Man, I never saw this coming. Virginia Athletic Director Craig Littlepage announced last night that UVA had hired former North Carolina coach Dean Smith as their new basketball coach.
Obviously, Coach Smith is too old to coach for long, but he says he plans to coach for at least five years and he’ll reevaluate after that.
Coach Smith had several interesting quotes about the situation.
On making the decision to get back into coaching:
“Ever since I retired, I’ve been doing nearly as much coaching as before. Bill, Matt and Roy all spent so much time in my office that I never could get anything else done. Well, not Matt so much. He helped matters by moving me down to this small office in the basement. I really appreciated his trying to help me out like that.”
On Virginia and his rivalry with Terry Holland:
“I always had the utmost respect for the Virginia program. Terry Holland and I used to have a nice rivalry in the early eighties. I never understood why he couldn’t keep it up while we just kept on winning. I see Terry’s down at East Carolina now. I’m glad he found something perfect for him.”
On Mike Krzyzewski:
“I’m really looking forward to competing against Mike again. He’s a good coach and I wonder if he still feels challenged. He has so much confidence now that he’s able to spend lots of time away from his job filming commercials. Have you seen his commercials yet? It’s great that he’s able to use his fame to such great ends.”
So, all-in-all, I’m still in shock about the whole situation. While it’s odd that Virginia would hire such an old coach, they really couldn’t found anyone better.
According to Littlepage, Smith actually approached him about the job. Littlepage had been having serious discussions with former Cavalier great Olden Polynice, who’s apparently working as a sheriff’s deputy in Boca Raton.