North Carolina State University Athletics
Bailey Welcomes Pack Back to Campus
8/12/2012 12:00:00 AM | Pack Athletics
Aug. 12, 2012
RALEIGH, N.C. - Twice cut from his junior high basketball team, Thurl Bailey got his big break as a 6-foot-9 high school freshman, when his coach appointed him jump-ball specialist.
Just after he won every opening tap of every game that season, however, his coach would call time-out to take the unseasoned center out of the game and send him to the end of the bench.
"I averaged 2.3 seconds per game my entire junior high career," Bailey recalls with a smile. "I didn't care. I just wanted to be on the team."
Bailey didn't fare much better until his senior year at Seat Pleasant (Md.) High School, when he went practically unnoticed in what may have been the single greatest high school recruiting class in the history of basketball.
He didn't, however, let it deter him from his dream to follow in the footsteps of his childhood idol, Julius Erving.
Dr. J was the sole reason Bailey - an accomplished trombone player and president of the high school flag-raising club - ever became interested in playing basketball.
Bailey, the keynote speaker of the "Welcome Back Pack" banquet Sunday night at the McKimmon Center, talked about his failures almost as much as his successes.
"With failure, you're always looking what you can do differently to be successful," Bailey said. "What would it take to get you back out there again after failing time-after-time?"
For Bailey, it was the desire to be on par with a superstar like Erving.
He turned that question to a rapt audience, which included every Wolfpack varsity squad, save the internationally traveling men's basketball team, at the two-hour event.
Even Tom O'Brien's football squad arrived following its second practice of the day. Athletics director Debbie Yow even flew home early from Spain to attend the event, getting home from the nine-hour flight just in time for the banquet.
While most athletes have been on campus all summer, several teams have ramped up their preparations for their coming seasons, with men's and women's soccer and volleyball practice joining football in preseason practice.
Bailey - now an accomplished singer/song-writer, motivational speaker and color analyst for the Utah Jazz - serenaded the packed house with two original compositions and lessons from his playing career, which included winning the 1983 ACC and NCAA championships while at NC State and a professional playing career that exceeded every one of his exalted comtemporaries.
Even though he was in the same high school recruiting class as Ralph Sampson, Dominique Wilkins, Sidney Green, James Worthy, John Paxson, Sam Bowie, Antoine Carr and Clark Kellogg, among others, Bailey had a longer professional basketball career than any of them.
Not bad for a skinny young man who was told not to waste his junior high coach's time by trying out a third year in a row. Fortunately for Bailey, that coach left, he continued to practice hard on the packed-dirt basketball court in his parents' driveway and NC State coach Norm Sloan needed a power forward after both Wilkins and Green backed out on their verbal commitments to play for the Wolfapck.
Though he was raw, Bailey came to NC State with DeMatha Catholic High School stars Dereck Whittenburg and Sidney Lowe to form the nucleus of the "Cardiac Pack," the team head coach Jim Valvano led to the 1983 ACC and NCAA championships.
Bailey led the Pack in scoring and rebounding three straight years. By the time he was a senior, he had filled out his 6-foot-11 frame, developed a deadly jump shot and could do a lot more than just win the game-opening jump ball.
Shortly after he and his teammates pulled off the impossible - beating Houston's Phi Slama Jama in the title game in Albuquerque, N.M. - Bailey was taken as the seventh overall pick of the NBA draft by the Utah Jazz. He spent 12 years in the NBA and four years playing overseas.
He continued his renaissance image following his playing career, recording three albums, designing his own clothing line and becoming one of the most sought-after speakers for the Church of Latter Day Saints following his conversion to Mormonism.
Though he remembered his time at NC State as the greatest four years of his life, culminating with the national title, nothing could ever top his first professional basketball game.
As he waited for the opening jump, there was a tap on the shoulder from an opposing player. He looked down at the out-stretched palm and noticed that he was about to shake hands with Dr. J.
"Congratulations on a great college basketball career," said Bailey's new peer. "And welcome to the NBA."
Bailey, the boy would couldn't dribble the basketball in junior high, knew he had arrived.
