North Carolina State University Athletics
NC State's 2014 Hall of Fame Class: Lou Pucillo
9/30/2014 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
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RALEIGH, N.C. - Nearly 60 years after his illustrious NC State basketball career, Lou Pucillo is still thrilling Wolfpack fans with behind-the-back passes. Recently, while passing the collection plate at Hayes Barton United Methodist Church, Pucillo handed the plate to the people behind him.
“Hey Lou,” a nearby man inside the church said, “behind-the-back pass.”
The passion for basketball and sports by NC State’s great fans, Pucillo says, that has helped him along the way to being inducted into the 2014 class of the NC State Athletics Hall of Fame.
“It’s amazing. There is so much interest in basketball in this state,” Pucillo said. “The fans are so great. We have such a great sports tradition here. “
Pucillo, at 5-9 and 150 pounds, was the smallest player ever recruited by NC State’s legendary coach Everett Case. He was cut from his high school team in Philadelphia and didn’t even try out for the team as a high school junior. Just a few years later, he’d be in a station wagon heading south to accept his only college scholarship offer – one given to him by Case to play for the Wolfpack.
After a pedestrian high school career, Pucillo enrolled at Temple Prep School in Philadelphia. His father had convinced him to take a Spanish class, and he enrolled in the school with no thoughts of playing for the basketball team. He was eventually asked to play for Temple Prep, and that’s when Pucillo caught the eye of State assistant coach Vic Bubas. The game where Bubas changed his life wasn’t terribly exciting. Pucillo’s squad was playing the team from the Philadelphia School for the Deaf.
“There was no competition,” Pucillo recalled of the short work his Temple Prep School had that night. “I probably didn’t even score 12 points.”
Yet, Bubas liked the point guard who was small in stature but giant in excitement. Soon, Bubas talked Case into offering Pucillo a chance to play for the Wolfpack. Case, who didn’t appreciate behind-the-back passing and fancy dribbling, eventually relented.
“I was destined to play at NC State and to live in Raleigh,” Pucillo said. “You can believe in God’s favor or coincidence, but I know which one I’ll choose.”
In the coming years, Pucillo would author one of the legendary playing careers in NC State basketball history. As a junior in 1958, Pucillo averaged 15.7 points per game and was picked second team All-ACC.
In 1959, Pucillo scored 14.6 points per game en route to be named an All-American by all major outlets and ACC Player of the Year. When asked his favorite accolade during his time at State, he mentions the 1959 ACC Player of the Year laurel as well as being named ACC Athlete of the Year for all sports. The only other athlete from NC State to capture that ACC award is David Thompson.
“I didn’t really consider myself an athlete,” Pucillo said. “I am not very good at golf and was just a fair tennis player. I was just a kid who played basketball seven hours a day.”
The 1958-59 team, led by Pucillo and All-American center John Richter, went 22-4 and claimed the ACC regular season and tournament championships. That was Case’s final conference title.
After his college days, Pucillo had short stints playing professional basketball in the National Industrial and Eastern Professional basketball leagues. In July 1961, he took a teaching and coaching job at Page Senior High School in Greensboro. Yet, he still wasn’t done with NC State.
A month after he started at Page, Case called and asked him to coach NC State’s freshman team. Pucillo coached the Wolfpack freshmen for three seasons, coinciding with the end of Case’s run as coach at NC State.
Pucillo has spent his life after basketball living in Raleigh and cheering on the Wolfpack. He started Lou Pucillo, Inc., a spirits distributing company, in 1977 and ran it until he retired. He lives with his wife of 53 years, Marcie, just a short drive from NC State’s campus.
When NC State Athletics Director Deborah Yow called Pucillo to inform him he’d be inducted into NC State’s third athletics hall of fame class, he told her his story and how honored he was to be inducted.
“I told Debbie how honored I was. North Carolina State was the only school that gave me a chance,” Pucillo said. “I was lucky I had only one scholarship because if Temple or Villanova or La Salle would’ve offered, I like to think I would’ve made the right decision, but I would’ve been tempted to pick one of those schools. My family was there. Look at all I would’ve missed. Fifty-nine years of living in Heaven.”
