TIM PEELER: Gugliotta In Spotlight Again for Pack Fans
3/9/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
BY TIM PEELER
TAMPA, Fla. – For a little while Friday morning, NC State basketball fans were able to shout “Googs” one more time.
Tom Gugliotta, a recruiting favor by Wolfpack coach Jim Valvano who turned into an All-ACC forward, was the featured speaker at the Wolfpack Club’s annual ACC Tournament breakfast at the Tampa Hyatt-Regency hotel.
He took a rambling trip down memory lane for the 200 or so people in attendance, recalling his unlikely recruitment from Huntington Station, N.Y., his remarkable improvement while at NC State and his 13-year NBA career.
Gugliotta was a small-college or mid-major recruit the summer before his senior year of high school. But he performed well enough at the Five-Star Basketball camp that summer to convince his basketball coach father, Frank Gugliotta, to call Jim Valvano, whom the elder Gugliotta knew from Long Island basketball camps some 20 years before.
Valvano went to see Gugliotta play, but was not impressed. The coach visited the Gugliotta home, spent an evening with the family, and offered Tom a scholarship. But the coach clearly did not offer Gugliotta an optimistic outlook for playing time.
“Before he could pull the paper away, I signed it,” Gugliotta said. “I started with an X, just to be sure, because I have a pretty long last name.”
After Gugliotta’s freshman year, Valvano basically told him that he wasn’t an ACC player, an assessment that both angered and inspired him. He hit the weight room, added 30 pounds to his growing 6-foot-8 frame and became one of the best all-round basketball players in Wolfpack history. He still ranks in the top 15 of every major statistical category.
Gugliotta was the No. 6 pick in the 1992 NBA draft, by the Washington Bullets. His best seasons were with the Minnesota Timberwolves, averaging double figure scoring in his first eight years in the league. He was a 1997 All-Star selection, when he averaged 21.4 points per game for the Timberwolves.
He was also selected to represent the US on the 2000 Olympic team, but a major knee injury ended his hopes of becoming the third former NC State player – after Tommy Burleson in 1972 and Kenny Carr in 1976 – to represent the US in Olympic hoops.
He retired from the NBA in 2005, after playing for seven franchises and scoring 9,895 career points and grabbing 5,589 career rebounds.
After living for seven years in Phoenix, Gugliotta recently moved to Atlanta, where he spends time with his 7-year-old daughter, Greer, and his girlfriend, Keri. He’s done some television work as an NBA expert for Comcast and has been coaching youth league teams.
He’s now looking to find a front-office job with a professional basketball franchise. Coaching, he says, has no appeal to him.
“I am sort of feeling things out a little bit, trying to find out what I want to do now,” Gugliotta said. “I have a lot of fun things to think about. I was lucky to play 13 of professional basketball. The last two years, I was sort of planning what I wanted to do after my career was over.
“I knew my time in basketball was done, so it made it easy to accept. I don’t have any regrets about my career. I went through a lot of things, and they all taught me a lot. I think I am a better person for it.”
The breakfast program was actually a two-for-one proposition for Wolfpack Club members who came to hear Gugliotta, who will also represent NC State at the ACC’s annual Legends luncheon on Saturday morning.
Many supporters also got the opportunity to say hello to former Wolfpack All-America guard Rodney Monroe, the school’s all-time leading scorer. Monroe, who has a permanent home in Palm Beach, Fla., just returned from a two-month stay in Naples, Italy, where he completed his 14th season of professional basketball.
Monroe thinks it may finally be his last.
“At this point in my career, I am really not sure,” Monroe said. “If someone offers me a deal I can’t refuse, of course I have to take it.”
But he really wants to settle back in Raleigh after spending the last two decades traveling around the world to play basketball. He played in the NBA, the Continental Basketball Association and all over Europe. His oldest son, 9-year-old Myles, was born in Greece. His 7-year-old daughter Madison and 2-year-old son Christian were both born in Italy.
“Thank God, I have been blessed with not too many injuries,” Monroe said. “So I am feeling pretty good, with nothing nagging me. But my wife (Judy) and I are thinking about what our next move will be, and we would really like to get back to Raleigh.
“Chris Corchiani has been on me for the last 10 years to come back and I am looking forward to it.”
You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.