“Playing for Mandela, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King”: At the Time of Muhammad Ali’s Revolutionary Career, Michael Jordan’s College Coach Instilled Contrarious Questions

Legendary coach Dean Smith played a huge part in the development of NBA legend?Michael Jordan. Fellow NBA legend Kenny Smith was Jordan’s teammate at North Carolina and played under coach Smith. Kenny recently joined Golden State Warriors superstar Draymond Green in?The Draymond Green?Show?podcast. In the 80 minutes long sit-down, the Houston Rockets legend opened up some interesting information about his life and career. During the show, Smith also talked about his time with North Carolina Tar Heels.

The two-time NBA champion revealed some important details about coach Dean Smith and his influence on college basketball and the African American players and community.

Kenny Smith on coach Dean Smith

In one?instance of the podcast, Kenny Smith recounted coach Dean Smith recruited Charlie Scott, who was the first African American to play for the Tar Heels and for North Carolina. He expressed coach Dean could have used this to recruit the best African American players in the country. But he did not do that, and even Kenny did not know about it at first. When he finally knew about it, he asked the coach. Kenny stated,?“I said, ‘Why didn’t you ever tell me that?’ And he said, ‘I didn’t recruit African American Charlie Scott. I recruited Charlie Scott.'”

Kenny said,?“He goes ‘Now, as an African American student what are you going to do that is not related to basketball with this?”’ The Jet noted that it was during the apartheid in South Africa. He admitted he was not very knowledgeable about the issue, but the coach’s words and actions motivated him. He added,?“For me, it was an out-of-body experience. It was like playing for Madela, playing for Mother Teresa, playing for Martin Luther King.”

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The Hall of Famer played under coach Dean Smith for four years. He also noted that at the time, not as many athletes were talking about civil rights and issues in society. Kenny noted boxing legend Mohammad Ali was one of the few athletes who used their platform to speak about issues in the country and around the world.

Michael Jordan and coach Dean Smith

During the podcast, Kenny Smith also talked about a weakness in the game of Michael Jordan. He also claimed that?he helped Jordan fix the weakness. When MJ joined North Carolina Tar Heels, he was one of the best players in the country coming out of high school. However, he was still not strong in some aspects of the game.

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Dean Smith helped Jordan hone his skills and also fueled his competitive fire. Under Smith’s tutelage, the six-time NBA champion helped the Tar Heels win the national title in 1982 with a game-winning jumper. During his Hall of Fame enshrinement speech, Jordan spoke very highly about Dean Smith.