NC State’s Final Four double has Wolfpack fans howling with March Madness delight
Final Four appearance, the first since Valvano’s “Cardiac Pack” magic of ’83. Even more magical: The women are in the Final Four, too, their first trip since 1998, which came under their own beloved late Hall of Famer, Kay Yow.
It’s all led to an emotional reconnection with past glory on Tobacco Road, including this time a generation that has never seen anything like this before.
“Thrilled for both programs, both coaches, our students,” athletic director Boo Corrigan said. “But the fan base that’s been with us, that’s been a part of this and believing yearin and year-out … the excitement is really kind of the best part of it.”
It’s a thrill borne of built-up frustration. The feeling of having to do everything the hard way as a constant underdog. Even fighting against a Murphy’s Law-type jinx known around these parts as “N.C. State (Expletive).” Yet battered hope remains, for a women’s team that has been nationally relevant for numerous seasons and a men’s program that spent much of the post-Valvano era wandering
Rocket Mortgage
FieldHouse, Cleveland
Friday, 7 p.m. (ESPN)
in the wilderness.
Payoffs came Sunday with Final Four tickets. Now N.C. State owns a spotlight it often has to fight to share with nearby rivals Duke — the 11thseeded Wolfpack men’s Elite Eight victim — and North Carolina.
Rod Brind’Amour, coach of the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes, understands those dynamics. The Hurricanes share PNC Arena with the Wolfpack men and played their Stadium Series outdoor game last year in the school’s Carter-Finley Stadium football home. He also married the daughter of former N.C. State player and assistant coach Eddie Biedenbach.
“It’s been a long time,” Brind’Amour said. “Something good needed to happen there (for) all the loyal fans and stuff. It’s pretty special that both teams …
are in it. I think that’s pretty cool. It’s nice to have all the buzz around.”
That explains why fans keep flocking to the red-lit Memorial Belltower after wins to celebrate a ride beginning with the men’s five-games-in-five-days run to the ACC title, the origin of coach Kevin Keatts’ “Why not us?” message to his players.
By early Monday, fans were greeting one Final Four team in its campus homecoming, then the other about two hours later.
Both programs have leaned into it. Women’s coach Wes Moore attended the men’s ACC title win in the nation’s capital, then Keatts sat behind press row as Moore’s women beat Tennessee in an NCAA second-round home win.
Businessman Greg Hatem,
whose Empire Properties helped revitalize downtown Raleigh with restaurants and building projects, is savoring it all. Part of the Wolfpack Club’s board of directors, Hatem was a photographer for N.C. State’s student newspaper, The Technician, during the 1983 run that ended with Lorenzo Charles’ dunk to beat Houston and Valvano frantically looking for someone to hug in Albuquerque.
It was an enduring moment for a program that also won the 1974 NCAA title, which included beating UCLA in the Final Four to end John Wooden’s run of seven straight championships. Now 2024 has its place in Wolfpack lore.
“It’s nice to feel the energy again, it’s nice to see people out wearing the red,” Hatem said. “I have a habit: win or lose, the day of the game and the day after, I always wear an N.C. State shirt . ... You know, there’s a lot of fans around here, they don’t like to wear their color blue when they don’t win. Well, we do that all the time.”
Hatem had decided to ride out March with the men, who entered the ACC tourney on a fourgame skid and needing to win the whole thing to reach March Madness amid uncertainty about Keatts’ future. What looked like a brief trip has now included NCAA games in Pittsburgh and Dallas with 14-year-old son George, who has “been squeezing school in and out of this thing.”
“It’s nice to see kind of the crescendo of people coming back out that just weren’t energized,” Hatem said. “It’s not that they weren’t fans. But now they’re excited again, and I’m talking about the young ones who have never seen this, and folks my age who have seen and remember ’83 and ’74.
“It’s something I didn’t know when we would get to see it. I love the fact I get to see it with my family now, but I love the fact that I get to see it again, too.”
The same is true of 1983 team member Ernie Myers, who said teammates are talking constantly about this run on their group text. Charles, he of the famous dunk, died in 2011 and is buried not far from Valvano.