Portal:Basketball/Selected article/September, 2007

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The Dean Smith Center, 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.

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.

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.

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