It’s always nice to highlight articles focused on NC State’s tradition.
Pat Forde of ESPN pulls a great one out that is focused on the 1983 run to the National Championship. (Link) Don’t be misled by the title of the piece and the first part of the article – it is about the entire 1983 march to the title; not just the ACC quarterfinal win over Wake Forest.
The scoreboard read North Carolina State 70, Wake Forest 70. Less than a minute remained in an Atlantic Coast Conference quarterfinal game that, on a Friday afternoon in March 1983, hardly augured the start of something big.
Nobody in The Omni in Atlanta could have known that the events in that final minute would alter the course of college basketball history, the course of Jim Valvano’s career — and, ultimately, the course of his impact upon society.
But before the Wolfpack coach could become everything he would become — the national championship coach, the prominent ESPN basketball analyst, the passionate orator who delivered the most famous sports speech since Lou Gehrig, the national face of the fight against cancer; Jimmy V — his team had to survive that moment.
“If we don’t win that game,” said State point guard Sidney Lowe, “we’re done.”
