The Legends Club

by John Feinstein

  “We were terrible that night,” Cunningham remembered. “Flat, not ready to play. Plus, they were good. Dean didn’t do anything wrong. We just didn’t show up to play.”

  The result was a humiliating 107–85 loss. When the bus pulled into the Woollen Gym parking lot after the eighty-mile trip back home that night, the place was deserted—as might be expected late on a cold January night. The only thing the players could see as they wearily stood up to get off the bus was what appeared to be an effigy, hanging from a nearby tree.

  Cunningham, the team captain, was the first one off the bus. As soon as he got a good look at the effigy, he knew what had happened: Smith had been hung in effigy by students who had, no doubt, fled when they saw the bus pulling in.

  “There wasn’t any doubt about what it was or who it was,” he said. “When I ran over to the tree I looked up at Winston dorm, which was on the other side of the parking lot, and I could see a lot of faces peering out windows at me. I just ripped the thing down. I was angry and I was embarrassed. It was our fault that had happened.”

  Smith was never comfortable—for obvious reasons—talking about that night. “I do remember Billy pulling the effigy down,” he said. “I don’t remember anyone saying anything at that moment or exactly what I thought.”

  He smiled for a moment. “I also remember that I think I gave the best pregame talk of my career three days later when we played at Duke.”

  Coached by Vic Bubas, Duke was the team in the ACC during that period. The Blue Devils had reached back-to-back Final Fours in 1963 and 1964 and would return again in 1966. Carolina went into Cameron Indoor Stadium and beat the sixth-ranked Blue Devils 65–62.

  “I don’t remember his pregame talk,” Cunningham said. “I’m not sure any of us heard a word he said. We were all so upset because we’d let him down so badly. If he hadn’t said a word, we would have won that game. We owed him that one.”

  The Tar Heels went 9–3 the rest of that season. That spring, Smith won his first key head-to-head recruiting battle with Bubas, for Larry Miller, a talented six-four swingman from Catasauqua, Pennsylvania. A year later, Charles Scott, the first African American whom Smith successfully recruited, arrived in Chapel Hill. North Carolina won the ACC title in 1967 and advanced to the Final Four. It did the same thing in 1968 and 1969—losing the 1968 title game to Alcindor and UCLA.

  The effigy was long gone. The aura had been born.

  —

  By the time Mike Krzyzewski and Jim Valvano arrived in the Research Triangle to coach at Duke and N.C. State, neither Smith nor anyone else at North Carolina was losing a lot of sleep worrying about who was going to coach at the two neighboring schools.

  “We always figured that playing against Duke or N.C. State would be tough,” Roy Williams said. “But by then, really, our challenge was winning the national championship. It was the only thing Coach Smith hadn’t done yet.”

  After Tom Butters shocked the basketball world by hiring Krzyzewski, Smith asked Bob Knight, whom he often played golf with in the off-season, about the new coach at Duke.

  “I remember he said to us, ‘Bob thinks he’ll be very good—if he can survive the first few years,’ ” Williams said. “We all knew that once [Gene] Banks and [Kenny] Dennard graduated after that first year that he’d have to rebuild. The question, Coach Smith said, would be whether Duke would be patient enough to let him do that.”

  The UNC coaching staff knew more about Valvano because Iona had made a name for itself nationally. Both North Carolina and Indiana—and every other basketball power—had recruited Jeff Ruland, only to see him stay close to home and go to Iona.

  The full-court press put on Ruland by Valvano and his relentless assistant, Tom Abatemarco, became legend among coaches. Because of recruiting rules about direct contact with a player, Valvano and Abatemarco couldn’t speak to Ruland on a daily basis. Instead, rain, snow, or shine, Abatemarco would drive to Ruland’s house every morning and leave a note on the windshield of his car before Ruland left for school.

  Eddie Fogler, who spent more time on the road recruiting than the other Carolina coaches, and thus knew more coaches, reported back that Valvano would be a very different sort of opponent than Norm Sloan.

  “People liked him,” Fogler said with a smile. “Everyone liked Valvano. He was impossible not to like.”

