The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1546417
48 ■ THE WOLFPACKER PACK PAST BY TIM PEELER T he greatest thing about Cozell Mc- Queen was that he believed he was invincible. What other word would you use to describe someone who challenged the greatest players of his generation and thought they should be just as scared of him as everyone thought he was of them? For the record, McQueen, who died Aug. 5 after a long battle with brain can- cer, wasn't scared of anyone or anything. "Me, nervous?" McQueen said before the 1983 Final Four. "I've never been nervous. I just go out and play." From 1981-85, McQueen was the man in the middle of Jim Valvano's basketball program, often the butt of his coach's well-rehearsed jokes but rarely a liabil- ity on the court. The left-handed center wasn't much of a scoring threat, av- eraging 5.3 points and 5.9 rebounds in four seasons. Yet McQueen's 134 games played still rank fourth in school his- tory and underscore his importance to Valvano's program. McQueen never topped 10 points in 11 NCAA Tournament games but he was quietly heroic in the final two contests of the 1983 season, especially against Houston All-American Hakeem Ola- juwon. Against Georgia and Houston, McQueen grabbed 25 rebounds, blocked 5 shots and played his typically strong defense in games that mattered most. When he died in Raleigh at age 64, Mc- Queen became the third former player and fifth member of the Cardiac Pack to pass in the 43 years since that magical run. He was preceded by forward and classmate Lorenzo Charles (who enrolled with McQueen as a freshman in 1981), walk-on forward Quinton Leonard, Val- vano and assistant coach Ed McLean. At 6-foot-11 and barely more than 200 pounds during his playing days, McQueen was almost comically lanky and the perfect foil for Valvano's biting wit. The fact that he came from Ben- nettsville, S.C., opened up even more fertile fields for humor. "We have Cozell McQueen from South Carolina," Valvano said when he introduced his second recruiting class. "He said he always wanted to go up north to play college basketball." Valvano also told the story about how McQueen made him wait before com- mitting to the Pack so he could take one more recruiting trip to an exotic loca- tion — Toledo, Ohio. McQueen took Valvano's stories and his teammate's jibes in full stride. "It seems to me that people think ev- erybody from South Carolina is slow and behind," McQueen said before his senior season. "I know I'm quite intel- ligent, or I wouldn't be here. I consider myself smarter than a regular student. Remembering Cozell McQueen, The Cardiac Pack's Unselfish, Unflappable Centerpiece McQueen totaled 25 rebounds and 5 blocked shots in NC State's victories over Georgia and Houston at the 1983 Final Four. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE ATHLETICS