Title: The Title They Won for Him: UNC’s 2005 Championship as a Silent Tribute to Dean Smith
In April 2005, as confetti rained down in St. Louis and Sean May collapsed to the floor in tears, the world celebrated North Carolina’s fifth national championship. Roy Williams finally had his long-awaited title, UNC had reclaimed its place atop college basketball, and the Tar Heel blue shined brighter than ever.
But what most fans never saw—what players never said out loud—was who they really won it for.
Dean Smith.
By then, Smith had been retired for nearly eight years. Alzheimer’s symptoms had begun to cloud his memory. He no longer walked the sidelines, diagramming plays with his famous four-corners precision or pacing in that quiet fury. But in locker rooms, on the practice court, and in the hearts of players and coaches alike, his presence was as loud as any whistle.
From day one of the 2004–2005 season, Roy Williams made it clear: this was more than a title chase. This was a tribute.
> “We don’t just play for banners,” Williams told the team in a closed-door meeting before their first game. “We play for the man who taught us what this game means.”
Privately, Williams kept a handwritten note in his jacket pocket every game—something Dean Smith had written to him in 1989 when Roy first took the Kansas job. The words were simple: “Lead with class, compete with honor, and never let the game be bigger than your players.” That note, now worn and creased, would become Roy’s invisible game plan all season.
The players felt it too. Sean May, Rashad McCants, Raymond Felton—they weren’t Dean’s recruits, but they knew the legend. He was still there at practice sometimes, watching silently from the bleachers, occasionally offering a nod, never a correction.
“It felt like we were carrying something more than ourselves,” Felton later said. “Like every pass had weight. Every timeout had purpose.”
That weight reached its peak during the title game against Illinois. With two minutes left and Carolina clinging to a narrow lead, Williams called a timeout. No one could know it then, but it was a near-identical situation to the one Smith faced in the 1982 title game. The play they ran out of the huddle? It had a name only the Tar Heels knew: “Ghost.”
It worked. May hit the dagger. UNC pulled away. The bench exploded. Roy finally cut down his net.
Yet amid the celebration, Roy paused.
Instead of racing to center court, he looked up—just briefly—toward the rafters, where Smith’s name hung. Not a word. Just a knowing glance. As if to say: We did it, Coach.
Dean Smith never asked for tribute. He never wanted one. But in every defensive rotation, in every selfless assist, in every huddle that focused more on unity than ego, his fingerprints were there.
That night, the trophy belonged to the team. But the title?
The title was for Dean.
A legend didn’t have to be present to be honored.
Because sometimes… ghosts don’t haunt. They guide.