  Both Valvano and Krzyzewski insisted they weren’t going to worry about Smith or North Carolina or the aura when they started their new jobs. “I expect them to be good,” Krzyzewski said. “That doesn’t mean we can’t be good too.”

  Valvano, being Valvano, explained his approach to competing with Smith differently. “I’ll never outcoach Dean Smith,” he said. “But maybe I can outlive him.”

  7

  Jim Valvano and North Carolina State actually came close to beating Dean Smith and North Carolina both times the two teams faced each other during the regular season in 1980–81. Carolina won a pair of three-point games, but—naturally—that wasn’t the way Valvano told the story in the years that followed.

  The way Valvano told it, Carolina won both games in blowouts. He counted on the fact that most of his listeners wouldn’t remember the two games.

  “So, the second time we get blown out, an old State alumnus comes up to me and he says, ‘Coach, I know you’re a Yankee and you don’t understand about tradition down here, but we cannot be losing to the Tar Heels this way.’

  “I say to him, ‘No, I do get it. I know all about the tradition down here and I promise you, next season we’re going to do a lot better against them.’

  “He shakes his head and says, ‘Coach, you just don’t get it. If you lose to the Tar Heels here in Reynolds [Coliseum] next season, we’re going to kill your dog.’

  “Okay, I’m just a little nervous now because the guy isn’t smiling even a little bit. But I say to him, ‘Look, I have to tell you, I don’t have a dog, but I hear you loud and clear.’

  “He just nods and walks away. Next morning I go to the front door to get my newspaper, and when I open the door there’s a basket on my front step. I look under the blanket and there’s the cutest little puppy you’ve ever seen in your life. There’s a note attached to the puppy’s collar. It says, ‘Don’t get too attached.’ ”

  The story illustrated the intensity of the Triangle rivalries among N.C. State, North Carolina, and Duke. It was also complete fiction.

  “Only story he ever made up,” Bob Valvano said. “He came up with it when he decided he wanted to do stand-up comedy. He called me and said, ‘I’ve been working on this all day and this is what I’ve come up with so far. This is hard work.’ ”

  It was never work for Valvano to be off-the-cuff funny. That was his genius. That first year at State, his team struggled often—finishing 14–13. The Wolfpack faced Carolina for a third time, in the first round of the ACC Tournament, losing 69–54 to end Valvano’s first season. It was probably a good thing that the dog was fictional.

  Duke and Krzyzewski had better luck. After losing the nonhandshake game in Greensboro, the Blue Devils got blown out in Chapel Hill in January. Carolina came to Durham on the final day of the regular season, a Saturday afternoon, for Senior Day. Smith had actually invented Senior Day after succeeding McGuire. The concept was simple: honor those playing their last home game—from stars to walk-ons—by introducing them and by starting every senior on the roster, including walk-ons. On a couple of occasions when Carolina had six seniors, Smith put them all on the floor to start the game and accepted the technical foul for having six men on the court.

  “It was a brilliant concept in a lot of different ways,” Lou Goetz, the former Foster assistant, said. “You start the walk-ons so you don’t have to worry about trying to get them into the box score at the end of the game when it might be close. And you put pressure on the other team because if by some chance one of them hits a shot or makes a play, you look bad and it gives the home team some extra momentum.

  “Plus there�
��s the added bonus that it’s a nice thing to do for the seniors.”

  Nowadays, Senior Day at most schools has become an almost unbearable parade of managers and their moms and dads; cheerleaders and their moms and dads; players and their moms and dads; and just about every graduating senior who happens to show up at the game. Everyone gets a plaque, a framed team picture—or both.

  Smith’s concept was simpler than that: make sure all the seniors play so they are recognized the last day they wear a uniform on their home court. Duke’s three seniors in 1981 were Jim Suddath, Kenny Dennard, and Eugene Banks. All three had played important roles in the revival of Duke basketball under Bill Foster.

  Suddath had been a steady off-the-bench shooter his first three years before becoming a starter as a senior. He was a deeply religious young man who would go on after graduation to become a minister—surprising none of his teammates, who already called him the Reverend while he was still in college. Remarkably, Suddath had roomed with Dennard when the two were freshmen, creating perhaps the ultimate odd-couple pairing in the history of higher education. Dennard spent most of his nights praying that he could convince a coed to come back to the room with him. Often, his prayers were answered.

