Filling the Biggest VOID in College Basketball

ANCHORAGE — You bet, Dean Smith and Bill Guthridge were inseparable for the last three decades.

Best friends, basketball brethren, Papa Tar Heel and his sardonic sidekick.

“Kind of like Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy,” Guthridge cracked in a self-deprecating reference to the old dummy puppet act before a luncheon crowd here Wednesday before peering out into the audience and dryly adding: “Oh, I guess a lot of you are too young to even remember that.”

Meet the oldest, most surprising rookie coach in the nation, the man who served as Smith’s alter ego without ego, the heir to the throne because he sat next to it loyally for 30 years.

Because Smith, who shockingly retired in October, ending his majestic 36-year run at North Carolina as the winningest coach ever, wanted it no other way.

Watch the 60-year-old Guthridge now, as he slowly but surely moves through the luncheon crowd and softly chats up reporters, or when he leads this loaded North Carolina team against UCLA tonight in the first round of the Great Alaska Shootout. His every, assured move is an answer to college basketball’s screaming question:

Who is Bill Guthridge and what’s he doing sitting in Dean Smith’s seat?

“Maybe someone from Los Angeles who wasn’t a fan of North Carolina may not know who he is, but anybody in the basketball world knows him,” said Guthridge’s top assistant, former Tar Heel star Phil Ford, who was mentioned prominently as someone who could eventuallyreplace Smith.

“We all looked at him as a head coach, anyway. Coach Smith was the head coach, but we always knew that Coach Smith would always turn to Coach Guthridge for decisions and maybe nobody else saw it because it was behind closed doors.

“Coach Guthridge’s ego is one of the most intact egos I’ve ever seen. To be as important and to do as important a job as he’s done for the last 30 years, he’s down to earth. He’s a fierce competitor though. And his loyalty is unbelievable.”

As it became clear that Smith probably could not coach Carolina forever, some of the biggest names in coaching, all loyal Tar Heel family members, were measured as prospective heirs: Larry Brown, Eddie Fogler, Roy Williams, Ford, George Karl . . .

And nobody ever mentioned Guthridge, who turned down the top job at Penn State in 1978 because he wanted to stay with Smith, then pretty much ruled out head coaching forever.

Guthridge says he never minded being left out of the speculation, since he was happy as an assistant and had coached over Fogler, Williams and Ford, anyway, and knew they would be solid choices.

Heading into the 1997-98 season, Guthridge’s 31st at Chapel Hill, he was prepared to ride it out with Smith, and retire when Smith did in two or three years.

“I enjoyed being anonymous,” Guthridge said. “That was one of the reasons I liked being an assistant. I had a listed phone number, now I have to have an unlisted phone number. I could go a lot of places without being recognized, and now I’m getting recognized more.

“If I had my druthers, I’d prefer it the other way.”

But Smith had always made it clear to Guthridge, and the Carolina administration, that if he retired and if Guthridge was willing, his top lieutenant was the man who should replace him.

By quitting so close to the beginning of the season, before the start of what would have been his 37th year, Smith ensured it.

Guthridge signed a five-year contract this month, is in good physical shape, says he has set no timetable for how long he wants to continue and proudly says he hasn’t changed an iota of the North Carolina way.

Why should he, since he was almost as much an architect of the program as Smith?

“I think his is such a smooth transition because everyone’s feeling so good about it,” said UCLA Coach Steve Lavin, who took over the Bruin program in a much more tumultuous fashion last November. “Dean Smith was able to put one of his best friends, a guy that’s been loyal to him his entire career, in a position as head coach for five years.

“The two of them share the success. When you think of Dean Smith, you think of Guthridge. You always saw them together, like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

Guthridge says he doesn’t think Smith timed his retirement specifically to make sure he took over.

“I don’t think so. . . . It just kind of evolved,” Guthridge said. “I think any of those coaches you mentioned would do a great job. We really have a family and I think all of them were really happy for me that I was selected. And we would have been happy if any of them had been selected.”

Guthridge, who says he hasn’t felt any extra burden in North Carolina’s first three games this season (all victories, putting him 864 behind Smith’s career total), hasn’t yet exploded at a referee or had to deal with defeat--and pressure from the alumni--as the No. 1 man.

“There’s a lot of responsibility because I love North Carolina basketball,” Guthridge said. “It’s been a very big part of my life. If I’m not successful, they won’t have to fire me, because I love Carolina basketball too much. I’d step aside.”

But, with All-American forward candidate Antawn Jamison and talented swingman Vince Carter on the roster, plus many others, Smith didn’t exactly leave the cupboard bare.

“No, he didn’t,” Guthridge said. “We have good players here. I think if we didn’t have good players, he’d probably still be coaching. He wouldn’t do that to me.”

Jamison says there’s little worry that Carolina basketball is heading toward a down period.

“Just because he’s not one of those guys who’s coached at Kansas or coached in the NBA, people think he can’t get the job done,” Jamison said. “But you’ve got to get it in your heads who he really is. He’s been with Coach Smith practically every step of the way.

“And one thing about Coach Guthridge, the guy’s in tremendous shape. I mean, he can run more than I can. I think he can really deal with the pressures and deal with the recruiting. I think he’s one of those guys who doesn’t really feel the toll. He can definitely stay around five to 10 years.”

In an incident that must have chilled Guthridge’s bones, but resulted in general hilarity, Jamison took a nasty-looking spill onto his backside Tuesday when the team went on a dog-sledding trip and the dogs decided to go left when the musher wanted to go right.

“After I fell off that sled yesterday,” an unhurt Jamison said, “he was cracking jokes. He was saying next time fall on your face.”

Guthridge says he has been buoyed by his continued close ties to Smith, who attended the first few exhibition games at the Dean Smith Center and has been a frequent advisor.

“Yeah, I talk to him a lot,” Guthridge said. “He’s been a great ex-coach. Some ex-coaches would be pains, but he’s been great. I’m asking him for some advice and he’s giving me ideas and it’s up to me to accept them or reject them. Of course, it used to be the other way around.

“I can’t be Dean Smith. And I can’t replace Dean Smith, either. I’m the head coach, but no one can replace Dean Smith or John Wooden. . . . I hope that our assistants and our players, all of us working together can make up for his loss.”

After sitting through the tedious two-hour lunch and listening to just about every Alaska official available to speak, Guthridge trudged to a back table and winked.

“This type of thing,” Guthridge said, “is what got Dean out of coaching, I think.”