The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1540860
30 ■ THE WOLFPACKER BY TIM PEELER ollege athletics are in a dif- ferent world these days with the full implementa- tion of the transfer portal in 2018 and the name, image and likeness revolution of the past three years. Supposedly, building competitive teams is now an easier annual process, with coaches practically start- ing from scratch at the end of one season and unveiling a new roster at the start of the next. It's unlike anything the college game has ever seen, except for the end of World War II, when the NCAA relaxed its eligibility rules to accommodate veter- ans returning from the world's largest and deadliest military conflict. This spring alone, more than 10,000 players opted to switch schools, and more than 4,500 graduate stu- dents transferred to new lo- cations, a dramatic increase from even the previous seven frenzied seasons. It's not so different from what happened 80 years ago to America's greatest athletes, most of whom had been scooped up as Army and Navy fighter pilots and bombers and sent to specialized training programs all over the country. T h e w a r 's e n d touched off an athletics free-for-all, with service veterans offered the op- portunity to go to college for free under the GI Bill and to play athletics immediately without prior restrictions such as completing four years of eligibility over five consecutive years. It was an unregu- lated system that was easily manipulated by coaches, many of whom had spent the war years coaching at training centers all over the country. Funny story: NC State Hall of Fame basketball coach Everett Case wanted so desperately to win the all-military cham- pionship trophy in 1945-46 that, as a lieutenant commander at the Naval Air Station in Ottumwa, Iowa, he sent orders to one of his former Frankfort (Ind.) High School players, Ralph Vaughn, to help win the title. At the time, the former first-team All-American and Life Magazine's 1940 National Player of the Year at Southern Cal was lounging about after four years of distinguished war service in the U.S. Navy, awaiting his discharge orders so he could begin a Hollywood film career. Case's orders didn't just extend Vaughn's military service from February to September. They also forced the high- scoring forward to fly from the sunny beach where he had been resting to the frozen plains of southeastern Iowa, where winter temperatures dipped well below zero for weeks at a time. The arrival of Vaughn, who was also the star of Case's 1936 Indiana high school championship team, helped the Iowa Na- val Air Station beat St. Mary's Pre-Flight for the military title, a significant factor C BEST CASE BEST CASE SCENARIO SCENARIO This Year's Transfer-Laden Basketball Roster Has A Precursor In Everett Case's Postwar Rebuild Case had never coached college basketball when NC State hired him in 1946. His first team was assembled largely from players he knew from his time as a high school coach in Indiana. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE ATHLETICS