Smith great coach, even better man

Published Feb. 8, 2015 12:00 p.m. ET

Reid Forgrave

Dean Smith, the legendary North Carolina basketball coach who died Saturday at age 83, was one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time. That is as indisputable as the fact that a former player of Smith's, Michael Jordan, is one of the greatest basketball players of all time.

But to put Dean Smith in that limiting box of "college basketball coach" is to ignore the greatness of the man himself, the kind of humble and life-sweeping greatness that is sorely lacking not just in sports today, but in America.