The Carolina Way: Leadership Lessons from a Life in Coaching

“Coach taught me the game. . . . He's like a second father to me.” —Michael Jordan

“Dean Smith epitomizes what a coach can be-teacher, counselor, mentor, example, friend.” —Bill Bradley

“He's a better coach of basketball than anyone else.” —John Wooden

For forty years, Dean Smith coached the University of North Carolina basketball team with unsurpassed success. Now, in The Carolina Way, he explains his coaching philosophy and shows readers how to apply it to the leadership and team-building challenges they face in their own lives. In his wry, sensible, wise way, Coach Smith takes us through every aspect of his program, illustrating his insights with vivid stories. Accompanying each of Coach Smith’s major points is a “Player Perspective” from a former North Carolina basketball star and an in-depth “Business Perspective” from Gerald D. Bell, a world-renowned leadership consultant and a professor at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. The keystones of Coach Smith’s coaching philosophy are widely applicable and centrally relevant to building successful teams of any kind.

Gerald D. Bell has master’s degrees from the University of Colorado and Yale and a doctorate from Yale. He has taught at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School for more than thirty years and has headed his Bell Leadership Institute since 1972. His leadership-training sessions have been attended by approximately 500,000 managers in more than 4,700 organizations from more than 85 countries

John Kilgo is an award-winning newspaper columnist, living in Davidson, North Carolina.

Roy Williams is the current head basketball coach at the University of North Carolina.