Dean Smith Center

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. The arena opened in 1986. It is home to the University of North Carolina Tar Heels basketball team.

Related Topics:
Arena - Chapel Hill, North Carolina - 1986 - University of North Carolina - Basketball - Team

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It is named after former UNC coach Dean Smith, who coached at UNC from 1961 to 1997. Smith originally did not want the arena named after him, but was persuaded by the UNC administration and the arena's backers that the drive to fund the building 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. The largest crowd to see a game in the Dean Dome was on February 5, 1998, when 22,050 saw the Tar Heels defeat Duke.

Related Topics:
Dean Smith - 1961 - 1997 - 1992 - 2000 - February 5 - 1998 - Duke

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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. The arena is much more spread-out than Carmichael, making the seats seem far from the floor. However, no seat is more than 150 feet from the floor.

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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. Students (with few exceptions) and less well-heeled fans usually have to be content with seats in the upper level unless they can snag a lower-level seat by means of scalping. 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. Expanded student seating and a younger alumni base has made the Smith Center somewhat louder, though not nearly as loud as other venues in the Atlantic Coast Conference, such as Cameron Indoor Stadium at Duke.

Related Topics:
Scalping - Atlantic Coast Conference - Cameron Indoor Stadium

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The Tar Heels are almost unbeatable at the Dean Dome, rarely losing more than three home games a season.

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The arena is also one of the leading concert venues in the Southeast.

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