The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1389905
56 ■ THE WOLFPACKER BY TIM PEELER O nly a few months before he bolted for the NFL's New York Jets, NC State football coach Lou Holtz went to For- est City, N.C., to be the featured speaker at Chase High School's annual football banquet. So dynamic were the coach's words that night that one of the targeted recruits in the audience made up his mind on the spot. "I want to play for that guy," running back Billy Ray Vickers remembered thinking, forgoing offers from Clemson and South Carolina, both of which had higher college football profiles at the time and were closer to his roots than Raleigh. Besides, Vickers said, the other schools wanted him to play defensive back, not his natural position, where he was convinced he could be a star in Holtz's twin veer offense. The diverging consequences of that deci- sion, however, are that Vickers never got to play for Holtz, never got to be the Wolf- pack's featured running back and never re- ally used the degree in animal science he earned after four years of study at NC State. Yet he helped the Wolfpack win its most recent Atlantic Coast Conference football championship in 1979 and, after decades of working in manufacturing, Vickers is one of the most successful former athletes in NC State history. He is the president and chief executive officer of a top-five black- owned business in the country. It's an amazing life journey for the grand- son of a mule-and-wagon farmer in the North Carolina foothills, from a family that had never sent anyone to college. Now 63, Vickers wouldn't trade his athletic and edu- cational background for anything. Yes, he played behind record-setting Ted Brown for three years, arriving just after Touchdown Ted's successful freshman year. Yet, so productive was head coach Bo Rein's twin veer offense, Vickers recorded three consecutive seasons of 600 or more rushing yards — strong enough to finish in the ACC's top 10 each season — even while Brown rushed for more than 1,200 yards in both 1977 and '78. "Ted was just amazing, a very gifted ath- lete," Vickers said of his football mentor. "He didn't come across as being that fast, but he was very quick. I never saw a run- ning back that had his instinctive talent to break tackles. "There were so many times I said I wish I could do what he did on the football field." Vickers made his niche by producing in practice, the only place where Brown did not excel in his four years at NC State. "Ted just wasn't a practice guy, and that worked out for me," Vickers recalled. "My sophomore and junior seasons, if Ted didn't feel like practicing, I got reps. When it came to game day, he was just amazing, and I continued to learn so much from him. "He was the greatest running back in the history of the ACC." Vickers enjoyed blocking for Brown those first three seasons, but was ready to shine his senior year. And he did — as part of a three-tailback committee that together averaged more yards (226.9 yards per game) in 1979 than Brown and his understudies did (224.6) in 1978. Vickers (636 rushing yards) was just be- hind teammate Dwight Sullivan (665 yards) and just ahead of quarterback Scott Smith (451) and running back Wayne McLean (343). Two more backs, Chuckie Canady and Andre Marks, both averaged more than 4.5 yards per carry en route to more than 300 rushing yards between them. That, and one of the strongest defenses in school history, allowed the Wolfpack to finish 7-4 and win the ACC championship, thanks to road wins at Clemson and at Duke in its final two conference contests. PACK PAST Former Running Back Billy Ray Vickers Is A Very Successful Businessman One of Vickers' seven companies — Modular Assembly Innovations, a $1.2 billion automotive component manufacturer for Honda — was ranked in the top five on the Black Enterprise list of the 100 top black-owned companies in the nation in 2019. PHOTO COURTESY BILLY RAY VICKERS