Bobby V Bridges The Past

General NCS Basketball43

Tip of the hat to a poster on Pack Pride. Really interesting stuff in this article by Bob Valvano.

The following is just the beginning excerpt of the piece:

It is the late 1960’s and the college coach gets a call from his brother, who is a high school coach. The call concerns a player the high school coach has seen and thinks might make a good college player.

The college coach asks the kid’s name. He is told, “Julius Erving.” The college coach says, “Erving? What is he a Jewish kid?” Told the player is an African-American, the college coach tells his brother he has never heard of the kid who, of course, is destined, just three years down the road, to become a basketball legend, a future Hall of Famer, as the great “Dr. J.”

It is 1979 and that same college coach has just interviewed for a very prestigious college basketball coaching job.

The interview is just between the coach and the university’s athletic director.

This is an important job. The school had won a national championship just five years prior.

Now the interview was winding down. The athletic director shook hands with the coach and they said goodbye, before the coach flew back to his hometown.

The following day the athletic director called and congratulated the coach. He was being offered the job. The coach was excited and pleased, but surprised it happened so fast.

He asked for a day to talk it over with his wife.

The athletic director expressed some surprise, and said that was fine, but in two days the school was having a press conference to announce their new coach. It was either going to be this coach or another guy, but they weren’t going to wait.

Still no mention of salary.

The coach took the job that next day, only to find that the head coach at North Carolina State was to make the princely sum of $40,000, less than he was already making coaching at a tiny Catholic school in New York, Iona College.

I know those stories to be fact since, as you might have guessed, they both concerned my brothers — my oldest brother Nick, the high school coach, and Jim, the college coach.

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General NCS Basketball

43 Responses to Bobby V Bridges The Past

  1. noah 03/29/2007 at 3:09 PM #

    Funny how different stories get passed around. The story I’ve always heard from the NCSU folks was that UCLA pulled their offer for V after word about the deal got leaked from V’s end. That was the story the BOT were passing around the year after it happened, anyway.

    Sloan has a book too. It is titled “Confessions of a Coach.” I don’t know if its still in print.

    I read it. Seems like there was something involving harrassment of his daughter(??) as to why he left…

    You can get a copy from http://www.alibris.com for about $3.00

  2. joe 03/29/2007 at 3:22 PM #

    It sounds better for NCSU that UCLA pulled the offer – that makes it seem like UCLA turned Valvano down, rather than him being forced to stay at NCSU when he did not want to. It’s also possible both stories are true – UCLA pulled the offer after Valvano said he would not pay the buyout.

    Also supposedly at first NCSU told Valvano not to worry about the buyout so he talked to UCLA thinking it was a non-issue. Then when he got the offer all of a sudden the buyout was not going to be waived.

  3. kbstokes09 03/29/2007 at 4:36 PM #

    Unrelated: Coach Yow wins the Naismith Award for Women’s College Basketball. She joins Bobby Knight as the winner for Men’s side. I think that’s quite an accomplishment.

  4. choppack1 03/29/2007 at 4:36 PM #

    I remember the news reports of V getting off the plane in LA…I think Valvano’s tenure during the age of the internet would have been very interesting to say the least.

  5. Texpack 03/29/2007 at 4:37 PM #

    The BOT holding V to the buyout clause when the UCLA job was in play really stuck in V’s craw when they wanted to can him and try to avoid paying him the buyout.

  6. WolftownVA81 03/29/2007 at 4:49 PM #

    I remember seeing C. Austin in his convertable cadillac tooling around campus but never gave it any thought. Funny the little things that come back to mind but the some of the big things are blank. I can’t recall anything about Sloan’s departure.

  7. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 03/29/2007 at 5:10 PM #

    When Sloan left I was pretty young and I remember people saying he didn’t want to be around Carolina because he felt no matter what he accomplished he wouldn’t have the reputation of Dean. That never sounded right to me as he had a championship and Dean didn’t at that point. I thought there must be a reason why he took off and that it would be widely known. Maybe it was a big contract from Florida, like seventy-five thouusand dollars (in best Dr. Evil voice.)

  8. joe 03/29/2007 at 5:28 PM #

    Sloan was said to be the lowest paid coach in the ACC when he left. (and the only 1 with a national title) He wanted more money and was turned down so that was a big reason he left.

  9. foz 03/29/2007 at 6:48 PM #

    According to V’s book, UCLA pulled the offer b/c they thought he lied to them about the buyout. He told them he had no buyout b/c the chancellor (Paulton?) assurred him that NCSU wold not hold him to it. While in route to Cali to finalize his decision, the BOT overrode the chancellor’s decision, and called UCLA to inform them that if they signed V, they would owe $$.

  10. joe 03/29/2007 at 7:25 PM #

    Speaking of buyouts, reports are that Michigan is interested in talking to Belein from WV, but his big buyout is an issue – sound familiar?

  11. McWufPacker06 03/29/2007 at 10:17 PM #

    Don’t know where to put it, but WV rolled past Clemson tonight to claim the NIT title. It always makes me feel just a little bit better when the teams we lose to in tournaments go on to be the eventual winners. Good job to WV for pulling off the win, maybe you can be a repeat champ next year. I’ll be happy to move on to bigger and brighter games in the big dance!

  12. twinrivers17 03/29/2007 at 11:00 PM #

    Just have to wonder also how history might have been different had Sloan signed Dominique Wilkins in ’79. Bolted for Georgia on signing day. How much $ did Hugh Durham offer the guy?

  13. noah 03/30/2007 at 3:42 AM #

    I used to live in Washington, NC. Everyone in town knew that that Wilkins was headed to NCSU before Hugh Durham made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

    Of course, everyone who “knew” this also had different stories as to what the actual bounty was…

  14. RickJ 03/30/2007 at 8:14 AM #

    “Just have to wonder also how history might have been different had Sloan signed Dominique Wilkins in ‘79. Bolted for Georgia on signing day.”

    Sloan would have had another great run with Lowe, Whitt, Bailey & Wilkins in the same class. On the downside, it is highly unlikely Valvano would have ever coached at NC State.

  15. BillyTheKid 03/30/2007 at 8:40 AM #

    RichJ, do you really think Sloan would have stayed just because of Wilkins? It’s an incredible class, that goes without saying, but Sloan went to FL after their Freshman year? I’m just not sure he would have stuck around.

  16. packwolf 03/30/2007 at 9:09 AM #

    Sloan had a very hard time in Raleigh because of the media bias to car. and even local car. fans who harrassed his kids in Sunday School.
    Coaching the flagship school in Fl. [one of the biggest states with beautiful weather and women] was a powerfull draw; not to mention major pay raise.
    Casey was penny wise and pound foolish.
    had we not pre-payed the stadium bonds, we could have up graded facilities decades earlier.

  17. tcthdi-tgsf-twhwtnc 03/30/2007 at 10:12 AM #

    “the BOT overrode the chancellor’s decision, and called UCLA to inform them that if they signed V, they would owe $$.”

    The same willows that fired him a year or two later.

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