Remembering Roy Williams, Dean Smith and a 1993 photo for the ages
It’s a remarkable photo, now 28 years old, perfectly capturing a moment in time with a look into the future.
Roy Williams is standing with North Carolina’s Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge at courtside, smiling, a dash of gray in his hair. Smith is pointing a thumb at Guthridge, who has the makings of a smile. Standing apart from the threesome is Matt Doherty, a Kansas assistant coach who is not in the conversation but close enough to listen in.
It was the 1993 NCAA Final Four in New Orleans. Kansas was there for the second time under Williams, who was in his fifth season as a head coach and had built the Jayhawks into championship contenders.
And there he was, chatting up his biggest basketball mentors, Williams an equal on the basketball court with the men he most revered. Williams was 42. Smith was 62. But the generational gap had all but disappeared as the Jayhawks and Tar Heels again were about to face off in a national semifinal game, just as they did in 1991.
Smith, seeking a second national championship, was like a second father for Williams. He had helped him get the Kansas job in 1988, convincing Kansas athletic director Bob Frederick that Williams was ready, capable. Williams had done his part, picking up the pieces of a program placed on NCAA probation because of the violations of the former coach, Larry Brown.
In 1991, Williams and Kansas faced Smith and UNC in Indianapolis in the Final Four. Duke was there, too. It was all part of a first: Williams vs. Smith, and Duke and Carolina in a Final Four, possibly headed to the ultimate showdown.
It was not to be. In what had to be a bittersweet moment for Williams, the Jayhawks beat the Tar Heels. Smith had the ignominy of being hit with two technical fouls by referee Pete Pavia, the second with 35 seconds left in the second half, and ejected from the game.
Smith slowly walked away after the second technical, pausing to shake hands with everyone on the Kansas bench as he departed. Williams appeared slightly shaken seeing Smith banished from the game in such a way.
Duke won in 1991, beating Kansas in an unremarkable title game, and repeated as champions in ‘92. But the Tar Heels prevailed in 1993, topping Kansas 78-68 in the semifinals and then Michigan in the championship game for Smith’s second national title.
When the Tar Heels first won Smith a title, in 1982, Williams was on the UNC bench that night in the Superdome in New Orleans. In 1993, he was on another bench in New Orleans, but once losing to UNC could take some pride and satisfaction in seeing Smith and the Tar Heels and his alma mater win another in the Superdome.
But back to that photo: Williams, Smith, Guthridge and Doherty. Who knew that the four men in that photo, taken by the late Hugh Morton, would cover 60 years of North Carolina basketball, each serving as head coach?
What a photo. What a moment in time.
This story was originally published April 8, 2021 at 11:00 AM with the headline "Remembering Roy Williams, Dean Smith and a 1993 photo for the ages."
