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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    New Bern, NC unless it's a home football game then I'm grilling on Devil's Alley

    Dean Smith receiving Presidential Medal of Freedom Award

    Just saw this in WRAL's "breaking news" banner, so there is no link yet. A nice recognition of an amazing career, even if he put me to sleep with the four corners.

    Edit...ESPN has the news, and link. Also being awarded is Ernie Banks. (Whom I thought at first was the painter/ football player but instead is the baseball player. The artist is named Barnes.)
    http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bask...-freedom-award
    Last edited by CameronBornAndBred; 08-08-2013 at 02:23 PM.
    Q "Why do you like Duke, you didn't even go there." A "Because my art school didn't have a basketball team."

  2. #2
    Quote Originally Posted by CameronBornAndBred View Post
    Just saw this in WRAL's "breaking news" banner, so there is no link yet. A nice recognition of an amazing career, even if he put me to sleep with the four corners.

    Edit...ESPN has the news, and link. Also being awarded is Ernie Banks. (Whom I thought at first was the painter/ football player but instead is the baseball player. The artist is named Barnes.)
    http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bask...-freedom-award
    Very well deserved - as I get older and see more of the dreck that rises to the top of the coaching profession (pro and college) I have a greater appreciation for what a class act Coach Smith was during his time at UNC.

    Not too shabby a list of prior honorees

    Past sports recipients of the award include the following: Hank Aaron, Muhammad Ali, Arthur Ashe, Earl Blaik, Paul Bryant, Roberto Clemente, Joe DiMaggio, Billie Jean King, Robert J.H. Kiphuth, Stan Musial, Jack Nicklaus, Buck O'Neil, Jesse Owens, Arnold Palmer, Richard Petty, Frank Robinson, Jackie Robinson, Bill Russell, Ted Williams and John Wooden.

    http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bask...-freedom-award

    Hope Coach K is added to that list some day soon

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Greensboro, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by CameronBornAndBred View Post
    Just saw this in WRAL's "breaking news" banner, so there is no link yet. A nice recognition of an amazing career, even if he put me to sleep with the four corners.

    Edit...ESPN has the news, and link. Also being awarded is Ernie Banks. (Whom I thought at first was the painter/ football player but instead is the baseball player. The artist is named Barnes.)
    http://espn.go.com/mens-college-bask...-freedom-award
    Good on Dean. I have a print of Ernie Barnes' painting featuring the starting five from Duke's wonderful 1986 season. My wife doesn't like it so it sits in a corner of the extra bedroom. I got mine cheap at the old South Square Mall because of some spill damage on the white margin.

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/VERY-RARE-DU...-/190846198191
    Man, if your Mom made you wear that color when you were a baby, and you're still wearing it, it's time to grow up!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Norfolk, VA
    Congratulations to Coach Smith. He is well deserving of this recognition.
    Bob Green

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Florida
    I, too, offer my congratulations and can only hope that Coach Smith is somehow able to make the trip.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Feb 2013
    Location
    Las Vegas, Nevada
    Congratulations to Dean. Nice tribute.

  7. #7
    Richly deserved and long overdue.

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Mar 2007
    Location
    Mount Kisco, NY
    This is one time I am glad that someone didn't say NO to Dean.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by fitimi1 View Post
    I, too, offer my congratulations and can only hope that Coach Smith is somehow able to make the trip.
    It doesn't sound like it to me, as his family issued a statement that began: "We know he would be humbled to be in the company of President Clinton, United States senators, scientists, entertainers..."

    Unfortunately (and having a father pretty far along with Alzheimer's myself), the tense there is disturbing. I too congratulate him and hope he and his family and friends can celebrate in whatever way they are able.

  10. #10
    Bear Bryant?

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Steamboat Springs, CO

    Ernie Banks

    I ran into Ernie in Chicago a couple of years ago. He was palling around with the doorman at a downtown hotel. What a character! We have an Obama choice based on Chicago roots.

    sagegrouse

  12. #12
    Join Date
    Oct 2008
    Location
    ninety minutes west of Cameron
    I'm clearly no fan of the sheep, but I am glad Dean is getting this award. I just wish he had gotten it sooner while he was still able to comprehend the honor.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by Turtleboy View Post
    Bear Bryant?
    Leaving aside the fact he won a few football games he deserved it for this commercial

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Hq9wfYb13U

    The last line was ad libbed

    http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/11/op...1friedman.html

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by Turtleboy View Post
    Bear Bryant?
    Alabama's delay in recruiting black players during Bryant's tenure might be a point of contention in him having received this honor.
    Last edited by subzero02; 08-08-2013 at 07:59 PM.

