Wait, Dean Smith is coaching in North Carolina again? At Charlotte FC, you bet he is
There were two elephants in the room Monday along with new Charlotte FC head coach Dean Smith, who was introduced as the local Major League Soccer team’s head man. He acknowledged the existence of both with aplomb, which speaks well for a coach who will become Charlotte FC’s third head coach in only three seasons.
First of all: The name.
Dean Smith is a head coach again in North Carolina?!
In the truth is stranger than fiction category, this one certainly qualifies. The Dean Smith everyone associates with North Carolina, of course, is the late and legendary former Tar Heel basketball coach, who directed UNC’s basketball team from 1961-1997, piling up 879 wins and two national championships.
“I mean, anybody who puts Dean Smith in (Google) will probably find the UNC coach,” the soccer Dean Smith joked when I asked him about the basketball version in the press conference. “So yeah, I’ve done it many a time.”
Later, after the press conference was over, I asked Smith a little more about when he first discovered while growing up and playing soccer in England that there was a much more well-known man with exactly the same name coaching basketball in the United States.
“I think young adulthood probably,” said Smith, who’s now 52. “Sometimes as a young footballer, I would be trying to Google my name and the other Dean Smith came up. And he still does. He’s certainly more famous than me.”
But this Dean Smith — often called “Deano” by his friends, as the UNC coach also was — seemed well-prepared for the oddity of all this. He noted that in English football there is actually something called the “Four Corners” model to develop young players (technical, tactical, physical and mental) and that he was well aware of the other Dean Smith’s famous end-of-game tactic that bears the same name.
And this Dean Smith probably made some friends among the baby-blue set when he said Monday of the other Dean Smith, who passed away in 2015: “I believe that if I’m half as successful as he has been ... then I’ll have done a good job.”
That’s for sure. Half as successful would equate to one MLS championship and 400-plus victories.
So that dispatches with one elephant. The other one is less fun and has sharper tusks: The fact that David Tepper, who owns both Charlotte FC and the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, goes through head coaches at the same rate as your car comes due for inspection.
Counting interim coaches, Tepper will soon hire his seventh head coach for the Panthers, and he’s only owned the team since the summer of 2018.
As for Charlotte FC, the team has existed for only two years and Tepper and the Charlotte FC brass have already fired two coaches. Smith will be the third man holding down the job, which prompted a completely appropriate question about whether the coach had sought any assurances from Tepper as to how invested the team actually is in his future.
“I didn’t seek any assurances,” Smith said. “It’s a long way from my mind, to think about getting fired before getting hired.”
That line drew a laugh, as Smith defused what could have been a tense moment with humor. It was Ted Lasso-ish in a way, although make no mistake: Smith is not a TV show. He’s the real deal, with a high-level English soccer pedigree, an unmistakable British accent and a deep knowledge of the sport.
However, Smith is also walking into a situation where he’s going to have to win, and quickly. The last guy in this job, Christian Lattanzio, made the MLS playoffs (in the ninth and final spot out of 15 teams in the Eastern Conference) on the last day of the 2023 regular season, beating Lionel Messi and Miami to do it. Then Charlotte FC lost its lone playoff game, and Lattanzio was promptly fired.
Charlotte FC sporting director Zoran Krneta said Monday that the 2023 roster was too good for ninth place to be good enough, with the implication that the next roster should be even better.
“We are not happy to be ... just a playoff team,” Krneta said Monday. “We want to be a winning team. We want to be the team that hoists the MLS Cup one day. ... It’s easy to hide behind the ninth spot, the playoffs for the first time, and say, ‘OK, job well done.’.... We felt the job was not done well. ... We felt the team was much better than (where it finished).”
Tepper introduced Smith at the press conference Monday but did not take questions. He’s in hiring mode now. After firing Frank Reich 11 games into what was supposed to be a four-year deal, Tepper will bring in a new NFL head coach in January.
I’ve got a wild-card candidate, one who is incredibly accomplished, recently retired, still active, smart as a whip and will fit the theme established with this Dean Smith hire.
His name?
Mike Krzyzewski.
This story was originally published December 18, 2023 at 4:01 PM.
