Tip of the hat to the Pack Pride message boards for highlighting this fantastic YouTube Video titled, “Where Amazing Happens – NC State”.
Without explicitly stating it, this video provides a damning commentary of the current nature of the NC State athletics program as the bulk of the actual achievements in the video all took place in the past with none taking place within the last four years. How about we rename it, “Where Amazing Happened”?
To be fair, I guess “amazing” is a pretty subjective term and perhaps I have a bloateed standard for things that I consider in the same ballpark as “amazing”? For example, take a look at some of the comments by the leader of NC State’s Athletics Department who considers “improvement” to .500 in two non-revenue programs as “quite an accomplishment.”
Our men’s and women’s tennis program continue to improve. The women won at Wake Forest this past weekend and the men are .500 in the league, which is quite an accomplishment in a conference as tough as the ACC.
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Maybe if I considered .500 performance as “quite an accomplishment” then I would consider some of NC State’s recent performance as “amazing”. Then again, if I was the type of person to consider .500 performance “quite an accomplishment” I probably would be working at NC State and not spending my Sunday at work trying to get ahead in my real world job.
A few other bytes:
* This video is fantastic. It is as good or better than anything that the university does (or doesn’t do). Hell, let this guy produce the pregame video for the basketball team next year instead of lazily running two piddly highlights of broadcast feeds from the ’74 and ’83 National Championships that took all of five minutes to pull together.
* Unfortunately for everyone who sees this video, if the University had their way you would never see it. You see, one of the strong messages on this year’s Wolfpack Club Caravan seems to be the evil nature of the internet. Evidently, everyone from Bobby Purcell to Lee Fowler (when he chooses to attend the events) have been telling fans to stay off the internet, particularly to discuss ‘negative’ things.
I LOVE the use of the term “negative” as they, also known as the thought police, have the unbridled authority to classify whatever they want as “negative”. I am sure that you are allowed to talk about wins and accomplishments because they are ‘positive’ in the thought police’s view. But, you are not allowed to talk about a losses because they are ‘negative’.
Of course, the readers of SFN are intelligent enough to realize that the factual realities of wins and losses are inherently neither positive or negative. It is the subjective lens with which you choose to view these factual realities that create your bias of ‘positive’ or ‘negative’.
* The subjective application of these definitions are mind-boggling. The idea of THEM imrproving what they do and the results they deliver to the NC State community would NEVER enter their mind as an option of how to improve things. How about providing us some friggin titles and wins for us to discuss and I bet suddenly the internet wouldn’t be so bad?
* Of course this antiquated approach to the world and this elderly perspective of modern technology is nothing new to the NC State fan base. There is nothing like our University’s role as a “leader in technology”! (LOL!!!!)
I am sure that you remember that just over a year ago our esteemed Athletics Director told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that “fan message boards on the Internet” were “the greatest challenge facing NC State athleticsâ€. In the same interview Fowler asserted that NC State fans “drove [Sendek] away for the security of his family.â€. (Link to our blog of the comments at the time).
