The N&O comes one step closer to “Understanding Wolfpack Fans”

Chuck Amato Fans Flashback General Media Required Reading Tom O'Brien36

It only took NC State’s hometown newspaper a couple of years for it to sink in, but it’s starting to sink in.

First, a SFN Flashback to March 2005, in an entry entitled Understanding Wolfpack Fans, Part 1:

Today’s myth I’d like to tackle is one that we see quite frequently in the winter. It’s the idea that NC State fans judge a coach just on his personality. It’s usually expressed in this fashion: NC State fans don’t like Herb Sendek because he doesn’t have the personality of Chuck Amato or Jim Valvano.

Let’s examine this statement. Yes, there are a great many (significantly greater than 50) NC State fans who don’t like Herb Sendek. Yes, there are a great many Wolfpack fans who like Jim Valvano and Chuck Amato. It’s true that Chuck Amato and Jim Valvano both have larger-than-life personalities. And it is true that Herb Sendek doesn’t have the personality of Chuck Amato or Jim Valvano.

But does it follow that the coach’s personality is what determines whether NC State fans like him? Does a coach need a larger-than-life personality for Wolfpack fans to like him?

Of course not. That’s rock stupid. … If the experts were willing to investigate the matter further (read: at all), they might ask if there is any coach with a subdued personality that Wolfpack fans liked. It wouldn’t take long to discover Dick Sheridan. The gentleman’s coach. Taciturn, meek, so nice he couldn’t even dump 70 points on Mack Brown when he had the chance and instead called a second half full of dive plays — the man is beloved among Wolfpack fans. Yet even though they coached a few years together, he was the antithesis to Valvano.

So much for the myth. So what else could it be? Why do NC State fans like Valvano and Amato but not Herb?

What was the answer? Those of you who are playing at home already know. Media peeps, take a guess at it before reading on. OK, here it is:

Here’s a novel idea: wins. Herb has coached here nine years, and in that time he hasn’t won a title nor made it past the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, to which he has gone only three times. Valvano coached one year more than Herb, and in that time he finished first in the ACC regular season twice, he won the ACC championship twice, he saw several Sweet Sixteens, a couple of Elite Eights, one Final Four and one National Championship.

Now, here’s where it gets good. Raleigh’s News & Observer ran what, to them, counts as Christmas spirit — an article about WHAT HAPPENED that caused Chuck Amato to lose his job as head football coach at NC State. Here’s a link to the full article, but the headline sums it up well (emphasis added):

Amato’s style wears thin without wins

Surprise, surprise huh? Not to Wolfpack fans. As SFN noted nearly two years ago:

Amato, while not yet winning a title, has given NC State’s lowly football tradition its winningest season and has gone to bowls four out of five seasons. His last season, however, was a losing season — but he was able to recruit well regardless, so Wolfpack fans have continued high expectations for his teams. If Amato has another year or two like 2004, however, don’t think his personality will keep Wolfpack fans from grumbling. … [T]he simple fact is, NC State fans do care about winning. Once you realize that, you’ll see why the Personality of the Coach Myth is a myth.

Funny thing is, that was written back when Amato’s style was “in” because of the wins. But the general principle holds: a coach’s personality is a personal negative when he loses, and a positive when he wins. But it’s related to wins and losses. No one, not even Wolfpack fans, wants a flamboyant loser or a “gentleman” loser. Not because of mass disaffection with the idea of a genteel or flamboyant coach, but because of mass disaffection with losing.

It takes signature ignorance of a fan base to assume, as the old media seem frequently to do, that it’s the personality of the coach that matters most. When it comes to a “foreign” (ya mean they don’t like Carolina? whaaaaat?) fan base such as the Wolfpack’s, reporters apparently need an “insider” such as Reef Ivey to spell it out for them: “If you’re winning, people put up with personality traits they don’t particularly like. But if you do not win …” (To translate: It’s winning that matters! DUH!)

Addendum: Speaking of Sheridan, NC State’s new football coach, Tom O’Brien, has been compared to him. Provided TOB continues his winning ways at NC State, we’ll like him just fine. But not because he reminds us of Sheridan or because he’s “the anti-Amato.”

Here’s the Big Secret in Raleigh: Our judgment of Coach O’Brien, Coach Lowe, and future Wolfpack coaches will rest ultimately on their W’s and L’s. Just like other fan bases’ judgments of their coaches.

