The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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152 ■ THE WOLFPACKER ■ PACK PAST Unfortunately, none of the coaches was able to produce more than one winning season in Raleigh. The first was Buck Shaw, the star of Rockne's first undefeated team and the primary blocker for All-American runner George Gipp. Shaw also hired Wisconsin dual-sport star Gus Tebell as his line coach and to be the basketball coach. Shaw lasted only one season, go- ing 2-6-2 in 1924, before turning over the program to Tebell, who led the Wolf- pack to the 1927 Southern Conference football title and the 1929 Southern Confer- ence basketball champion- ship. Shaw headed west, where he coached at Nevada and built Santa Clara into a na- tional power. He was the first head coach of the San Francisco 49ers and later coached the Philadelphia Eagles to the 1960 National Football League champion- ship, handing the Green Bay Packers their only postsea- son loss under head coach Vince Lombardi. Shaw was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1972. John Van Liew, a high school coach from Iowa, who Rockne gave his highest recom- mendation, didn't even last a full season with the Wolfpack after being hired in the summer of 1930, when Tebell resigned un- der pressure for not emphasizing football over basketball. Tebell went on to become the head basketball coach and athletics di- rector at Virginia, as well as being elected mayor of Charlottesville. Van Liew was particularly ineffec- tive during his brief time in Raleigh. He installed the most unusual offense in NC State football history, one in which the quarterback lined up butt to butt with the center, took a blind snap between his legs and pitched to one of his two split halfbacks. During the first half of a game against Mississippi State, one of two wins the Pack had in 10 games, Van Liew wandered off from Riddick Stadium and never returned for the second half. (Rumor had it, Van Liew had fallen off a horse before he ar- rived at NC State and had never really re- covered when he took over the program.) He was dismissed midway through his only season and replaced with Roy "Doc" Sermon — a trainer who eventually became basketball coach and athletics director — for the season's final four games. In 1931, John "Clipper" Smith, a for- mer teammate of Shaw under Rockne, was hired as Van Liew's permanent replace- ment. Smith spent three seasons at State, lead- ing the team to a 6-1-2 record in 1932. But he left in disgrace after the 1933 season. It seems that the success of '32 put him in a celebra- tory mood. At one point, he checked out of his board- ing room at the Sir Walter Hotel in downtown Ra- leigh, went on a bender and disap- peared for the first 14 days of spring practice prior to the 1933 season. He was told prior to the season that his contract would not be renewed and the Wolfpack limped through the year with a 1-5-3 record. He went on to become the head coach at Villanova and eventually Anderson became the last-gasp attempt at replicating Rockne's success be- low the Mason-Dixon Line. He, too, had one winning record in three seasons with the Wolfpack, guiding his sec- ond team to a 6-4 record in 1935. But his tenure was marred by dissention on the team, within the athletics department and among the school's top booster, textile pub- lishing magnate Dave Clark. Eventually Anderson and Sermon began to feud, with each questioning the other's character. Anderson accused Sermon of mismanaging athletics department funds, and Sermon accused Anderson of contrib- uting to the moral decay of the football program. The whole relationship unraveled shortly after a game against North Carolina, when Anderson suspended the team's three best players for, in his words, "not giving their best." At one point, both Col. John Harrelson and UNC Consolidated System president Franklin Porter Graham, listened to three days of testimony from both sides, along with the board of trustees. Eventually, Sermon was retained and Anderson was dismissed, leaving North Carolina native Williams "Doc" Newton to rebuild the pro- gram's crumbling infrastructure. It wasn't until after World War II that the Wolfpack became relevant in either college football or basketball. There were many reasons why the efforts to replicate Notre Dame's system failed outside and in between the lines of Riddick Stadium. The coaches hired generally re- cruited from the Midwest, creating dissen- tion on a campus that was almost entirely made up of North Carolina natives. The Fightin' Irish alumni who came to coach in Raleigh definitely were saltier and worldlier than the players they coached and the boosters they represented. And none of those differences were over- come by success on the field. "For the succession of former Fightin' Irish players who came to coach at State, [the Notre Dame system] meant applying the Rockne method of motivation," wrote former NC State history professor Bill Bee- zly in his book The Wolfpack: Intercol- legiate Athletics at North Carolina State University. "These 'chips off the old Rock' turned to humiliation, sarcasm and bullying to inspire feelings, animosities and eventually disgust with the whole system among State players. "Those Notre Dame graduates come south had to recruit, since players weren't automatically drawn to State College as they were to South Bend." Newton — a native of Thomasville with roots firmly planted in the South — re- placed Anderson, who had a 16-9-2 record with the Wolfpack. Newton was generally beloved throughout his tenure. His fun- draising organization, The Doc Newton Club, eventually became the Wolfpack Club and has existed ever since. And though it never did NC State any good to hire former Notre Dame play- ers and coaches to come to Raleigh, the Fightin' Irish have some success when it hired former Wolfpack head coach Lou Holtz. He led Notre Dame to the national championship in 1988. ■ Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker. You may contact him at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu. Buck Shaw managed just a 2‑6‑2 record in his lone season at NC State in 1924, but he went on to be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame and guided Philadel‑ phia to the 1960 NFL championship. PHOTO COURTESY NC STATE MEDIA RELATIONS "For the succession of former Fightin' Irish players who came to coach at State, [the Notre Dame system] meant applying the Rockne method of motivation." ■ Former NC State history professor Bill Beezly in his book The Wolfpack: Intercollegiate Athletics at North Carolina State University.