New article up on ramfanatic.com entitled "The Day I Almost Met Dean Smith."

Great story! I can say that as timid as I can be sometimes, I probably would have certainly approached Dean just to say hello. The closest I've come to him is seeing him give a speech out in Polk Place -- on what I think was the MLK holiday.

The only other times I've seen him were the couple of times he showed up to basketball games at halftime for special presentations (once during my freshman year, and one other time, I think). It would be nice to just run into him around campus somewhere and just have a nice conversation with him, though. Maybe someday....

-JD

I met him a few times when he first became head coach; I was a student then. He was friendly and approachable. Smith used to do PR sessions at the various dorms. OTOH his assistant, Ken Rosemond, was generally surly and short with anyone he didn't know; I thought him a jerk.

Not to be nasty, but I'm not sure I'd want to meet Smith now. He certainly has different views today about fans taking his time than he did 40 years back.

I met him on a few occasions and found him to be quite nice, with a good sense of humor. He may, however, be one of the worst public speakers I've ever heard.

Fogler was never one of my favorites but when I first met him, I was in a fairly large group of coaches. About four months later I bumped into him as I was leaving a high school game and he was coming in to scout a player. He actually called me by name and shook my hand. I couldn't believe that he remembered my name after that long. Usually they just remember that you have something to do with basketball and call everyone "Coach".

I remember meeting Dean for the first time at the Crosby Golf Tournament in 1986. He stopped and took his time to meet everyone, especially the kids. He was really nice.