Chuck Amato Fans Flashback General Media Required Reading Tom O'Brien

36 Responses to The N&O comes one step closer to “Understanding Wolfpack Fans”

  1. gumbydammit 12/25/2006 at 10:03 PM #

    SFN, although you once again nail it on the head, I do find it surprising that you took the time to write an entry that essentially says that the N&O sports writers are clueless dullards. Paging Mr. Obvious, paging Mr. Obvious….

  2. Captain Obvious 12/25/2006 at 10:13 PM #

    ^ Did somebody page me?

    By the way, have you noticed how the local media seems to like the tarheels? Like, a lot?

  3. dthompson44 12/25/2006 at 10:14 PM #

    seems so simple, doesn’t it? Wonder why only a “lunatic fringe” could comprehend…

  4. Captain Obvious 12/25/2006 at 10:19 PM #

    And another thing: I think those Duke lacrosse boys didn’t do all that stuff to that doped-up stripper.

  5. sf59 12/25/2006 at 11:02 PM #

    LOL Capt. O

  6. Captain Obvious 12/25/2006 at 11:34 PM #

    You know, the more I think about it, the more I realize that Dick Vitale is just plain annoying — probably even more obnoxious that Chris “Girlie Scream” Berman.

  7. jwrenn29 12/25/2006 at 11:35 PM #

    Well duh! But thanks for putting it into words. Have you guys ever sent in this type of stuff to the N&O as a letter to the editor?

  8. Captain Obvious 12/25/2006 at 11:37 PM #

    I tried to get a job as a sportswriter, but they told me I was too sophisticated for their paper.

  9. class of 74 12/26/2006 at 6:37 AM #

    As long as we keep score, the wins and losses are the only thing that matters. You nailed it with the Valvano and Sheridan example.

  10. graywolf 12/26/2006 at 8:51 AM #

    I could not agree more, that Valvano and Sheridan were opposite personalities and both were winners. This is what we as fans and alumni of NC State are after……win and win with pride.
    Great piece and I hope the N&O reads every word, not that they will ever understand us, because most writers over there are hole fans.

    By the way isn’t it intresting that Valvano and Sheridan were really great friends. Sheridan wanted to speak to the board on Valvano’s behalf and was denied the chance which in part lead to Sheridans resignation.

    I look forward to seeing NC State win with O’Brien and Lowe at the helm.

    Go PACK!!!!!!

  11. choppack1 12/26/2006 at 9:30 AM #

    Geez, where do they find the folks to interview for these articles? It reminds of what Jeff Foxworthy said, “We have doctors and other college-educated people in the South, they just never interview them after a tragedy.”

    Let’s get this straight – whether it was Sendek or Amato, it was not about personality. However, you’d never know from Reef Ivey:

    “This year hastened the decision but it wasn’t just because of this season or all the losses at the end,” said Reef Ivey, a Raleigh attorney and longtime State supporter. “Amato was not one of us in a lot of ways. He was seen as too flamboyant, too arrogant.

    Ivey noted former basketball coach Les Robinson was given the “benefit of the doubt” when his teams were losing because Wolfpack fans genuinely liked him and wanted him to succeed.”

    Reef – some of us despised Robinson’s results for destroying a proud basketball program. Some of us wanted him fired after year 3, when we had ample proof that this “aw shucks” guy wasn’t the man for the job. I guess we can thank folks like you for him keeping his job way too long! Let me buy you a drink sometime Reef!!

    Here’s the stupid thing about Reef’s statement. 99% of State fans want ALL NC STATE COACHES TO SUCCEED. We wanted Amato to succeed, we wanted Herb to succeed, we wanted Les to succeed. We wanted V and Sheridan to succeed. WE WANT LOWE AND O’BRIEN TO SUCCEED. Most of us don’t give a tinker’s damn about whether they are as “flamboyant” as Amato or as dull as Sendek – we just want championships:

    To all current, past or future Reef Ivey’s or Jimmy King’s – please think twice before you speak to the media, because you do a bang up job of perpetuating the current myth about State fans – we’re impossible to please.

  12. VaWolf82 12/26/2006 at 9:38 AM #

    ….Reef Ivey, a Raleigh attorney and longtime State supporter. “Amato was not one of us in a lot of ways. He was seen as too flamboyant, too arrogant.

