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Athletics

Students pay tribute to Smith

The somber silence of the vigil was broken when students — arm-in-arm — began to sing “Hark the Sound.”

A student holds a candle.
A Carolina student holds a candle at the Dean Smith Center during a vigil held in tribute to former UNC-Chapel Hill head men’s basketball coach Dean Smith.

The last time Dean Smith led a Tar Heel basketball team onto the court, most current Carolina students weren’t even old enough for elementary school.

But that hasn’t made them any less familiar with the legend of the late coach, who passed away Saturday evening.

Students left flowers, candles and basketball memorabilia at an ever-growing memorial for Dean Smith.

Smith’s effect on current University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill students was obvious Sunday night as several hundred gathered outside the entrance of the Smith Center for a candlelight vigil. They may never have seen Smith on the court, but they came to honor his legacy.

“I feel impacted by everything he’s done, and that just shows how much of a great person he was,” said sophomore Visruti Sankar. “We weren’t students when he was a coach, but the fact that so many people came out here tonight.”

The hour-long vigil, which was held around an ever-growing memorial of flowers and notes outside the arena, was organized by students through social media. The small gathering quickly grew to several hundred people crowded in the shadow of the arena that bears the late Hall-of-Famer’s name.

Several hundred students attended the impromptu candlelight vigil on Sunday night.

“It just goes to show that he might be gone, but he won’t be forgotten,” Sankar said. “Clearly, he hasn’t been forgotten.”

The somber silence of the vigil was broken when students — arm-in-arm — began to sing “Hark the Sound.” Others spoke of what Smith has meant for the Carolina community. While Smith was the face of the basketball program from 1961 to 1997, the students said his influence extended far beyond the court.

“I’m hoping that people take away his legacy and know what he brought and that he wasn’t just a basketball coach,” said senior Taylor Link. “He was such a phenomenal person.”

Holding flowers, candles and basketball memorabilia, the students one-by-one circled the memorial before leaving for the night.

“We feel like we knew him because he embodied the Carolina spirit,” said senior Myles Robinson. “To have a chance to commemorate somebody like this, in this way, in front of the Dean Smith Center, I think there’s no place I’d rather be at 8 p.m. on a Sunday night.”