CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- During one of Matt Doherty’s early days as a freshman at North Carolina, he showed up to the basketball offices proudly wearing his McDonald’s All-America practice jersey.
Doherty was still stung by what Dean Smith had told him during his recruiting visit. The former North Carolina coach, who passed away Saturday at the age of 83, had told Doherty that he’d be lucky to play as a junior, when other coaches recruiting him said he’d have an impact as a freshman.
Doherty was determined to prove Smith wrong and the jersey was his way of reminding the legendary coach of his talent. The two crossed paths when Smith happened to walk out of the office, and his words again stuck with Doherty.
“He saw me, he looked at my shirt, and says, ‘Ah, that’d be a nice shirt for your brother John to have,’” said Doherty, the starting small forward on the 1982 national championship team who also coached the Tar Heels from 2000-03. “In other words, that was old news. Everyone here is a McDonald’s All-American, get over yourself. You’ve got to earn your stripes here.”
The past decade of college basketball has introduced the ready-made freshman, players such as Jahlil Okafor, Andrew Wiggins, and Kyrie Irving, who could instantly improve a starting lineup and greatly change a team’s outlook.
Dean Smith’s teams were not designed to depend on how fast the freshman class could develop, although the opportunity was always there for freshmen to play.
King Rice arrived in Chapel Hill in 1987. It was the perfect opportunity to play immediately because Kenny Smith, a four-year starter, had just graduated. The Heels sorely needed a point guard and Rice had all the prep accolades to indicate he could take over at the position.
But he didn’t crack the starting lineup. Smith moved Jeff Lebo to point guard and started Ranzino Smith at shooting guard.
“Coach Smith basically said if you’re ready you’ll have a chance at Carolina,” said Rice, now the head coach at Monmouth. “But unfortunately, I was not ready. I was not even close to being ready.”
King had plenty of company. From 1972, the year the NCAA first allowed freshmen eligibility, until Smith’s retirement in 1997, only 11 freshmen started their first game for the Tar Heels. The list of four-year starters under Smith was an even more exclusive list of just eight players.
During Roy Williams’ 12-year tenure as North Carolina’s head coach, he has had 11 freshmen who started their first game, including in each of the past three seasons.
Freshmen under Smith lived a far less glamorous existence than their modern contemporaries. They had to carry luggage on team trips and line up last during water breaks and for pregame food buffets.
J.R. Reid, the 1988 ACC Rookie of the Year, said he even had to carry around a film projector “that they didn’t even use.” Shammond Williams, who played on three Final Four teams, said once he was made to run with an upperclassman who had missed a flight.
Running was a popular theme for freshmen. Whenever a ball went out of bounds during practice, the freshmen were responsible for chasing it down.
“He’d blow that whistle, yell, ‘freshmen,’ and we’d run and try to beat each other and be the first to get the ball,” said Antawn Jamison, the unanimous 1998 national player of the year. “We’d have bumps and bruises just from chasing loose balls into the bleachers.”
Jamison also recalled Jeff McInnis, a junior at the time, being a prankster and abusing the rule. McInnis would intentionally throw balls to the side just to make the freshmen chase them down.
Roy Williams used to carry on the same practice, but he figured it was easier to allow the managers to throw in a new ball to keep practice moving at a swift pace.
Smith also believed in the practice, that is continued by Williams and many other coaches, of not allowing freshmen to speak to the media until they’ve played in a game.
The irony is that the one-and-done era of college basketball has turned elite high school players into stars. More high school games are nationally televised now than during Smith’s tenure. And recruiting is covered so heavily that most players are polished in dealing with the media before they ever hit campus.
Imagine the reaction to Smith leaving Michael Jordan off the Sports Illustrated cover if it happened in today's environment.
The magazine picked the Tar Heels as the preseason No. 1 team to start the 1981-82 season. Sam Perkins, James Worthy, Jimmy Black and Doherty joined Smith on the cover shot.
“He knew Michael was going to start,” said Williams, who was an assistant on the ’82 national championship team. “But he didn’t think he’d done enough to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated, so he put four players on the cover.”
Jordan referenced the slight during his 2012 Hall of Fame induction speech as another log that fueled his competitive fire.
Reid viewed his freshman season in 1986-87 as a turning point for media coverage. He believed that was when high school sports were slowly gaining more attention nationally and it started contributing to a sense of entitlement among incoming freshmen.
“I understand him not really liking it that much and I got it in practice sometimes,” Reid said. “I could deal with it because I knew players that were probably better than me had to go through the same situation. This was the 'Carolina Way.' You had to have thick skin early on as a freshman.”
Vince Carter admitted he didn’t understand the process that Smith used to mold freshmen. He was as athletically gifted as any player Smith had recruited and he figured his physical traits would more than make up for the deficiencies in his game.
“I was like, 'Hey, I can get to the basket when I want. I can jump through, around or over anybody. Just let me do my thing,'” Carter said.
Carter, who was first-team All-America in 1997 and 1998, came to campus with hype that’s comparable to some of today’s elite freshmen. And when he didn’t immediately play, it led to rumors that Carter was planning to transfer to play for a coach who would let him do his thing.
Carter laughed at the notion of leaving, saying to this day he still didn’t know where the rumors started. But once he figured out Smith’s philosophy was to teach the game, he bought in to being patient.
“He was preparing me for that next level where there’s more athletes, now it’s time to outsmart your opponent and know the game a little better than the next man,” Carter said. “And it paid off for me.”
Carter described Smith as “demanding, stern, but patient at the same time,” with his freshmen. Neither Carter nor other former players believe that Smith would have changed had he coached in today’s environment.
Reid went so far to say Smith’s philosophies would be needed even more today to deal with potential egos. Reid said he didn’t appreciate it until he was older, but with the All-Americans and high-school-player-of-the-year types that Smith recruited, he had to find a way to break them down for the greater good of the team.
“You have to do something to humble them and let them know that there are people here that have done this before you, there are people here that have done it better than you have,” Reid said. “Coach Smith’s way was the only way.”
