Presentation Is Half the Battle

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Whenever my wife shoots down one of my lame-brained ideas (“Hey honey, let’s buy a boat….”) she is fond of telling me that – “Presentation is half the battle.” And she’s right. Nowhere is this more true than in college football. The college game thrives on, and is known for, its pageantry and stagecraft. Legendary programs are known for their rituals as much as their accomplishments on the field. And once those rituals are established, they stay with the perception of the team, no matter what they do on the field.

Consider our cousins in Clemson; They haven’t done much on the field for the past 30 years. Yet you know, that when you go to Death Valley, the players are going to rub the rock, run down the hill and the cheerleaders are going to be spinning that fighting tigers flag that has to be 50 years old. And the television production crews eat it up. How many times have you watched a game at Clemson, see the network feature this opening and then hear the announcer call it – “The Most Exciting Six Seconds In College Football?”

For years, NC State has fallen woefully short in this department. How many different entrance songs have we had? How many times have we heard the wolf-howl turn into a yelp on an old crappy PA system?

Finally, the tide seems to be turning. I’ll be honest, I don’t know who has primary responsibility for building the game day experience at NC State. It may be Debbie Yow’s athletic department. It may be Wolfpack Sports Marketing, or some combination thereof. Whoever gets the credit, has put together a really nice presentation that feels big time.

Consider the following;

We’ve brought back an old school piece of unique tradition – the Wolfpack Helmet-Mobile.

We’re finally embracing the brand of STATE and using it extensively across many platforms of communication.

We now have an opening entrance bit that is uniquely tied to our mascot with the passage from Kipling’s – “The Jungle Book.” And that passage nicely segues into a catchy crowd-pumper of a song, “Welcome to the Jungle,” staying in theme.

Throughout the Carter-Finley concourse, there are all manner of nice looking graphics featuring our players and our logo. The pictures of this year’s team captains by the Murphy Center gate is a particularly nice touch.

Whatever your thoughts on the “Howl Towel” may be, it’s a coordinated effort to have a crowd activity for third down. And it will look GREAT on television.

For the UNC-CH home game, they’ve already printed on the season tickets which sections wear red and which ones wear white for the checkboard effect.

Don’t get me wrong, what happens on the field is our primary concern and after last night’s game, we’ve all got plenty of them. And if you tell me we’ll be playing in the Orange Bowl but have a crappy game day experience, I’d take that deal in a heart beat.

But the pageantry is an important part of the game, and it is so refreshing to see our beloved NC State finally put on a professional production that puts our best foot forward.

This isn’t going to stop some quarters of Wolfpack Nation from complaining. As a breed, Wolfpackers are not typically “joiners” and tend to judge items such as howl towels as “lame.” You can’t please all 58,000 of us sitting in Carter-Finley. But you have to give NC State credit for finally getting its act together on game day.

Now if we can just field an exciting team to go with our exciting game day, we’ll be good to go!

 

 

 

About SMD

SMD graduated from NC State at a time when beating UNC-CH in both major revenue sports was a regular occurrence. This was well before a time when I could express my frustrated attempts at being a writer on the "internets." When I'm not talking about the Pack, I'm probably arguing politics.

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39 Responses to Presentation Is Half the Battle

  1. Ashman87 09/04/2011 at 2:10 PM #

    I completely agree. I hope this will go into the RBC Center as well.

  2. logarithm 09/04/2011 at 2:19 PM #

    I agree. I hope the Howl Towel sticks. I think we should also have an audio cue to announce it’s the opposition’s third down and it’s time for everybody, not just the student sections, to get loud. At Appalachian, they have a deep, Hell’s Bells type sound effect to do that. Why a bell? No idea. It’s got nothing to do with Mountaineers, mountaineering or football but everybody goes nuts.

  3. Khan 09/04/2011 at 2:42 PM #

    I wish we could have a clever little nick name for our stadium like The Den or The Lair….at least something that might sound a little intimidating if we ever get good.

