Coach Dean Smith, Zeus himself

Then I met Coach Dean Smith.

I was in my second semester teaching feature writing in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina. Among the assignments I gave my students was an interview piece. As I’d done the first semester, I brought in a person of prominence for the students to interview. In this case, coach Dean Smith.

He arrived on time, was directed to my classroom, and, as I heard later, word of his being there spread through the halls. When word reached the library that Dean Smith was in the building, I was later told, the librarian — who one has to think didn’t follow basketball — asked: “What’s he dean of?

The students knew.

And learned from the coach that, “I have a job I enjoy. If you enjoy going to work, then you’re one of the lucky people in the world …”

That he’d “like to study great Jewish and Christian theologians. With that background anyone could go out and help society in any job. I think we’re all ministers, whether good or bad …”

“And Zeus himself.”

Up there with the gods.

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