  15. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by subzero02 View Post
    Alabama's delay in recruiting black players during Bryant's tenure might be a point of contention in him having received this honor.
    Well yeah, since it is called the Medal of Freedom, and not the Medal of Football Awesomeness.

  16. #16
    The man most responsible for integrating the Alabama football program was John McKay. He took an integrated USC team down there in about 1970 and whaled the tar out of the Tide.

  17. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Turtleboy View Post
    Well yeah, since it is called the Medal of Freedom, and not the Medal of Football Awesomeness.
    I suppose looking back from the flawless hindsight of a half century later at times during which you may not have been alive provides a wonderful perspective, but to the extent you may be operating under the misimpression Duke was a beacon of racial tolerance during those times, the first African-American basketball player to receive a scholarship at Duke was not until Don Blackmon in 1970

    http://spotlight.duke.edu/50years/af...ke-university/

    To the extent you regard Bryant as King Canute trying to hold back the tide of racial equality:

    In 1969, 11 African-American students at the University of Alabama filed a lawsuit against Paul (Bear) Bryant and the university for failing to recruit black scholarship athletes. In his 93-page deposition for the suit, Bryant, Alabama's iconic football coach, defended his program, saying that for three or four years he had tried to bring in black players but had lost them to other schools. Hindsight—and old-fashioned research—indicates Bryant was telling the truth

    Bryant's role in sports' social revolution during the civil rights movement is the centerpiece of Breaking the Huddle: The Integration of College Football, an HBO documentary ... The engrossing one-hour show, which gives accounts of the desegregation of the ACC, SEC and Southwest conference, climaxes with Bryant's all-white 1970 Crimson Tide team playing at Birmingham's Legion Field against Southern Cal, with its strong nucleus of black players.

    Breaking the Huddle does nothing to dispute the widely held belief that Bryant scheduled that game to show whites at Alabama and across the South the necessity of having black players to compete against the country's top programs.


    http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vau...ne/MAG1149825/

    Dean Smith did not recruit Charlie Scott until 1966 - is that early enough to qualify for his medal?

    http://blogs.lib.unc.edu/morton/inde...charles-scott/

    Matthew 7:1

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    20 Minutes From The Heaven That Is Cameron Indoor
    Congrats to Dean. Well deserved. I do hate he is no longer of sound mind, but his family can take pride in the award. The disease is awful, and I have viewed it first hand with the parent of a close friend, and also an Aunt who now only recognizes her older sister, but none of her own children or grandchildren. It's painful to watch a person with the disease. Hope Dean is doing as well as possible these days.

  19. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by sagegrouse View Post
    We have an Obama choice based on Chicago roots.

    sagegrouse
    Really? Perhaps Coach K will be next.

  20. #20
    Quote Originally Posted by Atlanta Duke View Post
    I suppose looking back from the flawless hindsight of a half century later at times during which you may not have been alive provides a wonderful perspective, but to the extent you may be operating under the misimpression Duke was a beacon of racial tolerance during those times, the first African-American basketball player to receive a scholarship at Duke was not until Don Blackmon in 1970
    And I suppose you would be better served to hold your thoughts until you have something more than your imaginings to base them on. As for Blackmon being the first on scholarship, Claudius Claiborne was recruited to Duke and enrolled in 1965, just two years after the University integrated. He was on a grant-in-aid, not an athletic scholarship, but he was on the team and his education was paid for, so I fail to see the point in claiming that Blackmon was the trailblazer.

    Dean Smith did not recruit Charlie Scott until 1966 - is that early enough to qualify for his medal?
    At that point in his career he had been a head coach for five years. In 1971, when the first black player played for Bryant, he had been a head coach for 26 years. Apples and oranges.

    This revisionist history of Bryan being some kind of icon of the civil rights movement would be laughable if it weren't so sad. The running joke ion the early 70's was Bryant commenting, as he watched a black prospect shred an opposing team's defense, "Look at that Indian run."

    Your appeal to dogma as a buttress for your argument is noted, if unimpressive. You might try thinking for yourself once in a while. It's quite liberating.

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