    “If you’re winning, people put up with personality traits they don’t particularly like. But if you do not win …”

    “This was long overdue,” said Frank Grainger

    Before the season ever started, SFN ran a piece on the State of the FP program and said that a number of influential boosters were unhappy with Amato. I guess Chip gave away who several of the unhappy boosters were.

  13. VaWolf82 12/26/2006 at 9:41 AM #

    Oh, forgot to mention that this must have been Chip’s last chance to get in a few digs on Amato.

  14. choppack1 12/26/2006 at 9:44 AM #

    Yep VA – Sadly, I think of Amato had won the ACC championship this year, some alleged State fans would have been disappointed.

  15. BobLee 12/26/2006 at 10:07 AM #

    Remember … in this age of “the Internet Fan” (an “age” that is here to stay … alas and alack and a few sighs and sobs) … most discussion of “fans” is dumbed down to base level.

    The overriding premise is “they’re ALL a buncha …” when commenting on a rival’s motley collection of human debris. All is takes is for one mouthbreather to step off the short bus and fling some fecal comment on “his team’s board” … one of “their” spies copies it immediately and its posted back in his camp under that oh so familiar headline “Look what those %$&^#@ over at PackPitPrideBlue are saying NOW. Are those $%&^ &% pathetic or what! … chortle chortle snort snort…”

    Both sides analyze “them” under the same electron superscope that a CSI criminalist would use to determine the DNA of dandruff. Except when analyzing “them” its already well-documented that “they are all a buncha ….” and EVERYBODY KNOWS THAT, of course.

    Facts be damned when assigning broad brush insulting tendencies to “them”. So to definitively state that “those Wolfpack fans” HAVE TO HAVE (1) a coach who’s name ends in a vowel … (2) gives clever quippy zingers … (3) cheats in recruiting …. is not only to be expected but repeated often enough to be historically accurate siince “history” is now defined as “appears in at least three different posts in two different threads”.

    Remember … we now live in “the Internet Age” of sports fandom. It is probably nice to think that somewhere an old fashioned “librarian” keeps pre-Internet records about coaches, players, game accounts, etc for those “old fogies” who insist in clinging to “reality” …. but for 95% of fans “I read it on the Internet” is all the verification they bother with.

    As much as you may disrespect Tudor, Carr, Barnett, Suiter, Meisel, and even Doyell … they now carry no more “weight” than a 13 y/o “Hole fan” hiding in his closet with a laptop, a clever username and a lot of venomous bile.

    BLS

  16. Sw0rdf1sh 12/26/2006 at 10:14 AM #

    W’s keep us happy. Personality like Jimmy V is hard to find if you can ever…..that was just an added bonus to the W’s.

    And yes the media is always all about the Tarheels. Down here in Wilmington there seems to be the same type of media spin. I guess it’s hard with the damn tradition that Dean built around the BBall program all those years ago.

    Every once in a while Andrew Jones down here will put out a good article about the Pack. It’s hard to tell if we even have any media Pack fans, but who gives a flip…….we are die hard enough for all of them.

  17. legacyman 12/26/2006 at 10:22 AM #

    The deano mystique has already taken a big hit with Knight’s gaining a share of the total wins record. This Thursday, hopefully, the new record should be set and Knight will reign supreme over the deposed deano.

    There is a good chance that Knight may hold the record for a long time as Kruschev will have a stroke or his head might burst before he makes the record and Williams will tire of the pressure to win every game.

    It is just a shame that Indiana won’t have the claim of the winningest coach but that was their choice.

  18. Sam92 12/26/2006 at 10:43 AM #

    i always figure the way we’re treated in the media, in north carolina newspapers anyway, has something to do with the fact that unc has a journalism school and we don’t

    i don’t really have any evidence that leads to that conclusion, it’s just a hunch

  19. BJD95 12/26/2006 at 10:52 AM #

    What a Christmas present for Wolfpack fans – no coaching controversies to track!

    My rule of 10/15 stands. Each of Amato and Sendek had “cults” of around 10-15 percent, and each had about the same percentage of people dead set against them regardless of objective results. The rest fluctuated based on the available evidence. I would be surprised if that is much different anywhere else.

  20. redfred2 12/26/2006 at 12:02 PM #

    If you want to consider a go it alone attitude and one that shunned all of the great accomplishments in NC State’s past, then I guess you can count me as one who would say a coach’s personalty (+/-) does matter.

