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The 'Dean E. Smith Student Activities Center,' usually called simply the 'Dean Smith Center' and popularly referred to as the 'Dean Dome' is a multi-purpose arena in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It is home to the University of North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball team. The arena opened in 1986.
It is named after former UNC coach Dean Smith, who coached at UNC from 1961 to 1997. According to David Halberstam's biography of Michael Jordan, Smith did not want the arena named after him, but was persuaded by the UNC administration and the arena's backers that fundraising efforts for the facility could fail if they did not use his name.^[1]

Contents

Capacity

Seating issues

Home court advantage

Non-basketball uses

External links

Notes

Capacity

The arena originally seated 21,444. Seating adjustments brought capacity to 21,572 in 1992 and 21,750 in 2000, making it the fifth largest arena in college basketball. The largest crowd to see a game in the Dean Dome was on March 6, 2005, when 22,125 saw the Tar Heels defeat Duke.^[2]
The arena was built to allow more fans to attend Tar Heel basketball games than could fit in then 21-year-old, 10,000-seat Carmichael Auditorium. The Tar Heels have been among the nation's attendance leaders ever since the arena opened. ^[3]

Seating issues

The arena's seating arrangement has been somewhat controversial. Most of the lower-level seats were allocated to members of UNC's athletic booster foundation, the Educational Foundation (better known as the Rams Club). Furthermore, most of those seats are season tickets. While tickets are usually available for most non-conference games, all Atlantic Coast Conference games are sold out, and scalping is virtually the only way to get in.
In its early years, the arena was known as among the quieter ones in the country because many seats that would have been occupied by students at other schools were occupied by alumni who weren't very inclined to cheer. This led Florida State player Sam Cassell to say that the Dean Dome “is not a Duke kind of crowd. It’s more like a cheese-and-wine crowd, kind of laid back."^[4] In contrast, Carmichael was one of the loudest arenas in the country.
Since 1992, however, expanded student seating and a younger alumni base has made the Smith Center louder. For example, after the then top-ranked Connecticut Huskies were defeated by Carolina at the Dean Dome in 2004, Huskies coach Jim Calhoun said, "I don't know what they are talking about because there was no 'wine and cheese' crowd here today."

Home court advantage

The Tar Heels have one of the most formidable home-court advantages in the country. As of the end of the 2005-06 season, UNC was 220-47 (.824) at the Smith Center — an average of 11.0 wins against 2.4 losses each season over 21 years. The Tar Heels rarely lose more than three home games in a season. They have gone undefeated at home three times since the arena opened (1986-87, 1992-93 and 2004-05).
Clemson is the only ACC school that has never won at the Smith Center. In fact, Clemson has never won in Chapel Hill in 52 tries, dating well before the formation of the ACC in 1953.

Non-basketball uses

The arena has also held many concerts and is used by many of the graduate and professional schools, such as the UNC School of Law, for commencement ceremonies each year, as well as the same for all undergraduates receiving degrees in December of each year. There is some controversy surrounding the continued support of the Dean Dome by the state government. Concerts and other events, as well as advertising arrangements such as a signage deal with Wachovia Bank also fund the stadium. ^[5]

External links

★ Official Website of North Carolina Athletics Department that talks about the Dean Smith Center

Notes

1. Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made, , David, Halberstam, Random House, 1999,
2. http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/recap?gid=200503060413
3. http://www.ncaa.org/stats/m_basketball/attendance/top25.pdf
4. http://www.lib.unc.edu/ncc/ref/unc/cq/cassell.html
5. http://www.indyweek.com/gyrobase/Content?oid=oid%3A20507