The Wolfpacker

November 2017

The Wolfpacker: An Independent Magazine Covering NC State Sports

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132 ■ THE WOLFPACKER BY TIM PEELER W ith equal parts temerity and timidity, Gary Stokan knocked on the hotel room door of NC State head basketball coach Norman Sloan on a 1976 road trip to Oregon State. This was not a task done lightly. Stor- min' Norman could cut the courage out from under players, coaches, officials and investigators, often with an icy stare and some salty language. Stokan knew he was ploughing through unbroken fields. He also knew that Sloan could use a little help on the bench. It was still early in the 1976-77 basketball season, Stokan's junior year, when it became ap- parent that the 6-0 guard would not be a big factor for the Wolfpack on the court behind junior Craig Davis and freshmen Clyde Austin and Brian Walker. Stokan, a native of Pittsburgh, had trans- ferred to NC State as a walk-on guard from Edinboro State College following the Wolf- pack's 1974 NCAA championship. He sat out a season under transfer rules, and then played sparingly as a sophomore. On this cross-country road trip, however, Sloan was without assistants Eddie Bie- denbach and Wilbert Johnson, who stayed back east to recruit. So Stokan, looking for ways to contrib- ute, asked the coach if there was some way he could help on the sidelines during the Wolfpack's game at Oregon State. The Pack had just lost at Michigan State, where they played in front of a high school recruit named Earvin Johnson. To his surprise, Sloan asked Stokan to sit beside him on the bench, to help keep up with all the things a coach needs to know throughout the course of a game. The Wolfpack lost that afternoon to the Beavers (71-61), but it turned into a seminal mo- ment in the life of a one-time walk-on point guard who is now one of the most powerful leaders in the world of college football. As the chairman and CEO of the Chick- fil-A Bowl, Stokan arranged the most an- ticipated college football opener in recent memory earlier this season between top- ranked Alabama and then-No. 3 Florida State in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game at brand new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. He has turned the once-failing Peach Bowl — saved by NC State and Virginia Tech back when they faced each other in 1986 — into a top-tier postseason contest that will celebrate its 50th anniversary on New Year's Day and then host the College Football Playoff championship game on Jan. 8, 2018. He also wrested the College Football Hall of Fame from South Bend, Ind., and moved it into a $68.5 million "edu-tain- seum" facility in downtown Atlanta in 2014. He figures he's not far from achieving his goal of making Atlanta — home of the Southeastern Conference championship game, a premier postseason game and a shrine to the best players, coaches and con- tributors in history — the "College Football Capital of the World." And he credits his remarkable journey to the time he spent playing for Sloan in Raleigh. "Without my experience at NC State, I don't know where I would be," Stokan said. "State meant everything to me." After receiving his degree in business management, Stokan was preparing to re- turn to Pittsburgh to look for a job as a high school teacher and basketball coach. "You're a smart guy, Gary," Sloan told him. "Why don't you stay around here and see what happens?" Stokan spent a year on Sloan's staff as a graduate assistant, then was elevated to a full-time assistant coach when baseball coach Sam Esposito gave up his position on the basketball staff. The new position was a dream come true for a player who first came to Raleigh as a counselor for Sloan's summer basketball camp. He stayed with Sloan until the coach decided to return to Florida following the 1979-80 season. Stokan didn't want to follow Sloan to Gainesville, so with the coach's urging he began career in sports marketing, first as a sales representative for athletic apparel company adidas, then Converse, then as the head of his own marketing firm, then as president of the powerful Atlanta Sports Council shortly after the 1996 Olympic Games. Since taking over the Chick-fil-A Bowl in 1998, Stokan has worked with well- heeled corporate partners in Atlanta like Chick-fil-A, Home Depot, NAPA and Delta to invest in his various enterprises. ■ PACK PAST Former NC State Basketball Player Gary Stokan Is A Leader In College Football Stokan is the chairman and CEO of the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary on Jan. 1, 2018. PHOTO COURTESY GARY STOKAN

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