Born Feb. 28, 1931, in Emporia, Kansas, the son of public school teachers, Dean Edwards Smith graduated from the University of Kansas with a communications degree in 1953. He played for the Jayhawks teams that won the NCAA title in 1952 and finished second the next year.

He served as an assistant coach at Kansas to Allen and Dick Harp before joining the Air Force. He was an assistant basketball coach at the Air Force Academy, and also the baseball and golf coach for a year, before leaving in 1958 to join Frank McGuire's staff at North Carolina. When McGuire left to coach in the NBA in the summer of 1961, the university tapped the 30-year-old Smith to take over.

Smith went 8-9 in his first season. In January 1965, in his fourth season, the Tar Heels returned to campus from a loss at Wake Forest to find an effigy of Smith hanging from a tree outside Woollen Gymnasium.

But Smith never had a losing season after his first. His breakthrough came in the 1966-67 season, when he led the Tar Heels to a 26-6 record. The season ended with the first of three straight ACC tournament titles and Final Four trips. His 1968 team lost in the final to Lew Alcindor and UCLA.

The Tar Heels lost in the title game twice more, in 1977 against Marquette and in 1981 against Bob Knight's Isiah Thomas-led Indiana, before Smith won his first NCAA championship in 1982. In one of the tournament's most enduring highlights, Jordan knocked down a 16-foot jumper in the final seconds to give the Tar Heels a 63-62 win against Patrick Ewing and Georgetown in New Orleans.

"A great writer in Charlotte once said that it was our system that kept us from winning the national championship," Smith said after the game. "It's the most ridiculous comment ever made, and I always wanted to say that. We don't have a system. We try to use our talent."

Smith won his final championship in 1993 with a balanced team that won 34 games. Once in the Final Four, the Tar Heels beat Williams' Jayhawks and Michigan's "Fab Five" to claim another title in the Big Easy.

Smith retired in October 1997 with a career record of 879-254, having surpassed Rupp's record of 876 victories during the NCAA tournament that March. When he left the game, he did so with more wins in the NCAA tournament than any other coach, though both records were surpassed in recent seasons.

Knight overtook Smith's win total in 2007 while at Texas Tech, and the combustible coach summoned an Associated Press writer afterward, upset that he had forgotten to publicly thank Smith after the game. Krzyzewski -- Smith's Tobacco Road rival at Duke -- later surpassed Knight and recently earned his 1,000th victory.

Smith seemed uncomfortable with the attention that came with breaking Rupp's record. When Knight was on the verge over taking it over, Smith noted with a sarcastic smile, "I'm going to cry about that."

"But still, it's something that, we do it for the team," Smith said. "When they're excited, that's why we're in this field. I'm sure it's that way with Bob Knight. It's never one of his goals and certainly was never one of mine."

More than 50 of Smith's players went on to play professionally in the NBA or the ABA, and more played overseas. Among them: Charlie Scott, Walter Davis, Sam Perkins, Brad Daugherty, J.R. Reid, Jerry Stackhouse, Rasheed Wallace, Vince Carter and Antawn Jamison. Along with Williams and Brown, the only coach to win both an NCAA and NBA title, former Tar Heels with successful coaching careers include George Karl and Eddie Fogler.

In addition to wife Linnea, Smith is survived by daughters Sandy, Sharon, Kristen and Kelly; son Scott; and several grandchildren.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.