Category: Sports Featured

The Banghart Way

January 31, 2020

Last spring, Courtney Banghart earned the job of a lifetime when she was named the first new Tar Heels women’s basketball coach in 33 years, replacing a coach and taking over a program whose shine had faded under the tarnish of scandal and disconnection. The role is tailor-made for Jim Banghart’s daughter: An opportunity to repair a beloved thing that has fallen out of favor, to patch its holes and mend its stitches — and then go out and win with it. … More The Banghart Way

Converting the Shot

December 10, 2018

Charlotte Smith’s already spent part of a June evening in her Elon University office talking about the stuff that really matters: the lessons she’s learned since one improbable shot, a mere seven-tenths of a second in time, changed her life. How a win for the ages can turn into a long, expectant shadow, following you around for years after the last piece of confetti has fluttered to the court. How the world can shake you to your core, present death and divorce to you in a single year and dare you to keep your competitive edge, dare you to somehow grow from deep loss. … More Converting the Shot

Citizen Smith

February 28, 2015

Carolina Alumni Review – March-April 2015 Thirty-six years as the gold standard courtside tactician would have been plenty. The man hired to plug holes in a crisis brought Carolina and his community so much more. Dean Smith, North Carolina’s incomparable basketball coach for 36 years, who mastered the beautiful complexities of a simple game on the … More Citizen Smith

Hurts So Good

March 21, 2005

Rasheed Wallace is not what people have come to expect from a Dean Smith-coached player. Wallace himself admits he attracts as much vitriol as he does admiration. He’s been called a “bad boy,” a “Jailblazer” and a “cancerous lesion” on the league by his detractors.

But his supporters say he’s misquoted, misunderstood, a marvel – and possibly the greatest basketball player Carolina has ever produced.

So do you dare to love Rasheed Wallace? And if you don’t, should you? … More Hurts So Good

What the Fields Teach

November 1, 2004

For 25 years, Anson Dorrance ’74 — graduate of an all-boys boarding school — has been the unlikely conductor of the greatest athletic social experiment since women began playing college sports. It’s what you don’t see in games, however, that keeps the whole thing brewing. … More What the Fields Teach