RALEIGH, NC – Just days after a loss in the first round of the ACC tournament ended NC State’s basketball season with a nine game losing streak that ensured a losing record for the year, jubilant Wolfpack basketball players emerged from a players-only meeting and announced that they had finally found the “way to win.”
“Man, I am so relieved,” senior Gavin Grant said. “I mean, nine straight games is tough, especially with everyone relying on me for senior leadership. I’m glad we finally have this turned around.” Wolfpack junior Ben McCauley agreed. “We really had some issues. Now that we’ve talked through them, we feel that we’re ready to take on any team in the country and win.”
This is a preview of Wolfpack Finally Finds “Way To Win”
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Fans and alumni of most universities worry - in the sports context - about won-loss records and recruiting. Media gaffes aren’t really on the radar screen.
Not so NC State alumni, who endure a seemingly unending cascade of embarrassing press about their alma mater. Some of this press is reactive, such as the bumbling search for a basketball coach that caused nationwide media catcalls. Some of it is UNC-related bias, or outright hatred for NC State (such as that of the pestilential weasel Gregg Doyel).
This is a preview of Mr. King Speaks
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As habitues of SFN are well aware, our writers (including your obedient servant) get occasional rhubarbs from those decrying the site’s alleged “negativity” - cliched shorthand for, “writing things about NC State that fail to display blind optimism worthy of MAD’s Alfred E. Neuman.” Our “negativity,” these posters claim, causes harm to NC State.
Well, I’d argue that taken to extremes, certain head-in-the-sand types cause far more harm to NC State than anything scribbled by SFN’s electronic pens. This is particularly the case when the person in question’s a blithering idiot - such as, if his letter to editor in today’s N&O is any indication, this guy:
This is a preview of With Friends Like This…
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We’ve all seen (as VaWolf82 summarized) numerous examples of Lee Fowler making thoughtless and insulting statements about the people who, in the aggregate, pay his salary.
Fans unhappy with the 8-38 Periclean Age of Herb Sendek, for instance, were a “lunatic fringe” consisting of “50 people on the Internet.” Just yesterday, when asked to name the “greatest challenge facing NC State athletics,” Fowler did not (as one would hope) respond with “my own general ineptitude.” No, according to “Coach,” the biggest challenge to NC State athletics (other than getting a new football coach) is fan message boards on the Internet. Hapless football teams, winless volleyball teams, and bottom-seeded soccer programs are, one must assume, comparative small potatoes.
This is a preview of Fowler Hits New Low: A Call To The Board Of Trustees
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I may be overreacting, but a comment reported in today’s News & Observer causes some real concern about the coaching search.
NC State Athletic Director Lee Fowler, who stumblebummed through the Sidney Lowe hiring some months back, told the newspaper that, “[h]e has talked with Chuck Neinas, a Colorado-based headhunter who helped North Carolina hire Butch Davis, about the search but said there was no contract with Neinas.”
Now, while this is not specifically contrary to Fowler’s previous announcement that NC State would use a “search firm” for the hire, it seems odd, to say the least, that one would employ a search firm without a contract for that firm’s work.
This is a preview of No Contract For Neinas? Say It Ain’t So, “Coach”
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Many State fans are familiar with Ur-Fan BillyTough, perhaps the most loyal member of our Wolfpack family. Mr. Tough’s adminitions to “not throw the team and coach under a bus!” have warmed our hearts and stiffened our resolve. Mr. Tough contacted SFN and asked us to run the statement below. It appears, at Mr. Tough’s request, unedited.
Hello my fellow Pack fans through and through I BillyTough have something to say and the gentlemen who run this Internal Net sight have been kind enough to let me say it all I had to do was ask them! So let me say it! Thank you.
This is a preview of Guest Writer: Billy Tough
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For an ex-high school and college rugby player like me, this is great news: The N.C. State Rugby Club has won the North Carolina state championship. Even better, they did this by beating perennial NC rugby powerhouse UNC, who led them at halftime per a fine article in The Technician (linked below).
It’s interesting – and gratifying - that much of the athletic success at N.C. State of late comes from the ranks of club sports teams. Our hockey club appears to be tearing up the ice and our bass fishing club team came home with the championship in that sport.
This is a preview of Pack Rugby - NC Champions!
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It’s tournament time again for the ACC soccer programs. As a State fan, can you feel the excitement?
Well, I guess not. And I can’t blame you. N.C. State soccer accomplished a rare double dip of pathos this season with its men’s and women’s soccer teams each being the bottom seeds, based on their conference records, in their respective tournaments.
The women’s program (9-8-2, 3-7-0 ACC) is seeded eighth out of eight and plays number one seed - you guessed it - Carolina tomorrow at the SAS Soccer Park.
This is a preview of Ain’t That A Kick In The Head?
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As if the previous report isn’t embarrassing enough, this morning’s N&O highlights yet another flub by NC State’s athletic powers that be.
It seems the ACC has a new program in which non-revenue sports contests are shown via webcast. This is a good idea. Non-revenue athletes labor in near-complete anonymity compared to their football and basketball counterparts. Giving those athletes some exposure, even via the Internet, is a great idea. I rarely credit the Swofford-run ACC for anything, but they deserve it here: The ACC is the first conference in the country to come up with a program like this.
This is a preview of … And Yet Another Flub
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What a difference two weeks makes.
After the Southern Miss debacle most of us were writing off the team and slitting our collective football throats. Now we ride high after the team pulls itself together for two huge victories.
And we should be worried sick about the Wake Forest game this weekend.
