Dean Smith..My Brush With Greatness

Legendary college basketball coach Dean Smith passed away over the weekend at the age of 83.  I had the chance to attend the Carolina Basketball School..for two summers before my 8th and 9th grade years of high school.  It was one of the better basketball camps in the country.  Coach Smith didn't run the camp but was more of a figure-head, who was there watching the action.  While we were milling around waiting for an instructional session one of the afternoons the legendary coach decided to start a conversation with me.   He was a very nice man and showed interest in my love for basketball and where I wanted to the game to take me.  The thing that caught me off guard was the next year that I attended again and I ran into him again and he remembered me as being from Wisconsin.  Either it was the funny hair cut or the white pasty-ness of my complexion in mid-summer in the south it amazed me that he remembered a five minute conversation he had with lanky white kid who had zero chance of playing for him a year earlier. You've probably read all the tributes to Coach Smith over the last 24 hours about what a great man and coach he was.  My five minute brush with him, left a lasting impression. RIP Coach Smith.