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Sports Illustrated
Sports Illustrated
Sport
Pat Forde

With Hubert Davis Out, North Carolina Must Finally Move Beyond the Dean Smith Tree

On Aug. 2, 1961, North Carolina announced it was promoting a 30-year-old men’s basketball assistant coach named Dean Smith to the top job. Amid little fanfare, a coaching tree took root that day. It grew into the Carolina Way and eventually became the strongest thing in the college basketball forest. 

It has endured ever since, across 65 years, a towering permanence amid constant change across the college sports landscape. 

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