RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) โ The grave sits perched on a hill in the historic 72-acre Oakwood Cemetery near downtown. It bears โValvanoโ carved in large letters on polished black stone, honoring North Carolina Stateโs charismatic coach who sold big dreams then lived them in an unforgettable run to the 1983 national championship.
Jimmy V has been gone more than three decades. Yet visitors are leaving fresh tributes: flowers, a bobblehead of the late men’s basketball coach, a large โGo Packโ foam No. 1 finger, a small red-and-white basketball bearing the โTuffyโ sailor hat-wearing mascot, a can of Wolfpack-branded beer sitting aside a themed bag of โPack Snackโ kettle chips.
Among those: a sticker bearing the โWhy not us?โ mantra defining the maddest of March moments here in decades.
The Wolfpack men have followed their first Atlantic Coast Conference championship since 1987 with an even more improbable Final Four appearance, the first since Valvano’s โCardiac Packโ magic of โ83. 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.
Itโs 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.
โThrilled for both programs, both coaches, our students,โ athletic director Boo Corrigan said. โBut the fan base thatโs been with us, thatโs been a part of this and believing year in and year out โฆ the excitement is really kind of the best part of it.โณ
Itโs 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 Murphyโs Law-type jinx known around these parts as โN.C. State (Expletive).โ Yet battered hope remains, for a womenโs team that has been nationally relevant for numerous seasons and a menโs program that spent much of the post-Valvano era wandering 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 โ the 11th-seeded Wolfpack menโs Elite Eight victim โ and North Carolina.
Rod BrindโAmour, coach of the NHLโs 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 schoolโs Carter-Finley Stadium football home. He also married the daughter of former N.C. State player and assistant coach Eddie Biedenbach.
โItโs been a long time,โ BrindโAmour said. โSomething good needed to happen there (for) all the loyal fans and stuff. Itโs pretty special that both teams โฆ are in it. I think thatโs pretty cool. Itโs nice to have all the buzz around.โ
That explains why fans keep flocking to the red-lit Memorial Belltower after wins to celebrate a ride beginning with the menโs five-games-in-five-days run to the ACC title, the origin of coach Kevin Keattsโ โWhy not us?โ 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. Womenโs coach Wes Moore attended the menโs ACC title win in the nationโs capital, then Keatts sat behind press row as Mooreโs 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 Clubโs board of directors, Hatem was a photographer for N.C. Stateโs student newspaper The Technician during the 1983 run that ended with Lorenzo Charlesโ 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 Woodenโs run of seven straight championships. Now 2024 has its place in Wolfpack lore.
โItโs nice to feel the energy again, it’s nice to see people out wearing the red,โ Hatem said. โI 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, thereโs a lot of fans around here, they donโt like to wear their color blue when they donโt win. Well, we do that all the time.โ
Hatem had decided to ride out March with the men, who entered the ACC tourney on a four-game skid and needing to win the whole thing to reach March Madness amid uncertainty about Keattsโ future. What looked like a brief trip has now included NCAA games in Pittsburgh and Dallas with 14-year-old son George, who has โbeen squeezing school in and out of this thing.โ
โItโs nice to see kind of the crescendo of people coming back out that just werenโt energized,โ Hatem said. โItโs not that they werenโt fans. But now theyโre excited again, and Iโm talking about the young ones who have never seen this, and folks my age who have seen and remember โ83 and โ74.
โItโs something I didnโt 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.โ
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.
โA lot of these people I meet now, that are my age, they would tell their kids about โ83 and how they were on campus,โ Myers said. โAnd some of the parents, now their kids or their grandkids now are experiencing what they experienced at N.C. State with this run. And theyโre telling them: โThis is like โ83! This is how it was!โโ
Myers is a radio analyst for the women and worked their Elite Eight win against Texas. The wait hadnโt been quite the same for Moore’s team, which won three straight ACC tournaments from 2020-22 and reached the Elite Eight two years ago. That top-seeded team faced a lower-seeded Connecticut team in the Huskiesโ home state, suffering a crushing double-overtime loss.
Yet this team picked eighth in the ACC took that final step.
Chasity Melvin was the top scorer for the program’s lone Final Four appearance before playing professionally in the WNBA and overseas, and has since moved into coaching. Sheโs following superstitious routines for the Wolfpackโs matching runs: wearing N.C. State socks, sitting in the middle of a three-cushion couch, no texting or tweeting during play.
โI know I got talked smack to throughout my whole career, traveling across the world,โ Melvin said. โIt’s like โOh, youโre Carolina?โ And I hate that. When Iโd say I played at N.C. State: โOh the Tar Heels?โ No! People donโt know about us just because of that dominance of UNC and Duke.
โI believe it was very hard for coaches and ADs to really have a vision of, โOK, weโre tired of saying we just canโt do it because we have to fight with Carolina and Duke.โ But actually demanding, like: โHey, itโs going to be hard but we want to build a culture. We can get on the winning side of this game, too.โโ
N.C. State is the 11th school to reach the menโs and womenโs Final Four in the same season. UConn is the only school to do it multiple times, and the Huskiesโ double clinched Monday night marks the first time two schools have done it in the same year.
The Wolfpack women face No. 1 overall seed and unbeaten South Carolina on Friday in Cleveland. The men face top regional seed Purdue on Saturday in Glendale, Arizona. Title games are Sunday and Monday, respectively.
โItโs a special time obviously,โ Moore said. โMemories that will last you a lifetime.โ
