The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/470359
78 ■ THE WOLFPACKER BY TIM PEELER T here are three moments in the 66-year history of Reynolds Coliseum when the world went silent and all tear-clouded eyes were focused on a singular coach in the middle of a historic moment. There was Feb. 16, 2007, when the wooden court at the historic old barn was named in honor of Hall of Fame women's coach Kay Yow, not long after she returned to coaching her team following her sec- ond diagnosis of breast cancer. That night, her Wolfpack handily beat second-ranked North Carolina, and Yow was showered with cheers and tears from a sold-out crowd. And there was Feb. 21, 1993, when the late Jim Valvano gave a preview of his famous "Never Give Up" speech at mid- court, during halftime of a nationally tele- vised Duke-NC State game. In an arena so choked with unmitigated sadness, know- ing that Valvano was really too ill to be in public, the loquacious coach was about the only person who could manage to squeak out any words, which he did during an extensive pregame speech. For most early fans of Atlantic Coast Conference basketball, there will never be another moment quite like March 6, 1965, when all the players on the NC State men's basketball team approached a frail, elderly man who had watched the game from his wheelchair located next to press row. They lifted him toward the rafters of the arena he had completed some 16 years earlier and celebrated the final Wolfpack ACC cham- pionship of his lifetime. "I have never been happier," Everett Case said after the game. "The last taste is always the best." His Last Year Everett Norris Case, the first NC State player or coach inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, had long known that the 1964-65 season would be his last at NC State. The state of North Carolina had a mandatory retirement age of 65, and the coach who had been born in Indiana six months after the turn of the 20th century knew his time was up. He had planned well, both professionally and financially. In 1962, he hired Clemson head coach Press Maravich to join him as an assistant coach to be his hand-picked successor. He had a talented, experienced team, one that he was sure could put the unpleasantness of the last five years behind him. During the 1960-61 season, players from NC State, North Carolina and other South- ern schools admitted to point-shaving, and NC State graduate Bill Friday, president of the UNC consolidated system, forced the state's two basketball powers to de- emphasize the sport, cancelling the Dixie Classic and limiting their schedules to less than 20 regular-season games. Both programs were decimated. Case suffered an additional heartbreak in 1963 when one of his favorite players, Jon Speaks of Lexington, Ky., was killed in a car accident while headed to the beach. Case wanted one final chance to win a championship, however, and he believed he could return to the top of the league with the team he had put together. "We felt we were finally getting back to the kind of team NC State had always had under Coach Case," said longtime coach Eddie Biedenbach, a sophomore on the 1964-65 team. "He thought we were finally over the scandals and all the difficulties that we had been through the previous five years." However, Case's health prevented him from taking his last team back to the top. During the 1963-64 season, the coach had been sidelined for 10 days and missed games at South Carolina and Virginia. Dur- ing the offseason, he had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare bone cancer that was all but incurable at that time. Two games into the Wolfpack's 1964-65 schedule, following a win over Furman and a loss to Wake Forest, Case knew he could not go on as NC State's coach. He retired on Dec. 7, 1964, and handed his team over to Maravich. "It wasn't difficult for us," said Pete Coker, the transfer from Dartmouth, "be- cause we could see that it needed to hap- pen. He was getting more and more frail." A Strong Team Maravich didn't inherit any players with the talent of his son, Broughton High se- nior "Pistol" Pete Maravich, the superstar who had hoped to one day play for his father with the Wolfpack. In fact, Maravich's inaugural team didn't have a particular standout. The Pack was, however, fit enough to run Maravich's full- court, full-time press, mature enough to handle such a major upheaval early in the season and intellectually advanced in bas- ketball tactics. Inside players Coker and Larry Lakins were the primary building blocks, along with Biedenbach, a future All-ACC player. Guards Billy Moffitt and Tommy Mad- ■ PACK PAST Everett Case's Last ACC Title Case's deteriorating health forced him to retire in December 1964, but he was on hand when his hand-picked successor Press Maravich led NC State to the 1965 ACC Tournament championship. PHOTO COURTESY TIM PEELER