North Carolina State University Athletics
Christy Legend Grows 47 Years Later
11/23/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
Nov. 23, 2004
BY TIM PEELER
Earle Edwards had a choice. He could attempt a field goal and pray, or try a deep pass to the end zone and pray harder. The Hail Mary hadn't officially been invented, but Edwards was surely invoking every spirit he could imagine on the sidelines in Columbia , S.C. , that afternoon. Exactly 47 years ago today, N.C. State was on the South Carolina 30-yard line, happy to have the ball after the Gamecocks had intercepted a pass on the previous play and almost ran it back for a game-winning touchdown as time expired. Instead, a disputed pass interference penalty brought the ball back to the other side of midfield and set up Edwards' quandary.
Edwards, who had won only two Atlantic Coast Conference games in his first three years as N.C. State 's head coach, was on the verge of something spectacular. A team that had been expected to win only one game all season, had in fact won six and tied two more, including a 7-7 affair against league favorite Duke. A Wolfpack win over the Gamecocks and a North Carolina win over Duke on that final Saturday of the season would give the Wolfpack its first conference football title since 1927.
On the sidelines, Edwards got a tug on the sleeve. It was his All-America halfback, Dick Christy. ""Coach, let me try it,'' Christy said. Christy was the Wolfpack's first football superstar, a double-duty, double-sport guy who had already scored all 26 of the Wolfpack's points with four touchdowns and two PATs that afternoon against the Gamecocks. But he had never tried a field goal in his college career. So sending Christy onto the field, with no time left on the clock, was a monumental risk for Edwards, whose team could not win the ACC championship with a tie unless the Blue Devils tied with the Tar Heels as well. Christy, a strapping 6-foot-2, 191-pound halfback, was an All-America high school player who followed Edwards to Raleigh simply because the coach didn't care that Christy wanted to marry his high school sweetheart. Other coaches who were recruiting Christy said he wouldn't be allowed to marry until after he finished playing college football.
Christy excelled in his three varsity seasons, playing offense, defense and running back kicks. He had kickoff returns of 96 and 97 yards in the Wolfpack's first three games of 1957, and in Tallahassee , Fla. , he quite literally ran off a Florida State defensive back who later turned out to be that school's biggest football benefactor. It was just before halftime against the Seminoles when Christy ducked down the sidelines on a pass pattern, left the field of play, ran behind the Seminole bench and back onto the field behind the FSU cornerback. The officials didn't call the obvious penalty and Florida State coach Tom Nugent jumped all over his defensive back, who was trying to return to college football after sustaining a knee injury two years before. That play in the 7-0 N.C. State victory is what made Burt Reynolds decide to give up football and head to Hollywood.
But no single performance in ACC history has ever out-shone what Christy did 47 years ago. Christy had already scored 26 points when he trotted onto the field for his first career field goal attempt. The kick was hardly picture perfect: it was a low-liner that barely got over the crossbar. But it went through, and as the Wolfpack celebrated in the lockerroom in Columbia , it got word by telephone that the Tar Heels had indeed beaten the Blue Devils, giving the Wolfpack the first of its five conference titles under Edwards.
There is, however, a sense of sadness about that performance, if only because Christy's legacy doesn't register much among modern fans.
Perhaps it's because he and the Wolfpack never got to play in the Orange Bowl, as they were supposed to. Even though Edwards' squad won the league title outright, it could not go to the bowl because every sport on campus was banned from post-season competition as part of a four-year probation handed down to Everett Case's basketball team. Perhaps it's because Christy, who went on to become an AFL All-Star in 1962 and was named to both the Silver and Golden Anniversary teams by the ACC, never got to grow old with his legend. He died prematurely, on July 8, 1966, in a single-car accident outside his hometown of Chester, Pa.
He is still remembered fondly by his former teammates, but they are also fading into distant memories.
"He was such a good guy," said Dick "Amedo" DeAngelis, who blocked for Christy for three years. "He was married, so he didn't hang out much with the rest of the players. But he was a terrific athlete, who played three ways on football and was a very good diver for the swimming team, which is something a lot of people don't know."
Perhaps it's because the award given in Christy's honor; to the Wolfpack's Most Valuable Player in the South Carolina game; had to be discontinued when the two teams stopped playing each other on a regular basis. The old ACC rivals have played each other only once since 1991.
Christy's family has always maintained strong interest in the Wolfpack program. His son, Richard Earle Christy, was born at the old Rex Hospital in Raleigh, but he has lived most of his life in Pennsylvania and did not follow his father south to attend college.
Christy's widow, Louise, came with her family on the fall afternoon in 1997 when the school retired her late husband's No. 40 jersey. Part of that entourage included his grandson, Richard Joseph ""Dick'' Christy II, who was then a freshman golfer at Wingate College near Charlotte .
Now, after earning his B.S. sports management, the youngest Christy is assistant athletics director at NC State. He'll get a masters degree in Parks, Recreation and Tourism, with a concentration in sports management, from NC State in a few months. Not long after that, he's scheduled to get married to Windy Dotson, who he met during his undergraduate days at Wingate.
"It's always special for me to be around NC State," Christy says. "I have always had an affinity for the school, and that just grew when I began working in the athletics department as an intern the summer after my junior year.
"Now, as things have unfolded, it really means something special for me to be here, because the university and the football program have always been a part of my family."
And, lest anyone forgets as the golden anniversary of his grandfather's remarkable performance approaches, vice versa.
You may contact Tim Peeler at mailto: tim_peeler@ncsu.edu .
