BECAUSE WE’RE NC STATE, AND WE BUILT THIS HISTORIC RIVALRY
By beowolf
Several sports commentators have reacted to NC State’s ambitious coach search and fans’ expectations with anything from incredulity to outright anger. The gist of their reactions is an old chestnut now to Wolfpack fans. It basically goes as follows: “There is NO WAY NC State can compete against Roy Williams and Coach K, so they shouldn’t even try.”
I’m sure it makes sense to people outside of the Triangle, if not the Atlantic Coast Conference region. But to the rest of us, it smacks of sports commentators accustomed to hearing only themselves talk in their echo chambers of ignorance.
I hold in my hands Sports Illustrated November 26, 1973 College Basketball Preview issue with David Thompson on the cover. NC State opened that season ranked #2 in the country, second only to 7-time NCAA champion UCLA. The cover article discusses Thompson and the ACC, particularly the Big Four.
It seems Thompson chose NC State because, he said, unlike at Carolina, “I figured at State I would have a good chance at the NCAA.” That’s championship, he meant.
But the article goes on to discuss Everett Case. Here is how it begins:
The Atlantic Coast Conference has become college basketball’s foremost carnival due largely to the efforts of, appropriately, another N.C. State ringmaster. His name was Everett Case …
All of you finger-wagging talking heads who’ve ever said NC State “can’t expect to compete with Carolina and Duke” — ask yourself: Why does the SI author say “appropriately” in that introduction? Why is it appropriate, that while noting the rise of the ACC on the verge of NC State’s first national championship, that the architect of this rise be an NC State head coach?
Ponder that for a while, and try to reconcile it with your assumptions about NC State. Now, back to the article:
His name was Everett Case, and he arrived in Raleigh as head coach in 1946. Back home in Indiana, Case had never played the game but had been an admired high school coach at the age of 18. Even then he recruited tough; it was said as Case moved from town to town he transferred the good studs with him.
Case was suave and sophisticated. He bought his clothes in Chicago, had them tailored in New York and vacationed in Las Vegas. He owned a lucrative restaurant chain and scored heavily in the stock market. But he quickly became a folk hero among the dirt farmers of eastern North Carolina because he recruited exciting players, coached a fast-break style and competed and won against the best teams in America.
Case had a strategist’s mind and a promoter’s heart. He originated tournaments — the Dixie Classic with the “Big Four” colleges in the state playing against four outsiders. He forced the construction of enormous Reynolds Coliseum to be completed. He treated the rival teams in nearby Chapel Hill and Durham like junkyard hounds.
In his first 10-year period at State, Case won six Southern Conference tournaments, three ACC tournaments and six Dixie Classics. During that time his teams never won fewer than 24 games a season and several times the Wolfpack was ranked No. 1 in the country. …
What Case had established was enthusiasm and a fanatical interest in college basketball. He forced the Big Four campuses to match him. After State had defeated Carolina 15 straight times, the Chapel Hill school brought Frank McGuire down from St. John’s in 1952. …
Pretty soon you encounter names like Bones McKinney, Vic Bubas, Dean Smith, Lefty Driesell, and Norm Sloan. But it all began with Case — who “treated the rival teams in nearby Chapel Hill and Durham like junkyard hounds.” You know, the same rival teams that the myopic sports commentators say N.C. State can’t expect to compete against today.
The fact of the matter is, Case brought NC State basketball to the big time. He thoroughly thrashed the Tarheels and the Blue Devils (“like junkyard hounds,” remember), so they ponied up and brought big-time basketball to their programs. This started the Tobacco Road rivalry. It also set into motion a CYCLE: each new coach either made his mark or flamed out, but the rivals continued to pursue excellence because they’d get their teeth kicked in by the others if they didn’t.
For example, when the article got to Sloan, it said this:
Sloan, another player under Case at N.C. State, hurried back to his alma mater. In 1968 he beat Duke 12-10 and then nudged his way past Smith and Driesell by landing Burleson and Thompson. The battles were joined all over again. …
The battles were joined all over again. It’s not in these three schools’ history of rivalry, started by Case, to decline, to back away, to give up in the face of the other two’s excellence.
So it would be betrayal of itself and the Tobacco Road rivalry for NC State – the school that started this tradition! – to go along with the Jim Romes and the Jay Bilases and the Bob Hollidays and all the rest who say we can’t compete against our rivals because they’re just too good. That’s not what UNC and Duke said when we had Case, that’s not what we said when UNC and Duke had Dean and Bubas, that’s not what Duke said when we had Sloan and UNC had Dean (K and V came in the same year), that’s not what we said we Sloan left. And it’s not what we’re saying now, with Sendek gone.
It’s not unrealistic or delusional. It’s fully in keeping with our tradition and history – and with what made Tobacco Road so great. Anyone who says otherwise is revealing his own ignorance.
Related links:
Packer had right idea, wrong point
DT vs DrJ: The Day the dunk was born (and other “tradition” comments)
