The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports
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JULY 2017 ■ 33 pressionable age, those things stick with you and have a tendency to make you a fan forever. "That drew him back to us, and he now has the 10th-best recruiting class in the na- tion, even though he has only been here a matter of months. "In men's golf, we hired Press McPhaul, one of our own, who has been in less-than- desirable situations, but done well. We are able to provide more for him and the golf program than any program he's ever worked for so far. We feel terrific about that hire. "I saw one of our men's golfer on campus recently, and he came over to tell me how pleased he was with our hiring Press. I said, 'Why, just from reputation?' He said, 'No, I almost went to East Carolina over NC State because of him. It's ironic to me that it's now come full circle, and he's with us.' That made me feel really good. Providing our athletes with the best possible coaches is one of our most important goals, and Coach Sykes has been really supportive. "In men's tennis, we hired an Olympian in Kyle Spencer. It's the second time I have hired him. In a couple of short years at Maryland he turned the program upside down that had been at the bottom of the Atlantic Coast Conference, largely because there were no scholarships until later in my tenure there. In his last match in 2011 or '12, before they dropped the sport, he beat UNC, a top-20 program, for the first time ever. He's a winner. Period. "In women's gymnastics, we hired Kim Landrus. She has been in the top 11 in wom- en's gymnastics in three of the last six years at Illinois and expressed interest in our job. "We focused on her and just looked at each other and said, 'Can we actually get her to join us and have her family move to the East Coast?' It worked out. She's a triplet, and they were all gymnasts at Iowa State. She was an All-American and an Academic All-American. "I feel good about hiring a qualified fe- male. At NC State, we hire the best candi- dates, and often times they have been men who coached the women. It was terrific to be able to hire her as a head coach for us." How demanding was it to have five coaching hires in a year? "It's challenging in terms of timing de- mands if you are going to do it right. "In our system, there are seven of us involved in sport supervision. I have other senior staff members here overseeing the searches, chairing the searches, who did terrific work for each search. We take great pride in making the best possible hires for NC State, no matter the sport. "If you pick out two elements in colle- giate athletics that will lead to success, the first one is the people you hire, always and without exception. A bad hire will cost you time, money and emotional investment. "The second element is having the finan- cial resources to be in a position to be rel- evant among peer schools, which we have reached. Our budget is ranked 50th out of the 65 Power Five conference schools. I'd like it to be better than that and I think in 2019-20 [when ESPN launches the ACC Network] we have a chance to do better for ourselves. "We're generally outperforming across the board, comparing budgetary status to the Directors' Cup outcomes. I care about all of our sports. If you are wearing the words NC State or Wolfpack across that jersey, then we want to be successful." What has stood out most to you since you hired Keatts? "His strategic thinking. He thinks through a problem and how to resolve it in a creative and logical way. I appreciate that and gravi- tate to people who think that way." What are your thoughts about the foot- ball program? "Some of the bright spots for us currently are our preseason ranking in football, in the national top 25 by some polls, and recruit- ing for the 2018 season. We took a dip in 2017 recruiting in terms of the rankings, although I think it is a group of fine young men who will prove the experts wrong. That was challenging, but we're back. "Dave [Doeren] is a terrific recruiter, as are most of the men on his staff. I feel very good about football for that and other reasons. As always, I appreciate their at- tention to academics and their unrelenting work ethic. "We continue to have the most unbalanced system of competition in the ACC. This will be my eighth year at State, and every year since we've split into divisions someone in the ACC will say to me, 'Well, the power is going to shift.' Yet, in 2017 the Atlantic Divi- sion has four teams ranked in the preseason top 25 poll and the Coastal has one. "That's typical of the way this has gone. When someone in the ACC says it's going to shift, I'd like to know when that is going to happen. What's going to make that shift happen because Clemson is Clemson, FSU is FSU and Louisville is Louisville, and we are doing our best to catch them. "Any system that has NC State play- ing Duke twice in 12 years is significantly flawed. We don't have to have divisions anymore. We could have a simple rotation Yow said of new basketball coach Kevin Keatts: "There has not been a day since he joined NC State that he hasn't been everything that I hoped he would be and more." PHOTO BY KEN MARTIN