ROOTS OF SUCCESS

Bill Guthridge went back this week to the place that made him.

At the First Presbyterian Church in Parsons, Kan., he said a final goodbye Monday to the mother he had slowly been saying goodbye to in recent years. Alzheimer’s disease took her away so completely, she never understood he had become North Carolina’s coach after 30 years as Dean Smith’s assistant.

“She was a great mother,” Guthridge said. “I think all of us have a love for our mothers that’s almost unequaled.

“The sad part was when she was failing. Going blind, having Alzheimer’s. That was the sad part. This was a blessing.”

Guthridge’s high school coach, Harold Johnson, now in his 80s, was in the congregation.

So was Kansas Coach Roy Williams, a North Carolina assistant with Guthridge for 10 years who drove down from Lawrence.

Beyond that, the church was filled largely by the people of a community the family has been part of for so long.

Wallace Guthridge, the coach’s father, was superintendent of schools in Parsons from 1941-67.

“He died of cancer 33 years ago while he was still superintendent, and they named an elementary school after him,” Guthridge said. “I’m very proud of that.”

Only last May, Guthridge, 62, paid a visit to Guthridge Elementary, telling the students one of the things he admired most about Michael Jordan was that he was “a good listener.”

“We keep close tabs on North Carolina,” Principal Cynthia Sanders said. “We feel a special link.”

It doesn’t take long to believe that town--and those parents--are what produced a man with such a sense of who he is, one who seems to lack a major qualification for being a big-time college coach: ego.

Surely it’s there, but hard to detect.

Guthridge was sharply criticized for the Tar Heels’ 18-13 regular season. Nice man, great assistant, not up to being head coach.

Now he has reached the Final Four for the second time in three seasons as coach, as well as tied the NCAA record held by Everett Case of North Carolina State for most wins in his first three seasons, with 80 (Case was 80-16; Guthridge is 80-27).

It will be Guthridge’s 14th Final Four overall.

The first came as a player in 1958, when he was a reserve on a Kansas State team coached by Tex Winter, the Laker assistant.

“He was a math major, practically a straight-A student,” said Winter, still a close friend. “I encouraged him to be a lawyer.”

A second visit to the Final Four came as Winter’s assistant in 1964. Then 10 as Smith’s assistant at North Carolina, and two more as head coach.

By the way, it took Smith six years to reach his first Final Four as coach in 1967. That Smith was once hung in effigy in the early 1960s is a scrap of history Guthridge takes odd comfort in.

“As long as they don’t hang me for real, I’m fine,” Guthridge said. “If they can criticize Dean Smith, they can certainly criticize Bill Guthridge.”

The run to the Final Four after a regular season in which North Carolina lost more games than any season since 1951-52 would seem particularly satisfying. Attempts to lure Guthridge into self-congratulation haven’t worked.

“I saw an interview on TV, and they asked him about the criticism,” said Mitch Kupchak, the Laker general manager and a North Carolina player in the 1970s. “He just let the question fall off him. He did it in such a way that if you didn’t know him, you didn’t realize he never answered the question. He just let it deflect off him. He turns attention to the players and says, ‘I’m proud of these guys.’ ”

Kupchak, like many close to Guthridge, doesn’t spare the critics.

“I was in Charlotte when they lost in the [second round of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament],” Kupchak said. “That was not an enviable position to be in. I had compassion for what he was going through.

“But the speculation--to me, that was ridiculous. The people who make decisions, I know, he has the support of the athletic department and Coach Smith and a lot of people at the university.”

Williams is in the uncomfortable position of being the first name on the rumor mill when talk turns to who will be North Carolina’s next coach.

“It was not fair that man had to go through what he went through,” said Williams, who played for Guthridge’s freshman team in 1968-69, worked with him for 10 years, and watched his son, Scott, play for him until he graduated in 1999.

“It was one of those kinds of things in life where you say, ‘That’s not right,’ ” Williams said.

“Then you turn around and see him cut down the nets going to the Final Four. But it’s almost comical, or just unbelievable, that he wasn’t nearly as low as I was low for him, and he wasn’t nearly as high as I was high for him.

“I think he understands coaching is more difficult today than it was even five years ago. There are more call-in shows, the Internet. People see something in print, and they give it more credibility, even if it’s Johnny-Joe from the Laundromat saying he should have gone zone. Johnny-Joe from the Laundromat may not have a clue.”

Guthridge essentially shrugs.

“I know because of the interest in Carolina basketball there are a lot of opinions, and that’s fine,” he said. “I don’t let that bother me. As I’ve said many times, I don’t listen to talk shows, I don’t get on the Internet, I don’t read many newspapers. As long as my team is responding and everybody’s working hard, then I feel good about myself.

“I know it’s out there. If I was at Podunk and nobody came to the games and nobody cared, there wouldn’t be any opinions. With Carolina basketball, there are, and I like that.”

Guthridge is in the third year of a five-year contract many imagined he’d never fulfill. Don’t bet against it. Not only has this season’s run lessened the possibility he’d retire out of disappointment or concern for the program, but Smith still calls the shots at the university, and the men are almost as closely linked as ever.

“I do talk to Dean a lot and ask his advice,” Guthridge said. “He doesn’t come to me and say, ‘Bill, why didn’t you do this,’ or ‘Why didn’t you do that.’ I go to him often and he’s always willing to give his advice.”

Thirty years on the bench next to Smith might be part of the reason Guthridge long ago let go of any need to get the credit.

“He’s the kind of guy who can be satisfied to be an assistant coach. He’s not one of those guys who needs to be a head coach,” said Winter, comfortable in both roles in his career as well.

“I think he sees things in proper perspective. I realize it was a very tough time this season. I’m sure he felt pressure, a whole lot more than the public knew. But I don’t think his job was ever in jeopardy. He has established who he is.

“To this day, I think he’d be just as happy as an assistant--maybe not right now because they’re going to the Final Four--but I think he’d be just as happy if Dean was still coach and he was his assistant.”

Guthridge stayed in that seat longer than anyone imagined.

“When I started out, I wanted to be a head coach,” he said. “But I finally decided that I had the best job in the country as an assistant coach at North Carolina and I loved working with and for Dean Smith and the assistants we had.

“It was fun as a coach to ask Sam Perkins to work on his jump hook or his free throws and he would do it. I’ve seen some schools where I don’t think that’s probably possible.

“I really felt at that time I could be happy being an assistant coach the rest of my life, and my family was happy. So I made that decision and thought I’d probably retire when Dean Smith did because I thought he’d go on forever. But he threw a monkey wrench into that. I wasn’t ready to quit.”

Turns out, he still isn’t.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

SEMIFINALS

Saturday

at RCA Dome, Indianapolis

Michigan State (30-7) vs. Wisconsin (22-13)

2:30 p.m., Channel 2

*

North Carolina (22-13) vs. Florida (28-7)

*5 p.m., Channel 2

*30 minutes after first game

*

Championship

Monday

at RCA Dome, Indianapolis 6 p.m., Channel 2

*

GAMBLING AND GAME OFFICIALS

A majority of NCAA Division I football and basketball game officials who were surveyed said they gamble, with some betting on sports and using bookies, according to a University of Michigan study. Page 9