North Carolina State University Athletics
Tony Haynes: An Action-`Packed' Spring
6/12/2006 12:00:00 AM | Pack Athletics
June 12, 2006
As the summer months roll in and the temperatures heat up, all is relatively quiet on the NC State campus. Once the final second semester exams are taken and many of the students disperse, Hillsborough Street and the entire campus take on a different, more reserved personality. The same is true at many of the athletic facilities. Athletes in many sports use this time of year to catch up academically with summer school, while many coaches are either vacationing, attending clinics or recruiting. And just maybe, everyone is taking a deep breath in the aftermath of what evolved into one of the most action-packed springs in NC State sports history.
There's very little doubt that the wild string of events started just seconds after the Wolfpack men's basketball team was eliminated from the NCAA Tournament with a second round loss to Texas. In what certainly became an omen of things to come, Wolfpack head coach Herb Sendek and his team literally went in different directions. While players and assistant coaches returned to the locker room through one tunnel, Sendek walked by himself through another. Two weeks later, he was being introduced as the new head coach at Arizona State.
For the first time in 10-plus years, NC State was in the market for a new men's basketball coach.
Over the next six weeks, athletic director Lee Fowler's search for Sendek's successor was accompanied by wild rumors, shifting speculation, criticism and often unfounded and unsubstantiated innuendo. And while newspapers, broadcast outlets and fans desperately sought new information, Fowler quietly and methodically conducted his search. The stealthy nature of the process often left information seekers frustrated and feeling out of touch.
As it turned out, the search also overshadowed the fact that many of NC State's lesser-covered sports teams were performing at a much-improved level.
In early April, Cullen Jones won NC State's first national championship in swimming when he captured the NCAA title in the 50-yard freestyle.
On the tennis court, both the men's and women's teams were shedding years of frustration by earning NCAA bids.
Both golf teams also continued a string of NCAA appearances.
Fielding a hard-hitting group that led the ACC in batting most of the season, coach Elliott Avent's baseball team rose to as high as seventh in the national polls before cooling off at the end of the season. The Pack then found new life in the ACC Tournament in Jacksonville, Florida, where it advanced to the conference title game as a No. 7 seed before finally falling to top-seeded Clemson.
But no one could have predicted the meteoric rise of the NC State softball program. In just its third year of existence and still playing without its own facility, the Wolfpack made an improbable statement by winning both the ACC regular season crown and the tournament title.
Off the field, NC State athletes were also making plenty of noise. On the evening of Friday, April 28th, the Houston Texans stunned the football world when they announced that they would be using the No. 1 pick of the National Football League Draft on NC State defensive end Mario Williams. The historic occasion made Williams the first-ever player from the ACC to be selected No. 1.
By the end of the opening round of picks, two other Wolfpack defensive linemen would have their names called when end Manny Lawson was taken by San Francisco and tackle John McCargo was scooped up by Buffalo. Overall, a school record six Wolfpack players would be selected in the draft.
The NC State baseball team also equaled a school record when eight of its players were taken in last week's Major League Draft.
Overall, all eight of NC State's spring sports teams qualified for postseason play, a school first.
Still, many of those accomplishments ended up taking a backseat to a coaching search that finally came to a popular conclusion when NC State welcomed one of its own back into the fold. But the hiring of former Wolfpack point guard Sidney Lowe didn't come without some complications.
Lowe, who helped the Pack win the 1983 national title, first had to finish up his obligations as an assistant with the NBA's Detroit Pistons. And even after the Pistons were eliminated from the playoffs, Lowe then had to concentrate on earning his degree and passing the NCAA's recruiting exam.
Although July 1 has been designated as Lowe's official first day on the job, it's now expected that he'll be cleared to take over before then.
It will mark a new beginning, one that will also put a stamp on what truly has been an action-packed period in Wolfpack athletics.
