All In The Family
CHAPEL HILL – Anyone that has ever doubted the Carolina basketball family is a living, breathing organism capable of surviving just about anything, including probably a nuclear holocaust, might want to think again.
It is alive and well and appears more unbreakable now than at any time since Dean Smith excavated the landscape in Chapel Hill filling it with something unlike what exists anywhere else.
Hubert Davis was named the new head basketball coach at North Carolina because he is a worthy candidate, has an amazing history of associations in the sport inside and outside of the UNC gene pool, and because he literally knows the lay of the land.
He is the right man for this time, UNC Director of Athletics Bubba Cunningham said Tuesday at Davis’ hiring press conference. But Davis also fits the suit.
He is a Carolina guy, perhaps the ultimate Carolina guy. His uncle Walter Davis attained legendary status playing for Dean Smith in the 1970s, he played for Smith from 1988-92 and was an All-ACC performer, and he has coached under Roy Williams the last nine years. If Davis has a cut, he surely bleeds baby blue, or perhaps it is actually Carolina blue.
No wonder UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz opened the press conference saying, “Hubert Davis directly connects our storied past with our exciting future.”
He does, and it is impossible to understate the importance of binding all UNC eras together.
“I think deep down inside, we all hoped that the next coach would be somebody who is a part of the family,” said former UNC All-America from the 1970s, NBA player and longtime celebrated NBA executive Mitch Kupchak.
“We all want the program to win, I think that’s probably most important. But when you look at the coach that could perhaps win and also was born and bread in this program, you would think of Hubert Davis. And you get the best of both worlds.”
Encompassing those preferences more satisfies deep-rooted desires within the UNC family. That mindset has blessed the program since Frank McGuire was hired in 1952. In a way, he started it all.
McGuire created the college hoops version of the “Underground Railroad” bringing New Yorkers to Chapel Hill to fortify UNC’s program. It worked when McGuire, a New Yorker himself, led the Tar Heels to a 32-0 record and national championship in 1957 when they defeated Wilt Chamberlain and Kansas in triple overtime in the national title game. That club’s starting five were all from well above the Mason-Dixon Line.
McGuire left four years later only to be replaced by Smith, who served under him for those final three seasons. Smith left nearly four decades, two national titles, 10 Final Fours, and 879 wins later and was replaced by his longtime assistant Bill Guthridge.
All “Gut” did in three years before retiring was lead the Tar Heels to a pair of Final Fours. Matt Doherty started for three years under Smith, including on the 1982 national championship team, and while his three-year run ended with him being fired, the only time UNC has fired a basketball coach since before World War II, he still led the team to a No. 1 ranking and 16-game win streak during the 2001 campaign.
Then Ol’ Roy came home and restored order. Three national titles, five Final Fours, and more NCAA Tournament everything than any other program in the nation during his 18-season span, but he has now walked off into the sunset.
Most UNC fans know the path but pulling it out and piling it up makes it fully understandable why Davis got the job. Not one candidate outside the UNC family had the key ingredient Davis has had in his basketball and cultural soul for more than four decades.
“It’s very important,” former UNC star, 1993 national champion, and 12-year NBA player George Lynch said following Davis’ introduction. “It means a lot to every player who’s ever played for Coach Smith, it means a lot to every player who’s ever played for Coach Williams, because that’s what they recruit us on.
“Family, tradition, staying together, and Hubert stressed that over and over out there on the stage. I think as long as he continues to walk the walk of Coach Smith and Coach Williams, he won’t go wrong. He’ll be very successful.”
How important is it for UNC to keep everything in the family? How powerful is the family?
Larry Brown was Davis’ coach with the Detroit Pistons in 2004, but he thought Davis was done, had nothing left in the tank. So instead of releasing him, Brown traded Davis to the New Jersey Nets to close out his career.
They hadn’t spoken or interacted since until last Friday. Davis thought Brown didn’t like him, and he obviously felt jaded. But then Davis heard from Brown, who played for Smith in the 1960s and has been an ambassador for the UNC program for decades.
“After Coach Williams did his retirement press conference, (Brown) texted me and said, ‘Hubert, I just wanted to let you know I would love for you to be the next head coach at the University of North Carolina and that Coach Smith, the idea of that happening, would put a smile on his face.’
“And I just immediately started crying on the phone to my wife and I said, ‘Read this.’ And I said, ‘I thought he didn't like me.’ And to me, that's just the perfect example of what this place is all about.”
The examples that bind this place and those who have lived here, played here, and remain emotionally and philosophically attached here are seemingly endless.
That is one of the reasons Davis was hired, and in a small way, so was everyone else who has been a part of this program.
It is the Carolina basketball way, and Carolina basketball will always be all in the family.