The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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92 ■ THE WOLFPACKER BY TIM PEELER T he name lingers at the top of a list in the NC State football record book, like an unknown and unseen spirit. Yet there is something familiar and his- toric about the name Perrin Busbee, who is credited with starting intercollegiate foot- ball at the North Carolina School of Ag- riculture and Mechanic Arts in the spring of 1892. Maybe it's because there were three members of the same family with that name and all were important in the devel- opment and growth of Raleigh as North Carolina's seat of power. His namesake grandfather was a prominent lawyer in the capital who died at the early age of 52, just as he was being touted as a possible Demo- cratic candidate for governor. His uncle, also bearing the same name, became a U.S. Navy officer immediately after the Civil War, but also died at an early age, just as the youngest Perrin Busbee was graduating from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Yes, that's correct: NC State's first foot- ball coach went to Carolina. What's more, he was a still a student in Chapel Hill when he taught his rival col- lege students how to play the newly popu- lar college sport. Busbee happened to be a graduate of the Raleigh Male Academy, which was the opponent in the only game NC A&M played that year. The game was held on March 12, 1892, in an open field at what is now Pullen Park, using a plowed ditch on either end as the goal lines. Perrin's team beat his high school alma mater 12-6, and then took the next 18 months off while Busbee went back to Chapel Hill to finish studying law. As an undergraduate, Busbee had been the first captain and coach of the UNC baseball team from 1891-93. A slight man of 5-6 and 134 pounds, Busbee wasn't big enough to play on UNC's varsity foot- ball team. He was, however, named the top player on the "scrub" team, which is roughly equivalent to a junior varsity squad. He was one of the seven founding editors of The Daily Tar Heel newspaper and the editor of The Hellenian, the university's precursor to The Yackety Yack, the student yearbook. He and three other students successfully petitioned the school administration to end a short-lived football ban. In addition to his other activities, "Pun- kin' Head" Busbee was an accomplished tennis player, a member of the Shakespeare Club, the German (dance) Club and the se- cret society called Order of the Gimghoul. Mostly, he was remembered as an Eat- ing Club member who scarfed down 24 bananas in a record 14 minutes and 30 seconds. After graduation in 1893, Busbee re- turned to Raleigh to practice law. He also resumed coaching NC A&M's football team, leading the Aggies to a 6-0 win in its only game of 1896 and winning one of three games in 1897. As a lawyer, young Busbee made his name in early 1895 as part of the defense team of George Mills, a mentally handi- capped vagrant who was accused of mur- dering the niece he impregnated. Mills was eventually hanged for the crime in what was called the most scandal- ous murder trial in Raleigh's history. Yet Busbee and his team were lauded for their defense, despite the fact that he chewed gum, parted his red hair in the middle and wore a modern turned-down collar in the courtroom. Afterwards, Busbee was hired as the Ra- leigh city attorney, a position he held for nearly a decade. Sounds like an odd fellow, right? He, in fact, was. Just as his father, Charles Manly Busbee, was elected the grand warden of Raleigh's Sovereign Grand Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Perrin Busbee was too. His father was also once elected the grand sire, or worldwide leader, of the centuries-old service organization. Busbee's love of sports never waned. In 1902, the same year the UNC baseball team he once coached was banished from the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Asso- ciation for using professional players, Bus- bee was named president of the North Car- olina State Professional Baseball League, a class-D minor league which featured the Raleigh Red Birds, the New Bern Tuck- ers, the Charlotte Hornets, the Greensboro Farmers, the Wilmington Sailors and the very first iteration of the Durham Bulls. It was the third attempt at creating a statewide minor league, but, like the others, it barely survived one season. Nevertheless, Busbee remained a pop- ular umpire, tennis and track judge, and football official, while also handling his day job and volunteering in the community. For more than two decades, he was The News & Observer's primary correspondent ■ PACK PAST The UNC Student Who Coached NC State's First Football Game NC State's 1897 football team (above) was the third and final unit coached by Perrin Busbee, who led the program's debut squad in 1892 and then returned to helm the team from 1896-97. The coach's record on the gridiron in Raleigh was 3-2. PHOTO COURTESY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER AT NCSU LIBRARIES