Dean Edwards Smith was born in Emporia, KS in 1931. He attended Topeka High School and graduated from the University of Kansas in 1953. Smith began his basketball coaching career as an assistant coach at Kansas in 1953, moved briefly to Air Force, and then began at UNC in 1958. In 1961, he took over as head coach of UNC and over 36 years established an unparalleled record (879-254) as the winningest coach in college basketball history. He has won numerous coaching awards, including 8 ACC Coach of the Year titles. He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983.
A Charlotte NC, writer who has known Dean Smith for more than three decades. He publishes a UNC sports magazine, "Carolina Blue", and was the host of Smith's TV show for 14 years.
Sally Jenkins was born on October 22, 1960. She is a sports columnist and feature writer for The Washington Post. She has also worked for Sports Illustrated and acted as a correspondent on CNBC as well as on NPR's All Things Considered. She is a graduate of Stanford University with a degree in English Literature. Jenkins is also known for some of her famous interviews such as Joe Paterno, Head football coach of Pennsylvania State University and Lance Armstrong. In 1986, Jenkins was part of the team nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for stories about the cocaine-related death of University of Maryland All-American Len Bias. It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life won the William Hill… Sports Book of the Year award in 2000. It was also number one on the New York Times Best Seller list. This book was also awarded the Christopher Award for Adult Books in 2001. It also appeared in the Texas Tayshas Reading List from 2001 to 2002. In 2002 she won the Associated Press�s Columnist of the Year Award. Her title Sum It Up: 1,098 Victories, a Couple of Irrelevant Losses, and a Life in Perspective made The New York Times best seller list for 2013. Her titles include: No Finish Line, Funny Cide: How a Horse, a Trainer, a Jockey, and a Bunch of High School Buddies Took on the Sheiks and Blue Bloods�and Won, The Real All Americans: The Team That Changed a Game, a People, a Nation and The State of Jones.