North Carolina State University Athletics
Getting to Know: Everette Sands
2/16/2011 12:00:00 AM | Football
Feb. 16, 2011
RALEIGH, N.C. – Here’s something that not everyone knows about new NC State running backs coach Everette Sands in his four-year career as a wishbone fullback at the Citadel in the early 1990s, he was never tackled behind the line of scrimmage.
In 741 career rushing attempts, he gained 3,926 yards, scored 34 touchdowns and never, ever went backwards. A four-time All-Southern Conference selection, Sands is still the second-leading career rusher in school history behind the legendary Stump Mitchell.
Now, NC State’s newest assistant coach will look to teach his forward-heading methods to a young crop of Wolfpack running backs, after being named as running backs coach Jason Swepson’s replacement on head coach Tom O’Brien’s staff earlier this week. Sands is far from being settled, but he knows the direction he is going.
“One of the big things I’ll concentrate on is taking care of the ball,” Sands said Wednesday afternoon. “That’s a big deal for me. That will continue to be important to me. The other thing is to be a complete back. We know they can all run the ball – that’s why we recruited them.
“But they also have to block in pass protection and catch the ball out of the backfield.”
Sands is just the 22nd assistant O’Brien has hired in his 14 years as a head coach. But he won’t be shy about joining the tight family of Wolfpack coaches. The only member of the staff Sands previously knew was Jim Bridge, who worked with Sands at the Citadel in 1996. His first face-to-face meeting with O’Brien was during his official interview, which was in the Murphy Center on Feb. 3, the day after National Signing Day.
“Part of it is to just jump in with both feet and get going,” Sands said. “During the interview process, I got the opportunity to get to know some of those guys, to learn who they played with and who they have worked with. We're building our relationships.”
But his experiences of playing for and coaching at a military-style school like the Citadel gave him an immediate bond with O’Brien, the Navy graduate and former Marine officer.
“He's very structured and that is something I am used to,” Sands said. “I’m anxious to get this opportunity to work with him.”
He’s also working to get to know his players. It’s a young group with only one senior, fullback Taylor Gentry. But he does have prior knowledge of sophomore Mustafa Greene, who Sands saw as a player while Greene at Columbia’s Irmo High School.
Besides coaching the running backs, Sands will be responsible for recruiting Durham, much of South Carolina and Georgia and the Jacksonville and Space Coast regions of Florida. Having recruited in South Carolina at each of his four college coaching gigs (at the Citadel twice, at Elon and at Ohio University), Sands has an excellent rapport with coaches in the Palmetto State.
For now, however, he’s trying to acquaint himself with Raleigh, and change over his wardrobe from the Citadel’s light-blue colors to the red and white of NC State.
“I wore a Citadel-blue shirt for the last time on my last day in Charleston,” Sands said. “I didn’t think that color would go over very well around here.”
• By Tim Peeler, tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
