at North Carolina. in education in 1963. Once he asked a manager, whose arms were full of equipment, if he had change for a quarter. 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