visiting our website, c-span.org/history. american history tv is on c-span3 every weekend and all of the programs are archived on our website. lectures and college classrooms and see our schedule of upcoming programs at c-span.org/history. the c-span cities tour travels the country exploring the american story. --ce 2011 we have been more been to more than 200 communities across the nation. next we have a look at one of our cities tour visits. ♪

>> carolina basketball started in 1910. inwon its first championship 1957 with an undefeated citizen -- season. >> north carolina wins the championship. >> it has won seven national championships, six ncaa tournament championships, coaches of the year, olympians, .nd a lot of great nba players 52 have been drafted out of the first round into the nba. we are standing in the carolina basketball museum which is in the building immediately adjacent to the center where they play their home games. , our legendary hall of fame basketball coach donated

his entire collection of basketball memorabilia which was quite extensive to the university and this basketball museum is the one place that houses all of that history. we decided to start off with how the uniforms have evolved. people get a kick out of the number 10 jersey, lenny roosevelt who was the player when we won the championship, people are stunned to see that there is red and the carolina jersey. frank maguire was the coach at the time and frank maguire was a real fashion plate out of new york city. he wanted to jazz up the uniforms, so he put red trim in and people were surprised. through the years, there is not much red in the carolina basketball uniforms. that is the color of one of our big rivals, nc state, so now our uniforms are blue-and-white and that is it. the blue and white came out of a

couple literary societies at unc in the 1800's and one's colors were white and one's were blue, so that is how it came about. north carolina basketball took off in the 1940's and 1950's and has become the top program in all of college sports, not just basketball. carolina basketball is a marquee program both in the atlantic coast conference and across the country. basketball has changed across the years and certainly the biggest change is with integration. back in 1910 it was all white teams. the first black basketball player in north carolina were charlie scott in 1966. he became a great player in the nba and is also a hall of famer. we've had tremendous former black players. james worthy, michael jordan, a lot of the great successors in north carolina have come from black players. it was certainly all in the form in 1910. when the acc was formed in 1953, that set in motion what is now

known as acc basketball. about four years into the acc carolina went 32-0, undefeated national champions, beat wilt chamberlain and kansas in triple overtime. that game changed college sports, it changed sports here at the university of north carolina, and it certainly change basketball in the acc. when north carolina won that national championship game, there were 10,000 people at the airport when they came back. it was the first televised game in the state of north carolina, the national championship game. so for a lot of reasons, it took off in the 1950's with that national championship team, some of the great tar heels from that team. from that, coach smith, dean smith began his program five years after that and became the winningest coach in college basketball history and is a legend in chapel hill. dean smith was our head

basketball coach from 1961 to 1997. when he retired, he was the winningest coach in basketball history. he helped the united states win back the gold medal in the olympics in 1976. he won two national championships and bill take great championship. he built the carolina way of play hard, play smart, play together. all of the coaches that have come after coach smith, they all live by that idea. that is what coach smith lived by. this sort of grecian urn is the sports illustrated sportsman of the year. it's one of the top awards in all of sports each year. the s.i. sportsman of the year. coach smith one that in 1997.

there is a great story about how we got the artifact for the museum. he listed on the inventory of items he donated, we could not find it so we looked everywhere, in every closet, everywhere at the smith center, even at his house, and nobody could find it. somebody who visited his house five years earlier said, i think i know where that is. they went to the house, looked on top in the dining room of a cabinet and tucked in between two plants on top of this cabinet in his house was one of the most prestigious awards that is given in sports each year. the other when that is very prominent is the presidential medal of freedom that president obama bestowed upon coach smith several years ago. that's a photo of his family members, as well as coach guthridge on the left and coach williams with president and michelle obama.

the people of the university of north carolina took tremendous pride in coach smith receiving at award. of all basketball awards it great, but the presidential medal of freedom is the most prestigious artifact in this museum. there are three players who have their own cases here at the carolina basketball museum. phil ford, tyler hansbrough, and of course, michael jordan, who many people believe, and we think here, is the greatest basketball player of all time. michael was good enough to loan us several items from his collection. we also found some great artifacts in our own files of letters that coach smith sent to michael, things he wanted him to work on, a recruiting card that coach smith kept on every player he recruited. first, on the card, it is mike not michael, and his middle name is "magic."

people did not know until they saw that card that in high school his nickname was "magic" jordan. on the other side of the case we were very fortunate that michael was disco to his real chicago and pick out several items to put here in new cm. weather was nba all-star game's. m.v.p.'s, national player awards he one here and north carolina. one of the items was a recruiting letter that was the most charge of our item because of the great respect that michael has for a coach and the duke program. it is certainly one of those pieces that people come in, they look, and they go, why is there a letter from duke university in the north carolina basketball museum? they see it is a letter about his recruitment. michael is a great ambassador of the university of north carolina and one of the greatest players of all time, not just as a tar hill, but in all of basketball and in all of nba history.

basketball is important not just at unc, but in this state, this region, certainly in our community, and definitely on campus at unc. the acc has grown. it was called tobacco road because so many of the programs were based in north carolina. basketball is part of the culture. part of when you come to school at north carolina. a lot of people that come here want to be part of north carolina basketball, men's and women's basketball. athletics is important. it is not the primary reason people come to the school. getting a great education will always be the primary mission at unc. but basketball is part of that. it is part of life in the acc, and people take it seriously at north carolina. [cheering]

>> you can watch this and other programs around the country at c-span.org/citiestour. in 1957, the soviet union launched the first artificial satellite, sputnik, into orbit. up next on reel america, education 57. a u.s. commissioner of education report on the status of schools at the time. it suggests that teachers are underpaid, parents are apathetic, too many students drop out before they graduate. johnny is my given name. america is my nation. the schoolhouse is my learning place. ♪