  4. Lunatic Fringe 09/04/2011 at 2:58 PM #

    logarithm,

    Exactly. A few audio cues or something on the board to let crowd know to get the towels out will help to “train” us. I would even say have someone (say Bill Cowher, Mario, Phillip) do a spot that could be shown on the big screen.

    It serves two purposes for young fans/recruits – one: reminder to use towel two: reminder that some of these guys were former wolfpackers.

  5. TheAliasTroll 09/04/2011 at 3:24 PM #

    I’d love to hear some Lunatic Fringe by Red Rider blasted over the loudspeakers. Maybe between 3rd and 4th quarters.

    That would be so awesome.

  6. tuckerdorm1983 09/04/2011 at 4:02 PM #

    I was once heard someone say, “You served a 5 course meal on paper plates with plastic utensils”.

    How about “Den of Destruction”.

  7. 1.21 Jigawatts 09/04/2011 at 6:08 PM #

    My complaint on the intro was the piss poor timing of the song with the players entrance. The song was over for 2 seconds before the fireworks went off. Two long, dead air, seconds that felt like an eternity.

  8. wolfpack15 09/04/2011 at 6:15 PM #

    I like the presentation as well. The way things are today not only do you have to win on the field but u have to have a big time environment to attract recruits. I liked it. As far as the stadium, the entrance where the players come on the field is made to look like a wolves den. So why not “Welcome to the wolves den”.

  9. NCSU88 09/04/2011 at 6:45 PM #

    We need a good anticipatory song with 30-45 seconds of a catchy riff that then breaks into something really pulsing. The most recent one that I have heard is the AC/DC Thunderstruck teaser user last year on TV.

    Like the car, that’s cool.

  10. NCStatePride 09/04/2011 at 7:14 PM #

    Outstanding post, SMD! I noticed that last night seemed to be much better than years past, as well. The car was a little corny (IMHO), but I know it’s got vintage to it so I’m definitely approving of it. I’d love to drive it!

    The only complaint I had was when they told the audience to swing their Howl Towels 5 minutes before the Pack ran out on the field. I don’t know about everyone else, but the first 30 seconds, you’re thinking, “I’M SO READY! LETS GO, WOLFPACK!!!” The next 4 minutes and 30 seconds you are thinking, “Huh, this sure is taking a while. Should I keep swinging this towel?” Overall, first attempt at a new idea and I’m not going to hold it against them.

  11. DC_wolf 09/04/2011 at 8:49 PM #

    Khan, great idea, “The Wolves Den” it is!

    I’ll try to do my part & spread the word. 😉

  12. ncsustash 09/05/2011 at 8:52 AM #

    Good article. I think the UNC thing will fail because it will be November. The I have 10 red jackets of various thickness, but no white jacket.

  13. Ashman87 09/05/2011 at 9:07 AM #

    Remember that the UNC game is Nov. 5, not Nov 19 or 26, and it would make a difference when the game was played, i.e. 12:00 or 3:30.

  14. 4in12 09/05/2011 at 9:12 AM #

    Troll, thanks for the link. I didn’t recognize the title but I did recognize the song. That’s a fusion type piece that combines elements of metal, rock and country (love the steel slide). It would have wide acceptance.

  15. cWOhLFrPAiCKs 09/05/2011 at 9:48 AM #

    I really love the fact that this has become more important to the Athletics department as a whole. IIRC, wasn’t it CTC that started the fireworks entrance? I always enjoyed that, but its great that they are starting to expand the pre-game pageantry and trying to include the crowd. Also, loved the return of the helmet-car, but they should have installed a t-shirt cannon on the top that could reach the upper levels, that or send some cheerleaders up to those levels with some shirts to toss out. It sucks being up there knowing you will never have a shot at a T-shirt.

    I also wish they would hand out stuff at the beginning of every game as an incentive to get people into the stadium before the team comes out, even if they just did it for the student sections, or lower level student sections, just to make sure we have those areas full when the team does their entrance.

