Chapter 11 in ‘A Coach’s Life’ is titled “I May Be Wrong, But!” It is my favorite in a book that is never out of reach. It is Coach Smith’s “This is what I believe” essay. In it Coach Smith writes that the game of basketball gives no advantage for wealth, nor race, nor religion, nor nationality and is “about as fair as humans can make something.”
In his assisted autobiography (John Kilgo and Sally Jenkins), ‘A Coach’s Life,’ Coach Smith thinks out loud about theology, one of his favorite topics. As a man of faith he expressed his reluctance to see God’s favor in a victory — “I may be wrong, but the idea that God cheers for one team to win over another is not my idea of God.” You may not like it, or perhaps you will love to hear it, but Coach Smith was firmly and thoughtfully Left-of-Center. And that Worldview was rooted in Christian Theology and The Bible.
He stood in opposition to White Supremacy, Nuclear Proliferation, and the Death Penalty. He saw right through the Moral Majority. He protested the Vietnam War. Coach Smith spoke for ‘Gay Rights’ and Civil Rights and the dismantling of segregation - all in a state that sent Jesse Helms to the Senate five times and has, disgracefully, more recently been carried in presidential elections three times by trump.
Many of us loved him for his coaching style long before we knew these things about him. But that style exemplified the baseline philosophy — share the ball, work hard to make your teammates’ opportunities better, and selfless sacrifice — that all of his teams displayed on the court. Maybe even for some of us it was Coach Smith’s example that helped to bring the light into our own lives. Like another UNC thinker, Frank Porter Graham, Coach Smith generated great heat in the lives of a great many people. Understandably, some did not like him, but if you did not respect him then you were/are a pitiable case.
Fred Hobson, born and raised in Yadkinville, NC, and who played Junior Varsity basketball at Carolina and later served as an English Professor at his Alma Mater, said, “To be quite frank, many of the people who idolized him in the state did not know his politics and would not have agreed with them if they had. So what everyone saw in him was not his politics. It was simply his leadership — that calm in the face of crisis.”
Continuing with the frankness, I’m personally very glad that I came to know the full measure of Coach Smith - because he showed us a path forward through darkness and did so with tact and by example. In the meantime, Coach Smith brought that same thoughtfulness to the game itself and to the relationship that he forged with each of his players over his 36 years on the sidelines. Yes, he thrilled us and taught us never to give up and that the only way was the right way, the human way, the kind and considerate way, but he also won the game far, far more than he lost.
He worked to turn the Front Porch of The University of North Carolina into a welcoming entryway for all people. Quite literally because of him the world had a focus other than Helms or KKK violence or Bathroom Bills when they looked to North Carolina and had to know that we all weren’t — clearly we couldn’t be — like that. He demonstrated that regression was contested in The Tar Heel State. If you don’t see this or are skeptical, read up - start with ‘A Coach’s Life’ then move on to the testimonials of his players, fellow coaches, folks that he worked and prayed with, and even most of all - the people that he bested. Happy Birthday Coach (1931-2015). Never, ever forgotten.