  When Dennard’s prayers were answered, Suddath cowered under the covers in the other bed, also praying—for Dennard’s soul.

  “Poor Jim,” Dennard said years later. “He really did want to save me. I was a hopeless cause.”

  Dennard had been an exception to the rule that said kids from North Carolina didn’t go to Duke. He was from King, a suburb of Winston-Salem, and he decided he wanted to go to Duke after his official visit to campus, which if you have five or six hours with nothing to do, he will gladly recount to you to this day.

  Dennard was six foot eight, athletic, and mean—on the court. He was a starter from day one, a major upgrade at the small-forward spot.

  But the breakthrough recruit was Banks. In the winter of 1977, there were two high school seniors coveted by every major program in the country: Banks and Albert King. There was a third senior who was considered to be very talented but not quite in Banks and King’s class: Earvin Johnson, whose nickname was Magic. He decided early on to stay home and go to Michigan State. Which meant most recruiting geeks were focused on King, who was from Brooklyn and was the younger brother of Bernard King; and Banks, who went to West Philadelphia High School.

  Banks was a born performer—on and off the basketball court. He was six foot seven and chiseled, without ever lifting a weight, in a way that made him look more like twenty-five than eighteen. His SAT scores were awful, low enough that none of the five schools on his final list—Duke, Penn, Villanova, Notre Dame, and UCLA—could consider admitting him, even as an athlete. Except that all five were willing to take him, largely because of his basketball ability but also because it was clear on meeting him that he was a lot smarter than the numbers reflected.

  Foster had to do a major selling job to the Duke admissions board. He pointed out that if ever there was an example of the SAT’s cultural bias, it was Gene Banks. “He’ll come here and graduate in four years,” he told the admissions people.

  He didn’t add: “And he’ll transform the basketball program.” That was a given.

  On February 7 Bob Wenzel, who had been babysitting Banks all season, got an early-morning phone call from Banks: “Coach,” he said. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m coming to Duke.”

  The timing was a godsend for Duke and for Foster. Two days earlier, the Blue Devils had blown a seven-point lead in the final minute to lose to Maryland in large part because star point guard Tate Armstrong was out with a broken wrist and the Blue Devils couldn’t handle Maryland’s pressure. Steve Gray, Armstrong’s replacement, threw one pass off his own rim and then dribbled the ball off his foot to seal Duke’s fate. That night, Foster tried to fly to Louisville, Kentucky, on a recruiting trip. The plane had to make an emergency landing in high winds, and Foster returned home the next day too sick to get out of bed. When Wenzel called the next morning with the news about Banks, he felt considerably healthier.

  After he hung up with Foster, Wenzel called a friend and said four words: “The worm has turned.” The friend didn’t need to ask what he meant.

  Banks’s decision was the most important basketball news to hit the Duke campus since Vic Bubas had announced his retirement eight years earlier. But his recruitment wasn’t over yet. He couldn’t actually sign a letter of intent until April, and UCLA and Notre Dame kept recruiting him very aggressively.

  “Their basic pitch was simple,” Wenzel remembered. “Duke—you’re going to Duke? You’ll never be heard from again there—they’re terrible.”

  On the night of March 18 Wenzel went to see Banks play in Washington, at the Knights of Columbus Tournament in the D.C. Armory, right across the street from RFK Stadium. It was an old, dingy gym with lots of history and very little hot water in the showers.

  When Banks came up the steps from the locker room after West Philadelphia had beaten Georgetown Prep in a first-round game, he found Notre Dame coach Digger Phelps waiting for him. Phelps and Notre Dame had lost to North Carolina in College Park in the round of sixteen of the NCAA Tournament the previous night, and Phelps had stuck around to see Banks play in downtown D.C. He had brought friends with him: Austin Carr, Bob Whitmore, and Sid Catlett, all Notre Dame graduates, all great college players.

  As the four men surrounded Banks, Wenzel stood a few yards away, steam coming out of his ears, knowing he couldn’t even think of intervening. He had to let the scene play out.