    But I think this will all come in good time. Especially if we can continue to put a solid product on the field. The better we do, the more money we make, the more money we make, the more money they can spend on the Game-Day Experience.

  16. WolftownVA81 09/05/2011 at 12:11 PM #

    Sounds like all good changes to me. GA Tech will be our only home game this year and I’m excited to see what’s new.

  17. WV Wolf 09/05/2011 at 12:37 PM #

    I did like the players reading from the Jungle Book, that is something unique that fits with our mascot. And leading into Welcome To The Jungle also tied in nicely. Nice to see the helmet cart again.

    My biggest complaint is the new jumbotron. The full width of the screen was rarely used. The majority of the time both sides were covered with ads making the actual game footage not much bigger than what we had before. If that’s going to be the case, what was the point of spending all that money?

  18. LRM 09/05/2011 at 2:13 PM #

    WV, adding to that, it was obvious that only a couple HD cameras were in use the other night. Seems a shame to under-utilize such an expensive resource. Most of the video looked like my folks’ 50″ plasma when they refuse to watch HD channels.

  19. WV Wolf 09/05/2011 at 2:38 PM #

    LRM, I noticed the picture quality too. You’re right, a lot of the time it did look like standard def stretched out which never looks good.

    The fact that it was an ESPN3 online game probably limited the number of HD camera feeds available. We’ll have to see how it looks during a game that is being broadcast in HD on an actual TV channel.

  20. Prowling Woofie 09/05/2011 at 3:41 PM #

    I loved the intro sequence Saturday – definitely an improvement ! The howl towels may be a little hokey, but anything that gets the crowd participating in unison is good mojo.

    More replay would’ve been nice, but that may have been a function of only being broadcast on ESPN3.

    Overall, a fun start to the new season.

  21. Greywolf 09/05/2011 at 4:57 PM #

    Wasn’t the “Red-White” that petered out to nothing, really inspiring?
    Oh, I know it’s PC and has “crowd participation” but it the energy that gets generated sucks. The few players that I’ve talked to say that there is zero energy created with that “cheer?”. Think about it. Instead of a cheer that is 50,000 voices strong, we have a 25,000 drawing out Reeeeddd on one side and 25,000 dragging out “Whiiiiite” on the other. Woooolf – Paaaack is just as dead. Ooooh – Shiiit would be as inspiring.

    We’re branding ourselves, “STATE”. Bring back the raucus,
    RIP ’em up!
    Tear ’em up!
    Give ’em
    Hell
    STATE

    What about it COWDOG? I know you remember.

    FYI The ad for basketball season tickets in the N&O a few days ago had “WE ARE STATE” in large type across the face of it.

  22. Greywolf 09/05/2011 at 5:03 PM #

    One traditon we don’t need is back. The students trying to enter the North End Zone were kept outside until game time and some missed the kickoff. That sucks. What is the point in that crap? Somebody with Debbie’s ear please help here.

  23. Plz2BStateFan 09/07/2011 at 10:40 AM #

    I hate the fact that Yow gave all those seats to students and our students and procedures for entry into the stadium prrevent the extra seats from filling before well into the 1st quarter if not the 2nd.

    We need to overhaul tickets and how they get into the stadium. Or do not give them extra seats to sit empty.

    They started leaving VERY early as well.

    BAD FORM!

  24. CannonballJunior 09/07/2011 at 2:54 PM #

    Howl Towels are way better than those silly little pom-poms on a stick at CHeats and some other places.

  25. fleetwoodphipps 09/07/2011 at 3:16 PM #

    What is the passage form The Jungle Book? I was not there to see it, does anyone have a video? I know that there are people at NCSU that know alot more about animals than me but when I think Jungle I don’t think wolf. I think of wolves being in in colder climates and when I think Jungle I think tropical. Maybe it’s just me.

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