To friends, Smith still is 'Smiles'

By Pete Goering                                  
The Capital-Journal

LAWRENCE -- He's the most famous bench-warmer in Kansas basketball history.

He's also the winningest college basketball coach in history.

He's also true blue -- Carolina or KU, take your pick -- to his friends. Like best friend and fraternity brother Charlie Hoag.

"One thing about Smiles is that he's real loyal to his old friends," Hoag said. "He really is."

Smiles?

Smiles is Dean Smith. It's a nickname, explained Hoag, a three-sport letterman at KU from 1949-53.

"I think he got it at the frat house," Hoag said, referring to their college days rooming together at the Phi Gamma Delta house. "If you look at him, he always has a smile."

Smiles came easily Saturday, both for Smith, the legendary North Carolina coach, and the nearly 300 other players, coaches and managers who returned to participate in KU's basketball centennial celebration.

Smith even agreed to a brief press conference before Saturday's Legends Game even though he has made an effort to avoid attention following his surprising retirement last November.

"I've hid out ... really," he said. "Nobody can find me."

A PACKED CROWD in Allen Fieldhouse didn't have any trouble finding him Saturday when he and fellow members of the Jayhawks' 1952 NCAA championship team were introduced.

Big Clyde Lovellette, the leading scorer on the team, received a rousing ovation, but the loudest cheers were reserved for the backup guard from Topeka High who played exactly 29 seconds -- the LAST 29 seconds -- in KU's victory over St. John's for the '52 NCAA title.

Smith, you see, is more to Jayhawk fans than the man whose Carolina teams won 879 games.

He's a Kansan, raised in Emporia and graduated from Topeka High. But he's more than that, too.

He's the man responsible for KU hiring Larry Brown and Roy Williams. It was Smith who convinced Monte Johnson to hire Brown in 1983. And when Brown left after guiding KU to the 1988 national championship, Smith went to bat for Williams.

Neither man was KU's first choice. That was Dean Smith.

As he recounted his conversation with AD Bob Frederick about Williams, Smith asked reporters if longtime Lawrence sports writer Chuck Woodling was in the crowd.

"I was going to needle him a little," Smith said when told Woodling wasn't there. "He and Monte didn't want Roy."

CHARLIE HOAG isn't surprised his friend became a successful coach. Hoag, though, thought he'd succeed at a different level.

"I figured Dean was going to be a high school math teacher and a coach," Hoag said.

He almost was right. Phog Allen found Smith a job at Haven High School after Smith's graduation from KU. But Smith opted for a job with a Lawrence paper company, then accepted an assistant's job at KU for a year before moving to Carolina.

The rest, of course, is history. Smith would become recognized as perhaps the greatest coach of all time.

To his friends, however, he never changed. He is the same caring, genuine person he was almost 50 years ago.

"He's a great person as far as keeping in touch with old buddies," Hoag said, "and you can tell he enjoys it. He's just a loyal friend."

A loyal friend Hoag doesn't mind ribbing. "He was a good athlete, not great," Hoag recalls, "but he probably still thinks he was a great athlete."

SMITH WAS GOOD enough to be one of 11 players who lettered on the 1952 team, good enough to play football on the 1949 freshman team.

His future, of course, was in basketball, the foundation laid by his coaches, Allen and Dick Harp, in Hoch Auditorium.

His heroes also were Jayhawk players -- Ralph Miller, Fred Pralle and Harp.

"It's special," Smith said of KU's basketball tradition.

It's special because of people such as Smith, people who this weekend are having fun reliving those special memories.

Smith, who joked at his press conference that he "thought he was through with these things" when he retired, offered another quip when asked to compare the great players at KU with those at North Carolina.

After pausing for a moment, the former Topekan replied, "I think (Jayhawk reserve C.B.) McGrath's one of the best to ever come out of Topeka."

Then, he smiled. Again.