Kenny Smith shares Michael Jordan, Duke-UNC rivalry story with HBCU twist

In a recent interview on The Pivot podcast, Kenny Smith shared a story about the UNC-Duke rivalry that included an HBCU twist. In the interview, Smith spoke about how both UNC and Duke used to get their haircuts at North Carolina Central, which was the battleground of the legendary basketball rivalry.

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“We used to go get haircuts at Central, North Carolina Central. And in the student union, which is an HBCU. Duke used to come in. And so the Duke players were there. It was myself, Michael, and Sam Perkins, and we’re getting a haircut. And the Duke guys, we- they got the door locked, so nobody comes in. Duke guys are coming in to get their hair cut. Michael’s like, ‘If you let them in, we’ll never come back.’ He’s like, ‘Sorry, man, I, I c-…’ He’s like, ‘Mike, if you let them in, we’ll never come back.’ So they didn’t let the Duke guys in.”

He added, “So we’re sitting there getting our, I’m get- I, I’m a freshman. I’ll get my hair cut, and I was looking at, like, Johnny Dawkins and them-looking through the mirror. Like, Trev looked, they had a little win- They’re like, ‘Nah, get out the window.’ He’s like, ‘Come back later. Come back later.’ We, that’s the type of juice we had. We had the juice.”

The occurrence likely happened in the 1983-1984 season, when a freshman Kenny Smith joined UNC alongside upperclassmen Michael Jordan and Sam Perkins. The revelation that North Carolina Central was the site of a legendary college story is certainly an interesting, unearthed part of HBCU history.

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