Dean Smith, in full Dean Edwards Smith, (born February 28, 1931, Emporia, Kansas, U.S.--died February 7, 2015, Chapel Hill, North Carolina), American collegiate basketball coach at the University of North Carolina (1961--97) who, with 879 career victories, retired as the most prosperous men's collegiate basketball coach; his record was broken by Bob Knight at 2007.

Smith earned a diploma in mathematics (1953) in the University of Kansas, where he played basketball under the mythical Phog Allen. Smith was a reserve guard on the Kansas group that won the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) name in 1952. He served as an assistant trainer on Allen's employees before joining the U.S. Air Force in 1954. Roku error code 003

He had been as an assistant coach in the United States Air Force Academy before 1958, when he joined the coaching team of Frank McGuire in the University of North Carolina. In 1961 Smith became North Carolina's head coach, inheriting a program that had won the NCAA championship in 1957 beneath McGuire, who left to coach from the professional National Basketball Association (NBA) following the faculty received sanctions for recruitment violations.

Smith struggled in his first few seasons, but under his guidance North Carolina became one of collegiate basketball elite programs, winning at least 20 games for 30 of his final 31 seasons (including the last 27 consecutively). Smith led North Carolina to 11 appearances in the Final Four (the semifinals of the NCAA tournament) and two NCAA championships (1982 and 1993); his group also won the National Invitation Tournament championship in 1971. He coached the U.S. men's basketball team to a gold medal in the 1976 Olympics and has been elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1983. (In 2005 his record for most career victories in NCAA basketball was broken by women's coach Pat Summitt.)

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