Davis is proof the Carolina Way still works
North Carolina basketball coach Hubert Davis had just guided the Tar Heels to the Final Four in his first season on the job. All about him were smiling faces bordering on ecstatic. Pure joy was everywhere inside Philadelphia’s Wells Fargo Center on Sunday evening following UNC’s 69-49 win over Saint Peter’s except for those poor souls who’d been rooting for the Peacocks.
Well, those folks and Davis himself, who was overcome by tears, joyous though they may have been.
“I’m just so happy for them,” Davis said of his players as he tried in vain to wipe away the rivers of salty liquid pouring from his eyes. “I just desperately wanted this for them. I love these guys so much, they trusted me in my first year, they allowed me to coach them and allowed me to be in their life. It’s tears of joy being able to be in their lives.”
Every successful major college basketball program wants you to believe when you go there that you’re entering into some amazing family that will stand by you for life. Duke has its much-marketed “The Brotherhood.” Under John Calipari, Kentucky has put forth “La Familia” with near-daily social media updates about the successes of former Wildcats.
But North Carolina was ground zero for such an idea, the Tar Heels embracing and practicing the concept of family and fraternity for at least 61 years, or ever since the late Dean Smith first took over the proud program in 1961.
Perhaps that’s why every UNC coach since Smith retired in the spring of 1997 has either been a Carolina assistant under Smith, a former Tar Heel player or both.
Perhaps that’s why Roy Williams, the coach who retired this time last year after winning three NCAA titles in 17 years, told the Raleigh News and Observer on Sunday in discussing the man he hand-picked to replace him: “It’s perhaps, for me, the greatest moment in my basketball career. I’ve never had any more faith and love for one man (Davis) and to think that he’s just won it— he’s been better than I ever was, right now.”
Perhaps that’s why Davis’s own staff is filled with former Heels, including Jeff Lebo, the former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga coach.
“The Carolina Way they talk about is real,” said John Shulman, who followed Lebo as head coach of the Mocs after serving as his
assistant at both Tennessee Tech and UTC. “At most programs, the little things, the old traditions, matter less every year. But not at UNC. The little things — all those details that were always so important to Coach Smith, things like pointing to a teammate after an assist, or the whole bench standing when a player comes out and everyone moving down a seat to make room for him — those things still matter as much as ever.”
Still. Always. Each summer all the former players gather for a golf weekend. Each fall, everyone who ever coached there after playing there returns for a clinic, including Larry Brown and George Karl, two of the best NBA coaches ever.
A story to show how much Smith loved his players: When he died, a check of $200 or so was sent to everyone who ever played for him with instructions to treat their wife or significant other to a nice dinner.
“How cool it that?” said Shulman. “That’s just one of the little things that mattered to him.”
A second story: For all of the 35 years he ran the show, Smith kept a giant board in his office that contained pictures of every player he’d coached, as well as their families.
“I think Duke’s that way now,” said Shulman of the bitter rival the Heels will face in Saturday’s Final Four semifinal. “I think all their coaches are now Duke grads. But they’re the only programs like that, and North Carolina was obviously the first.”
And much as Smith was hung in effigy after a 1965 loss to Wake Forest — which was but two seasons before he would guide UNC to three straight Final Fours and four in six seasons — Davis had some pretty tough moments this season before shocking Duke in retiring Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski’s final home game.
“There were many times this season that UNC got blown out, often when they had been favored,” said local attorney and UNC grad Ward Nelson on Monday. “I personally heard several UNC alums call for his firing after some of those games — that he was the wrong choice, that it was a huge mistake to hire him. I admit I had my doubts after we lost to Pitt in Chapel Hill.”
UNC was so ordinary that a lot of experts had them not being invited to the NCAA tourney as late as two weeks prior to Selection Sunday.
Said fellow Chattanooga resident and UNC grad Jeff Nation, recalling that late win at Duke: “I was thinking if we didn’t make the NCAA tourney , at least the season ended on a good note.”
And now, should the Tar Heels shock the Blue Devils twice in three weeks?
“Beating Coach K the last two games we’ll ever play him would be the greatest gift ever,” said Nation.
It’s probably a long shot. Duke has the most talent in the field and they’ll no doubt have revenge on their minds when the two teams tip it off around 8:50 Saturday night.
But Davis is also the only coach among the quartet of Duke, Kansas, UNC and Villanova to have experienced the Final Four as both a player and coach for his alma mater.
Said Nelson of that dynamic and the possibility of the Tar Heels winning their seventh national championship: “Several times I felt Hubert needed to scream at the players and let them know how poorly they played. Instead, he would tell them how good they are and can be. Maybe it’s a great lesson that nice guys don’t always finish last.”