Witty Guthridge cherished his 'Tonto' role Posted May 13, 2015 Bill Guthridge turned down a lot of head coaching job offers to play Tonto to Dean Smith’s Lone Ranger on the UNC basketball bench. Well, that’s not entirely true because in the most technical sense, Guthridge accepted at least one of those offers. It was from Penn State in 1978. Joe Paterno spent several days wooing Guthridge to accept the job that had been vacated by Johnny Bach. (WRAL Sports Fan)