When Ron Smith walked into UNC’s Wilson Library, he wasn’t looking for a passion project. He was looking for a distraction.
It was 2005, and Smith’s wife was undergoing treatment for cancer at Duke Hospital, and he needed an escape among the Wilson stacks. The solution soon presented itself: studying the history of Carolina basketball.
Smith then found himself poring over old box scores detailing historical matchups with Duke and other classic rivals. As a longtime Tar Heel fan and UNC alumnus, Smith was hooked.
Some of the primary sources dated back to the very beginning of UNC’s men’s basketball program in 1911. But Smith began to notice discrepancies between the reporting of the local newspapers of the time and what was presented in UNC’s basketball record book. He called Steve Kirschner, who compiles the book every year, with his concerns.
“I’m looking at [the UNC basketball record book], the scores in the back of the blue books, and then the lettermen,” Smith told Chapelboro. “And I just said, ‘I don’t mean to sound presumptuous, like I know everything. But I’m finding guys who were listed as lettermen in 1911 or 1912 who I can’t find in any box score.’”
Kirschner gave Smith the green light to continue sending corrections, and the pair’s professional relationship continues to this day. It also was another step toward what would become a massive project for Smith: a multi-volume history of Carolina basketball, stretching even further back than the program’s first season more than a century ago.
“I was putting the pieces together, and it led me back to the very beginning in 1892, when James Naismith invented the game,” Smith remembered.
As it turns out, one of Naismith’s students, Frank Mahan, bestowed the name “Basket Ball” (it was originally written as two words) onto Naismith’s new game. Mahan then took the game on to his next job, as director of a YMCA in Charlotte. A few of Mahan’s younger students fell in love with the game, and started the basketball program at UNC once they arrived in Chapel Hill as students a few years later.
As for Smith’s love of the Tar Heels, that traces back to a February night in 1966, when a 10-year-old Ron went with his father to a Carolina basketball game. The Smith family went to many games together, but this one was special. Not only had Smith’s dad brought his camera with color film, but young Ron got to meet one of his heroes: head coach Dean Smith. Ron’s dad captured the moment on his camera.
“My dad said, ‘Why don’t we send Coach Smith a copy of the photo?’” Ron said. “So we did. And he sent me a thank you note, and then a signed team picture. And then every time I saw him after that, he knew my name.”
Ever since that fateful night, Smith has closely followed the Tar Heels. But the idea for his history project didn’t take root until nearly four decades later, when he was browsing in a Barnes & Noble bookstore with his wife.
“I came across a book called ‘Rolling With the Stones’ by Bill Wyman, the bass player,” remembered Smith. “And it was full of memorabilia: ticket stubs, photos, program covers, posters. And I showed it to her and I purchased it. I said, ‘This is the coolest book I’ve ever seen. I wish somebody would do something like this for Carolina basketball.’ And she said, ‘Why don’t you?’”
Smith’s wife died in 2006 after battling cancer for four years. But armed with her inspiration, and the wealth of knowledge he had gained across decades of fandom, Smith forged ahead with his book project.
“I would have people say, when I would show them what I’m doing, ‘Gosh, you have more time on your hands than you know what to do with.’” said Smith. “I said, ‘Well, actually it’s a grief project.’ It got me going after she passed, to dive into this kind of minutiae.”
With assists from college connections such as former player Dave Hanners, Smith has published the first two volumes of his collection, simply titled, “The Tar Heels.” The first covers a 70-year period from the game’s origins in 1891 to 1961, the season before Dean Smith’s hiring as head coach. The second volume covers the early years of Smith’s tenure, from 1961 to 1969. The plan is for each subsequent volume to cover a decade of history, with the next edition covering the 1970s set to be published this winter.
Smith says he plans for future volumes to cover seasons all the way into the present day, though he acknowledged his health may require him to bring in more collaborators as the years wear on.
The photography in the books is a particular point of pride for Smith; many photos included in the books had never been published. The cover photo for each volume is from a different national championship game: Volume 1 features the victorious 1957 national champions, while Volume 2 shows Charlie Scott in action against UCLA in 1968. Smith already has cover images in mind for future volumes, including the 2020s.
