The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1113082
34 ■ THE WOLFPACKER I'm more concerned about gaming right now because of what it could mean to col- lege athletics. It's an issue that needs to addressed effectively." Besides gambling, what are some of the challenges the athletics department is go- ing to face after you're gone? "It will be the same challenges we've faced in the last nine years: money. There's never enough money. Every year — except the year Maryland left the conference and we got a big, one-time boost in revenue from the ACC — has been a struggle for us administratively. "It will continue until the ACC Network is pumping out big money, and that's not likely to happen initially. But it will hap- pen. It's just getting to that point. "Money has been an issue and will con- tinue to be an issue. Personnel issues are always there. Those two things are con- sistent in my work. Almost every day has something to do with finances, something to do with personnel. "It could be trying to keep Wes Moore here instead of him going to Tennessee. Do you wait or do you go ahead and do the best you can by Wes whether they ask or not — which is what our approach gener- ally is. We'll do the best we can. We will eventually roll something out. It'll have to be approved by the Board of Trustees. "It's always finance and personnel, over and over and over, and every now and then you get something in compliance. And fa- cility improvements will never die. "We need so badly to re-do the east side of Carter-Finley Stadium. It hasn't been touched since 1966. And that can happen. "There are lots of things on the long list of what to do next, but I'm just not going to be the person doing it. Boo will decide his own priorities. That's the other part of this. Because he has the responsibility of the work, he has the right to make those choices. It'll be interesting to see what he decides he wants to do first in terms of facilities. "We have a plan right now and a donor to bump out the wrestling room to make space for three mats. I feel good that we've been able to get that done. "We are far down the road on building an outdoor pool, with the support of campus, for our swim team. "We haven't gotten to baseball yet, which needs help and always has. We're still paying for the last improvements in baseball, which were done before I got here. There's still a half-million dollar pay- ment every year on the debt. That doesn't end until 2024, but we still need to keep updating. "We have to find donors who have the ability, the willingness and the interest to make leadership gifts. Boo is an external guy by experience, and I think that's going to fit very nicely for him." You mentioned Wes Moore and Tennessee. Did you always have a radar on openings that might impact your coaches? "Yes, but I don't do it by myself. The staff is just as likely to say it to me as I am to them, 'Did you see this? Did you see that?' "We did have our eye all season on Ten- nessee. We figured if Holly Warlick got fired they might come after Wes, and she did get fired. We knew without a really good year that was a possibility, and we knew that Wes had lived in that state for 15 years while coaching at Chattanooga, had beaten Tennessee and had done a great job. Wes, though, decided to stay with us. "I feel blessed. I told Wes, 'I'm so happy Renovating Reynolds Coliseum and creating the NC State Athletic Hall of Fame it houses are parts of Yow's legacy that will endure. PHOTO BY KEN MARTIN "Once I understood how our fans felt, I saw it as my duty to defend NC State. I tried to do that." ■ Yow