William Wallace Guthridge (July 27, 1937 – May 12, 2015) was an American

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

coach. Guthridge initially gained recognition after serving for thirty years as

Dean Smith Dean Edwards Smith (February 28, 1931 – February 7, 2015) was an American men's college basketball head coach. Called a "coaching legend" by the Basketball Hall of Fame, he coached for 36 years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel H ...

's assistant at the

University of North Carolina The University of North Carolina is the multi-campus public university system for the state of North Carolina. Overseeing the state's 16 public universities and the NC School of Science and Mathematics, it is commonly referred to as the UNC Sy ...

and summing many wins as a result. Following Smith's retirement in 1997, Guthridge was head coach of the Tar Heels for three seasons. He took the team to the NCAA final Four twice and was named national coach of the year in

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

, before retiring in 2000.

Background

Born in Parsons, Kansas, Guthridge attended Kansas State University in

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, and graduated with a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

in mathematics in 1960 and an

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

in education in 1963. He was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. While a student at Kansas State, Guthridge played guard under head coach Fred "Tex" Winter, and helped the team advance to the 1958 Final Four. After graduating from Kansas State, he coached at Scott City High School in Kansas for two seasons before returning to his alma mater as an assistant coach for Tex Winter from 1962–1967. In five years on Winter's staff, Guthridge helped lead the Wildcats to a record, a pair of Big Eight Conference crowns, and the NCAA Final Four in

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...

. He also was head golf coach for the Wildcats. Following his stint at Kansas State, Guthridge moved to North Carolina to join the staff of fellow Kansas native Dean Smith. From 1972 onward, he was Smith's top assistant. In 1976, he also served as an assistant coach to Smith as the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

won the gold medal in men's basketball at the Summer Olympics in

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. As an assistant, Guthridge was renowned for his success in coaching the fundamentals of pivot play to a long series of successful UNC big men, and as the Tar Heels' primary shooting coach. Guthridge also handled many day-to-day responsibilities in the program and oversaw UNC's summer basketball camps. While serving as an assistant coach, Guthridge turned down several head coaching opportunities, preferring to remain in Chapel Hill working alongside Smith. On one occasion, he actually accepted the head coaching post at Penn State, but stepped down from the post a few days later.

Head coaching career

Dean Smith unexpectedly retired as head basketball coach at North Carolina just two months before the start of the 1997–98 season, and Guthridge was immediately named his successor. School officials stressed that Guthridge was not merely a placeholder for then-Kansas coach Roy Williams, signing him to a five-year contract. In his three seasons as head coach Guthridge led the Tar Heels to the NCAA final Four twice, in

and again in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

. He is one of five people to have appeared in the Final Four as both a player and coach. In 1998, Guthridge inherited a team that had been to the 1997 Final Four the previous year under Smith. With a wealth of returning talent, Guthridge instituted a "six starters" system, whereby the team's top six players, Antawn Jamison,

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Ed Cota Eduardo Enrique Cota (born May 19, 1976) is a Panamanian-American former professional basketball player. High school career Cota played his freshman and sophomore years at Brooklyn, New York's Samuel J. Tilden High School. As a sophomore, he ...

Shammond Williams Shammond Omar Williams (born April 5, 1975) is a retired American-born naturalized Georgian professional basketball player. Standing at , he played at both point guard and shooting guard positions. During his career he played in the NBA and in ...

Ademola Okulaja Ademola Okulaja (10 July 1975 – 17 May 2022) was a German professional basketball player. The last team he played for were the Brose Baskets of the Basketball Bundesliga. After his playing career, he became an agent for NBA player Dennis Schrö ...

, and Makhtar N'Diaye rotated positions in the starting five. Guthridge coached that team to the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship, a school record-tying 34 wins (including 30 wins going into the NCAA Tournament – the most in school history at the time) and an appearance in the Final Four, where they lost to

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

. Following the 1997–98 season, several organizations named him National Coach of the Year and he received the

Naismith College Coach of the Year Naismith College Coach of the Year Award is an award given by the Atlanta Tipoff Club to one men's and one women's NCAA Division I collegiate coach each season since 1987. The award was originally given to the two winning coaches of the NCAA Divis ...

award. The next season, North Carolina earned a #3 seed in the West regional of the NCAA tournament, but was upset in the first round by

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in a late game in

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. Before their first-round exit in

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, this was the only time that the Tar Heels failed to win a game in the tournament since it expanded to 64 teams (and dropped first-round byes) in

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a ...

. In

, the Tar Heels struggled in the regular season, falling out of the polls for the first time since the start of the

1990–91 Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 '' Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since t ...

season. At the time, their run of 172 consecutive weeks in the AP Poll was the second-longest in college basketball history. They finished the regular season at 18–13, the worst for UNC in eleven years, but the Tar Heels came alive in the NCAA tournament. Seeded eighth in the South region, North Carolina upset top-seeded Stanford in the second round and continued to the Final Four, where they lost to

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

. Guthridge retired after the season, having spent the first 43 years of his adult life as a player, high school coach, and college coach. Guthridge was involved in a total of fourteen Final Fours as either a player or coach, more than any other person in history—one each as a player and assistant at Kansas State, ten as a North Carolina assistant, and two as North Carolina head coach. He died at his home on May 12, 2015, after an extended illness, alongside his family.

Head coaching record

References

External links

North Carolina profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guthridge, Bill 1937 births 2015 deaths American men's basketball coaches American men's basketball players Basketball coaches from Kansas Basketball players from Kansas College men's basketball head coaches in the United States Kansas State Wildcats men's basketball coaches Kansas State Wildcats men's basketball players North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball coaches People from Parsons, Kansas Point guards Shooting guards University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill faculty

Background

Head coaching career

Head coaching record

See also

References

External links