The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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MAY/JUNE 2023 ■ 49 an A in a freshman physical education class that required students to post a 6-minute mile. On his first timed run as a 14-year-old, he posted a 4:42.0 mile and immediately caught the eye of Roxboro High School track coach Larry Dixon. Wilkins still needed to persuade his father to let him join the high school track team by promising to make sure all of his farm chores were done, no matter what time he came home from practice or afternoon-long track meets. "I milked the cows many a night after dark," Wilkins said. Wilkins was a decent basketball player in high school, but he made his name by winning two state champi- onships in the mile run. He shunned several offers to run at schools with better-established distance programs so he could fulfill his teenage dream of attending NC State. While it may have been the Golden Age of Wolfpack athletics — with ACC championships in football (1973), men's basketball (1970, '73 and '74), baseball (1973, '74 and '75) and swimming (1971- 82) — there was little money remaining for running sports in athletics director Willis Casey's department. As a freshman, Wilkins won the 1,500-meter race at the Florida Relays in Gainesville. As a sophomore, he fin- ished second. During his junior and se- nior seasons, Casey wouldn't pay for him to go. Wilkins remembers going unac- companied to college meets in Detroit, Portland and New York with little more than the $3.75 per diem he was given for food and whatever he might have had left from the $15 a month in laundry money that scholarship athletes were allowed to receive at the time. "A lot of the guys I ran against would go to those meets and say, 'Let's go to the movies,' or 'Let's go get a steak,'" Wilkins recalled. "Where was I going to do any of those things on $3.75 a day?" So, he ate on the cheap and studied in his hotel room. That didn't prevent Wilkins from competing against the best in the na- tion, several of whom ran right next door at North Carolina and Duke. Tar Heel runner Tony Waldrop set the in- door-mile world record in 1974 in San Diego, while teammate Reggie McAfee was often right behind. Duke miler and 1972 Olympian Steve Wheeler, who ran under 4 minutes as a high school runner in Connecticut and held the state record for more than 40 years, was also in the mix. On April 21, 1973, Wilkins was stride- for-stride with rivals Waldrop, McAfee and Wheeler at the Big Three Meet at NC State's Paul Derr Track. All four were chasing the sub-4 milestone that had only been recorded twice in a col- lege meet. Waldrop was first at 3:58.4, McAfee was second at 3:59.3, Wheeler was third at 4:00.4 and Wilkins was fourth with a school-record 4:00.5. Wilkins' mark stood for nearly 40 years until nine-time All-American Ryan Hill became the first Wolfpack runner to post a sub-4 mile in 2012 at 3:58.33 in an indoor meet and 3:56.54 in an outdoor meet. Only Hill and An- drew Colley in 2014 have ever run under 4-minute miles. "The timer that day was someone from NC State, and I always gave him a hard time about not making sure Steve and I were also under 4 minutes," Wilkins said. "We were so close." Although he learned his craft run- ning on a dirt road, Wilkins did not set records in cross country. He still won three consecutive All-ACC honors by finishing fourth in 1972, '73 and '74. He also won All-America notice four times while at State and still resides in the school distance-running record book in modern events like the 1,500 meters (3:42.7, fifth) and some that are no longer part of NCAA competition: the mile (4:00.4, third), the 2-mile (8:36.2, first) and the 3-mile (13:36.6, first) races. "I never did adapt to cross country," Wilkins said. "But I was pretty good on the track." Going Home Following his graduation in 1974 with a history degree, Wilkins remained with Westcott's track and field pro- gram as a graduate assistant. He earned a master's degree in community col- lege administration in 1979, then spent three years as an extension specialist in Raleigh and two years as a history teacher in Garner, N.C. He returned to the family farm in 1980 and has stayed there while also teaching high school world history and psychology. He served on the Person County School Board, has been active in community organizations and spent nearly a quarter century on NC State's Parks Scholarship Selection Commit- tee. His son, Bradsher, was a state cham- pion in cross country, the 1,600 me- ters and the 3,200 meters. He ran one season for Geiger's Wolfpack program before joining the military. When the ACC celebrated its 50th anniversary, Wilkins was a member of the Men's Track and Field Silver An- niversary team. He still lives in the most rural part of Person County, not far from the Vir- ginia state line, in Woodsdale. The only television channels he can watch there are various internet streaming services, so he spends a lot of time watching YouTube competition and training vid- eos of Geiger's runners, multiple Wolf- pack national champion Katelyn Tuohy and head coach Laurie Henes' two-time national champion cross country team. He finds Tuohy's achievements worthy of high praise. "She is just remarkable," said the runner who participated in one of the greatest races in North Carolina his- tory. ■ Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu. " We didn't really have a lot of coaching at that time. They would give us a training plan every week that mostly included an 8-mile run in the morning and a 12-mile run in the afternoon, six days a week. Wilkins