  21. tractor57 12/26/2006 at 12:19 PM #

    I look over the coaches I remember at State in basketball and football – the personalities ranged from “surgically removed” to over the top. The personality mattered a bit but the winning record mattered more. As in both Lou Holtz and Bo Rein were successful – radically differing personalities. In basketball Valvano was a galvanizing personality but had he not won he would have been replaced long before he was. Sendeck had a reprive of about 5 years because not of lack of personality but of lack of winning. Les didn’t win either but he had a much more pleasant personality. So the bottom line of all of this is winning and that is where Amato and Sendeck both failed.
    So I must be part of the “lunatic fringe” as I use the internet and I want winning sports programs . I do want the university to be proud of the athletic teams (as in no really embarassing problems) but I do remember these are college kids and some of the things I was part of during my college years could be considered as embarassing.
    Luckily we have had few of those to deal with in the past few years.

  22. BobLee 12/26/2006 at 12:43 PM #

    RE: The UNC J-School issue …

    GREATEST ALL-TIME Internet Classic … it was either 4-5 years ago on IC-TTP in one of the eternal flame threads about “media bias” that percolate 24/7 on every fan board … Heel loonies were in full warpaint about some alleged affront to all things Light Blue. I wish I had noted the poster’s username … but this fine fellow declared unequivocably that “the damn N&O” was biased FOR NCSU and against UNC because all the N&O sportswriters came from the NC State J-School.!!???!!

    That is the level of “d*mn foolishness” that makes you say “he was joking, right?” Nope … I’ve found the more resolute and declarative a poster … the more the dumb SOB truly believes his own cyber-babble.

    I told the above story to a civic club a year ago and three club members came up to me afterwards and AGREED WITH THE POSTER about “the NC State J-school”. ……

    …. and people wonder why I prophesie (sp?) that we are indeed “in The Final Days”.

    BLS

  23. tractor57 12/26/2006 at 12:53 PM #

    NCSU J school! That’s a laugh!
    As I once heard “A mind is a terrible thing”

  24. vtpackfan 12/26/2006 at 2:16 PM #

    They’re a definitely a few interesting tid bits of knowledge that the N & O unearthed, but nothing too enlightening. Now that Tom O’Brien has taken the reigns and a moderate amount of time for Pack followers to adjust has occurred, things are hunky-dory and tie up like a Christmas bow for the most part.
    After reading the article, one couldn’t help but feel there were a few loose ends left out there to deal with. Not that getting to the root answer of who said what to whom and when will ever amount to a hill of beans in this situation. The change has been made, and making the best of any situation is what is on everyone’s mind this time of year.
    Personally I can’t help but take from the article a picture in my mind of a Gotti trial (pick one, there’s been seven big ones over the years) in a New York federal courthouse. You have the Chuck Amato in the witness protection service, spending the rest of his days a personal fitness trainer at Gold’s Gym named Frank Grimes. Then theres the revealing comments made by WolfPack Consiglier Reef Ivey, explaining how Amato, though an alumni and head coach, was never a “made man”. “Amato was not one of us in a lot of ways. He was seen as too flamboyant, too arrogant…If you’re winning, people put up with personality traits they don’t particularly like. But if you do not win …”

    Finally, the board of trustees and big money donors are distancing themselves from the official dealings involved in the coaching transition.

    “The trustees let the chancellor and I run things,” Fowler said Thursday.
    Fowler and Oblinger met with the trustees Nov. 17, the day before the game at Carolina. It was agreed a decision on Amato would not be made until after the final two games, against UNC and then East Carolina.

    I’m just happy to hear that NCSU Board of Trustees makes a point of having meetings with the AD and Chancellor right before the UNC game. Maybe they have a few ideas of wrinkles to put in the playbook.

  25. VaWolf82 12/26/2006 at 2:44 PM #

    As much as you may disrespect Tudor, Carr, Barnett, Suiter, Meisel, and even Doyell … they now carry no more “weight” than a 13 y/o “Hole fan” hiding in his closet with a laptop, a clever username and a lot of venomous bile.

    While I will agree that many, especially Doyle, are no better than a 13 y/o nerd typing on a message board, they are still believed by far too many people. It’s even worse that once someone in the media voices some idiocy, it is quickly picked up, repeated, and often amplified by other media outlets.

    This is what infuriates me about Lee Fowler and the constant stupidity that flows from his lips. The media will run with just about anything anyone says….and will certainly run with anything “negative”. So good ole Lee keeps giving them plenty of negative stuff to run….and they do.

1 2

Leave a Reply