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Dean Smith: A Basketball Life Kindle Edition

by Jeff Davis (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 23 ratings
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"Other than my parents, no one had a bigger influence on my life than Coach Smith. He was more than a coach—he was my mentor, my teacher, my second father. Coach was always there for me whenever I needed him and I loved him for it. In teaching me the game of basketball, he taught me about life."
—Michael Jordan

Former University of North Carolina men’s basketball coach Dean Smith was one of the most successful coaches ever to hold a whistle. In his 36 years at North Carolina, his teams won a record 879 games. They also captured 17 conference championships and two NCAA championships, claimed 30 seasons with at least 20 wins, and made 11 Final Four appearances. Coach Smith developed 26 consensus All-Americans, five NBA rookies of the year (including the great Michael Jordan), and 25 first-round draft picks.

But Smith’s basketball accomplishments tell only part of his story. You may not know that Smith worked to abolish the death penalty in North Carolina and openly supported gay rights. As a high school senior in 1949, five years before the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education, he pleaded in vain with officials to include African-American players on the school’s basketball team. Sixteen years later, after completing his fourth season as the head coach at North Carolina, Smith ventured to New York City and came back to Chapel Hill with Charlie Scott, the most significant recruit of his tenure. Scott became the school’s first African-American scholarship recipient. Smith had successfully integrated major college basketball in the South.

Smith passed away in February 2015, and Dean Smith: A Basketball Life takes stock of this extraordinary man whose ideas and philosophies have shaped the best of what college basketball has been and should aspire to be in the future. In this revealing biography, author Jeff Davis calls on the reminiscences of Coach Smith’s closest friends and associates, former players, coaches, and rivals, and a wealth of secondary sources, to render a rich and vivid portrait of this towering figure of 20th-century American sports.
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  1. Print length
    229 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Rodale Books
  5. Publication date
    February 7, 2017
  6. File size
    30186 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Other than my parents, no one had a bigger influence on my life than Coach Smith. He was more than a coach—he was my mentor, my teacher, my second father. Coach was always there for me whenever I needed him and I loved him for it. In teaching me the game of basketball, he taught me about life.”
— Michael Jordan

About the Author

Jeff Davis is a career journalist and lifelong Chicagoan. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Davis served nearly 4 years as a junior officer in the US Navy before returning home and breaking into broadcast journalism amid the tumult and shouting of the wildest year ever: 1968. Davis wrote and produced news, sports, and documentaries and contributed reports to NBC Sports and the Today show. He has been cited for excellence in journalism, receiving Associated Press and UPI awards, and has been honored with five Emmys for television production. He is the author of critically acclaimed biographies of George Halas and Pete Rozelle. He lives in Evanston, IL.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B01IIQQF42
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Rodale Books (February 7, 2017)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 7, 2017
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 30186 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 229 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 23 ratings

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
23 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

William J Wright
5.0 out of 5 stars Dean Smith
Reviewed in the United States on August 17, 2023
Verified Purchase
THE BEST
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LaTasha
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read
Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2018
Verified Purchase
Very informative. This book provided me a lot of information I didn't previously know about Coach Smith. A great read.
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B. E. Smith
4.0 out of 5 stars Info regarding how basketball began.....a way to have a game to play indoors in cold weather
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2021
Verified Purchase
Dean Smith, epitome of an outstanding human being, cared about his players during school and after, where are the Dean Smiths now?
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daniela8118
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2017
Such a great book. Such a great man.
One person found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2018
Verified Purchase
It was a gift for a fan of Dean Smith's. He was extremely disappointed.
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Placeholder
3.0 out of 5 stars Just okay - Could have used a good scrub for errors and typos
Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2017
In addition to the factual errors, lots of typos. Also, in one 2 page section, he duplicates reports on the Rainbow Classic and the 1993 Final Four. Davis thanks his editor Mark Weinstein in the acknowledgements. Maybe I don't know what an editor is supposed to do.
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Peter E. Wells
2.0 out of 5 stars Sloppy Book That Focused too Much on the Academic Scandal
Reviewed in the United States on March 13, 2017
Verified Purchase
Several factual errors here - the book mentions that Smith died in February 7th and February 8th at different points of the book being most prominent.

I felt the coverage of the UNC academic scandal was reckless and quite unfair. The author does not bother to mention that Smith had many outstanding students, as well.

If I read this book again I am sure I would find at least a dozen factual errors, such as the date that Smith took his pastor, Robert Seymour, out to a meal with a black divinity student. This clearly occurred when smith was an assistant. The author seems to imply this occurred in 1964 or so.
3 people found this helpful
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Margaret G. Reid
1.0 out of 5 stars Poorly researched and written.
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2017
This poorly researched book appears to be an attempt to ride the coattails of Dean Smith's excellent biography, "A Coach's Life." Why would this author use such a similar title unless he was trying to confuse buyers?
3 people found this helpful
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