  Phelps introduced the three former stars to a wide-eyed Banks and said, “Gene, if you come to Notre Dame, this is who you’ll be following.” He glanced in Wenzel’s direction. “If you go to Duke, who will you be following there?”

  He and the three alums spent several minutes telling Banks about the wonders of Notre Dame while Wenzel stewed. Finally, there were handshakes and hugs all around, and Banks walked over to where Wenzel was standing.

  “Coach, are you okay?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, Gene, why?”

  “Because you’re white as a sheet.”

  Wenzel walked Banks to the West Philadelphia team bus. As they shook hands, Banks said, “Coach, it’s fine. I’m coming to Duke.”

  At that moment, Wenzel felt the color returning to his face.

  Four weeks later, Banks officially signed a letter of intent to go to Duke. It was during a recruiting “dead” period, when coaches weren’t allowed to have any contact with recruits. Foster was taking no chances. At nine o’clock in the morning, Banks walked to his mailbox and put an envelope in it. Foster, sitting in his car at the end of the block, waited until Banks walked inside his house and then—as previously arranged—drove down to the mailbox, took the envelope out of the box, and looked inside. The letter of intent was there—with Banks’s signature on it.

  The worm had, in fact, turned.

  —

  Four years later, Banks made his final appearance in Cameron Indoor Stadium. It had not been an easy year for any of the three seniors. Suddath had been thrilled to find himself starting but never could completely grasp the notion of playing Mike Krzyzewski’s man-to-man defense after playing Foster’s 2-3 zone throughout his college career.

  Banks and Dennard’s adjustment to the new coach had little to do with the defense he played. It was about style—and discipline.

  “They were used to laissez-faire from Bill,” said Bobby Dwyer, who had come to Duke with Krzyzewski from Army. “Mike wouldn’t know laissez-faire if you hit him over the head with it.”

  The new coach and the veteran players clashed often about being on time, about how much they partied (and how often), and about going to class. Dennard, whose board scores had been as high as Banks’s had been low, had no interest in going to school or graduating. Banks, in spite of riding an academic roller coaster, would fulfill Foster’s promise and graduate in four years.

  By the ti
me Senior Day rolled around, Krzyzewski and his two senior stars had finally bonded for one reason: all three hated to lose.

  As always, Dennard was introduced before Banks. When Banks was introduced he came out carrying roses and laid one on each corner of the court as a tribute to the student body. There is a picture of the two of them hugging a moment later, Dennard with his hands over his eyes. Most people who look at the picture are moved by the sight of Dennard’s tears.

  “I wasn’t crying,” Dennard said, looking at the photo many years later. “I was hiding my eyes because I couldn’t believe Gene came out and did that corny thing with the roses. But that was Gene. No one ever loved the spotlight more than he did.”

  Banks lived up to his own hype that day. With Duke down two and one second left, he caught an inbounds pass from Dennard twenty-five feet from the basket and launched a high-arching shot over the outstretched arms of Sam Perkins, who was six foot nine but, according to Dean Smith’s measurements, had the arms of someone who was seven-four. The shot came down from the ceiling and splashed through the net, sending the game into overtime.

  Linnea Smith was watching the game from a hospital room a few miles away. She had given birth two days earlier to her second child, a daughter named Kelly Marie. The baby was Smith’s fifth child—he’d had two daughters and a son with Ann, his first wife, and this was the second daughter for him and Linnea since their marriage in 1976.

  Linnea Smith didn’t get emotional about basketball games very often. She and Dean had met on an airplane, and, she had learned later, one of the things he liked about her was that she had absolutely no idea who he was. She was a doctor, a psychiatrist, and he had opened the conversation with her by asking about the book she was reading: The Gospel According to Peanuts.

  Five years and two children into their marriage, Linnea Smith hardly considered herself an expert on basketball, but she knew how intensely competitive her husband was and how much he loathed losing to Duke—especially at Duke. She was in a Durham hospital because that was where her doctor practiced. “Yes,” she said with a smile many years later, “my girls have to deal with the fact that they were born in Durham.”