We’ve been here before, you see. The Pack gets a huge victory – or victories- as the underdog (in fact, we’re the only team in the country to knock off two ranked teams while unranked). Then it falls flat against an opponent supposedly far inferior to the Goliath it whipped like a pizened dog the previous week.
This is a preview of Weak Florist And Da Big Head
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Statefansnation has learned that UNC Chapel Hill has arranged to rent the North Carolina Central University Eagles football team for Saturday’s road game against the University of Miami, sources close to the program told SFN today.
“Dick Baddour was inspired when he saw that Florida State rented Central’s band for their game against NC State,” the source, known only as “Big Ram,” stated. “Hell, that was the highlight of the night for the Seminoles. He thought: why not us?”
This is a preview of EXCLUSIVE: UNC To Rent NC Central Football Team
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From the Greensboro News & Record, a shocking announcement:
Evans Declared Academically Ineligible For UNC Game
By Steve Norton, N&R Staff Writer
GREENSBORO, NC (AP) NC State Wolfpack starting quarterback Daniel Evans, the former benchwarmer who led the Wolfpack to two come-from-behind victories over ranked conference opponents, is “academically ineligible” for NC State’s upcoming game against the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill, ACC Commissioner John Swofford announced today.
“We, as a conference, want to make sure this young man is on pace toward his degree.” - ACC Commissioner John Swofford
This is a preview of Swofford: Evans “Academically Ineligible” For UNC Game
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SFN Note: Thanks to Cardiff Giant for his second parody home run of the week. Yesterday he chimed in with a hilarious interview with Tommy Hunt after Jeff had blogged a great one about Hunt’s recent comments.
Newly hired North Carolina State Assistant Sports Information Director Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, better known as “Baghdad Bob? from his term as Iraqi Information Minister during the Iraq War, held his first press conference today as “personal spokesman? for Wolfpack football coach Chuck Amato. Here’s a sampling of what he had to say:
This is a preview of New Pack Football Spokesman Talks To Media
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Jeff asked for it, so The Giant responds.
On September 12, SFN interviewed ACC coordinator of football officials Tommy Hunt regarding ACC officiating, the NC State/Akron controversy, and other subjects. The transcript appears below:
SFN: Thank you for meeting with us today, Mr. Hunt.
Hunt: Eating? I ain’t eatin’ with you. It’s only 9 AM. Says here, this is supposed to be an interview with Inside Carolina. Good site; I read it every week.
SFN: It IS an interview, sir. And it’s STATE FANS Nation. As in, North Carolina State University nation.
This is a preview of EXCLUSIVE: SFN Tommy Hunt Interview
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“Calipari, come on man, NC STATE????”
- Sports Radio host Jim Rome, to Memphis basketball coach John Calipari, August 4, 2006.
Oh, that wacky Jim Rome and his State-bashing ways. But it made me wonder: How do these radio hacks get to their positions of dubious celebrity? I mean, it’s not like they have to pass a CPA exam or something. Truly, can any idiot just get in front of a radio microphone and start bloviating on sports matters until he’s acquired a sufficient coterie of lackeys and wannabes to justify a minimum wage? The Giant stoops to a look at how Jim Rome might have obtained his first big break in the radio world:
This is a preview of Jim Rome’s Big Break
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(With apologies to Philip Roth)
Norman, Oklahoma, 1970
Greggy, age 6, is walking down the street with Daddy. Daddy is a ‘fessor of the laws, which Greggy doesn’t know about except that the janitor where Daddy works takes off his cap and says, “Morning, Sir.” All Greggy knows is that he has his new ball and the sun is shining brightly.
Then Daddy stops to say hello to the neighbor, Professor Snik, and his dog Thunder. “Snik,?says Daddy. “How are you! Greggy, you play with Thunder while we talk.? The adults converse, and their talk, to Greggy, is Charlie Brown discourse: “Wah-WAH, wah wah-wah-wah-wah.?
This is a preview of Gregg Doyel’s Complaint
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SFN’s been told that at a recent Wolfpack Club meeting NC State Athletic Director Lee Fowler expressed some less than happy thoughts about the Internet. Fowler, it seems, thinks only the less thoughtful fan turns to the Internet (including presumably SFN) for news.
All this, for some reason, made me think of Fowler (in the guise of Rex Harrison in the 1967 movie “Doctor Dolittle”) striding around his office musically declaiming his wish that the Internet could just be turned off - much as Doctor Dolittle himself wished to “Talk To The Animals.” If Fowler did, he might sing something like this (with sincere apologies to the late and very much lamented Mr. Harrison):
RALEIGH, NC (AP)
North Carolina State University Director of Athletics Lee Fowler announced today the creation of an “All-Star Search Committee” to find a replacement for departed basketball coach Herb Sendek. Fowler announced that the committee was “yet another example” of what he called “great advice” from former Wolfpack basketball coach Les Robinson, whom Fowler consulted during his previous, failed attempts to draw a big name coach to the school.
This is a preview of Fowler Announces “All-Star” Search Committee
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Bravely bold Lee Fowler
Rode forth from NC State!
“I’ll find a top coach!” he cried.
Oh brave Lee Fowler!
He was not at all afraid
To be spurned in nasty ways.
Brave, brave, brave, brave Lee Fowler!
He’d allowed our program,
To be mashed into a pulp.
Fans that had their eyes gouged out,
And their spirits broken.
To have his fanbase split
And its egos burned away,
And the team all hacked and mangled…
This is a preview of The Tale Of Lee Fowler
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