cover image The Carolina Corporation: Inside Dean Smith and the Tar Heels

The Carolina Corporation: Inside Dean Smith and the Tar Heels

Steve Holstrom. Taylor Publishing Company (TX), $17.95 (226pp) ISBN 978-0-87833-654-8

Smith, basketball coach of the University of North Carolina and one of the most successful in the country, is a very private person. Ensconced in a baronial office in the Smith Center at Chapel Hill, he has two secretaries to keep out unwanted visitors. And it appears from this volume that he remained almost equally remote from the author, former editor of The Chapel Hill Newspaper , who surely did not get very far inside Dean Smith. As the title suggests, the coach does run his team like a corporate CEO, and a very big business it is, with players flying by chartered jet and staying at first-class hotels. Holstrom followed the team through the 1987-88 season, when it won the Atlantic Coast Conference title and almost made it to the NCAA's Final Four. (Dec.)