The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1506671
6 ■ THE WOLFPACKER Wolfpacker, NC State athletics di- rector Mr. Casey requested to see me in his office. "I like what you are doing and want to help you," he said. "I am going to put a message in the Wolfpack Club newsletter, urging members to subscribe to The Wolf- packer." "Thank you. That's great, Mr. Casey," I said. "Can I furnish a self-addressed envelope to make it easier for people to send in their orders?" Mr. Casey quickly said, "I don't want to help you that much." His note in the newsletter gave us credibility and generated several hundred subscriptions, even with- out an envelope. The Paper Route When I started The Wolfpacker in September 1980, I projected that I would have 2,000 subscriptions by Christmas and would be heading to New York City to watch the Wolf- pack play in the Holiday Festival basketball tournament at Madison Square Garden. My projections were way too ambi- tious. At Christmas, I had 500 sub- scriptions and no money in the bank, and I had started learning a Raleigh News & Observer paper route to make some money (I had delivered papers all through high school and college). For the next two years and three months, I got up every morning by 4 a.m. to deliver 250 papers daily and 300 on Sunday to the porches of homes in the Cameron Park neighborhood in Ra- leigh. I drove a car with no heat, no air conditioning and no radio, and was liv- ing off less than $5,000 a year. While delivering the route, I was rained, snowed and sleeted on, chased by dogs, walked through hundreds of spider webs and stepped in 30 miles of dog poop in waffle-bottom shoes. (I couldn't scrape it off — the shoes had to be washed.) I finally turned in my 30-day notice to give up the route on the first day of March 1983. My last day of delivering newspapers was Friday, March 31, and on the follow- ing Monday — April 4, 1983 — NC State beat Houston to win the national title in basketball, which dramatically and positively impacted Coman Publishing. Later that year, we published "Too Soon To Quit," Coach Valvano's account of the Pack's miraculous run to the title, and sold out the 10,000 copies that we printed. That boost helped us stay in business another year. Financial Reality Early on, it became clear that we would not be able to survive financially solely off The Wolfpacker, and we reduced the frequency from 35 issues annually to 20 and started pursuing other sports-related publishing work. Over the next 40-plus years, we published programs for nine minor league baseball teams, and fan publications covering four major league baseball squads and 18 colleges and uni- versities. None of that would have happened if we didn't survive those tough early years, and that would not have happened with- out the support, advice, friendship and encouragement of so many in the NC State athletics family. Directly and indirectly, those relationships led to publication deals for us at Michigan, Georgia Tech, Virginia, St. Augustine's, North Carolina A&T, Arizona State, Eastern Kentucky and Mi- ami of Ohio. I can't overstate the impor- tance of the Wolfpack Club's 1986 decision to provide sub- scriptions of The Wolfpacker to its members. Executive director Charlie Bryant approved the plan that assistant director Joe Hull and I prepared. Charlie retired and his successor Bobby Purcell continued the arrangement as did Ben Broussard when Bobby retired. Our agreement with the Wolf- pack Club helped give us stability. * * * * Coach V always stressed giving back, and I have tried to show my appreciation for all that NC State and the people I met there have done for me by endowing several scholarships at the school and helping with other athleti- cally-related projects when I could. I hope to do more in the future, but I don't think I will ever be able to ad- equately show how I feel. Thank you for your readership and support these last 43 years. I'm leav- ing The Wolfpacker in good hands. Our general manager Mark Panus will as- sume the publisher role, while writers Matt Carter, Ethan McDowell and Tim Peeler, managing editor Matt Herb, tal- ented designers Jeanette Blankenship and Chris "Big Cat" Miller, proof reader extraordinaire and customer service representative Cathy Jones, circula- tion manager Sarah Boone, part-time business manager Linda Autry and cus- tomer service agent Crystal Clayton will continue to push forward. Go Pack!! The life-changing note I received from Coach Valvano in the summer of 1980 was the final push I needed to start The Wolfpacker.