That Magic Moment

There are wonderful moments in life when God seems to smile upon you, sharing all of the joy to be found between heaven and earth — magical moments.

When your fiancée, dressed in white lace and wearing a veil, walks radiantly through a congregation of friends and family, in a church richly adorned by murals and translucent colored glass, as the Bridal Chorus plays.

Dianne, with her father - June 23, 1991

And when you hold your newborn twins, swaddled in blankets, wrapped up with love. You touch their palms, and their little fingers wrap around yours, and the tiny lips on their golden faces pucker.

Those moments are the best of all. They are indisputably the best moments of my life.

Mom and Dad with newborn twins - November 1994

Other Landmark Moments

And there have been other wonderful moments as well:

Standing on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, slowly turning to see the entire panorama… during a cross-country trip… while returning home.

Looking across Derwent Water towards Keswick from the ridge of a mountain in the Lake District, with sheep paddocks and hedgerows decorating the landscape like a patchwork.

Leaving the Fort Pitt tunnel and crossing the bridge above the Monongahela River as the lights and skyscrapers of downtown Pittsburgh loom closer and closer.

Pittsburgh & the Monongahela (credit: Emmanuel Panagiotakis)

Hiking a trail in the Cradle of Forestry when the scarlet leaves of the oak trees are at the peak of autumn color.

Backing over the edge of a cliff in the Devil’s Playground of Arches National Park, suspended by a rope and a harness, as the rest of your family watch and wait for their turn.

Standing on the tidal basin of the Potomac, at the foot of the Jefferson Monument as the cherry blossom petals fall.

Potomac Tidal Basin in Spring (credit: Dwight Nadig)

Looking down on the Lauterbrunnen Valley from the edge of the glacial valley near Mürren.

Looking out on the flotilla of balloons rising above the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia in Goreme, Turkey.

Looking up at the frescoes of Marc Chagall on the ceiling of the Palais Garnier in Paris.

The Opera House—Palais Garnier

I’ve been blessed with wonderful moments and wonderful opportunities: Being selected for the School of Science and Math. Being selected for Duke Medical School. Being selected for an international student exchange in Adelaide, South Australia.

Of all these transcendent moments in time (and others), there is one that surpasses almost all the rest—all but my wedding and the birth of my children.

Can you guess what it is—what could be so magical?

It’s the moment on April 4th, 1983, when Lorenzo Charles grabbed the wayward shot from Derrick Whittenburg, just short of the rim, and dunked it in. With seconds on the clock, he sealed a 54–52 victory for NC State, winning the NCAA Men’s Basketball National Championship.

Yep… I rank it third on the list of all-time great moments in my life so far:

-Marrying the woman I love.

-Holding my baby twins.

-Celebrating the unlikely victory of my alma mater.

Solidly third.

The Cinderella Season

Considered by many to be one of the biggest upsets in college basketball history, there is a documentary called 30 for 30: Survive and Advance that is all about the ’82–’83 season. There was also a VHS tape released decades ago, called The Glass Slipper Still Fits, that tells the story. It’s still in a closet in our house somewhere. You can learn more about the details of the magical season at your leisure or watch the highlights. I’m just going to describe what I remember.

Let’s start at the beginning.

I grew up in Raleigh, and I followed the NC State Wolfpack, rooting for them for at least eight years before I attended college.

The Wolfpack had won the men’s national basketball championship before, in 1974, with David Thompson, Monte Towe, and Tommy Burleson, ending a decade of dominance in the tournament by UCLA. I was almost ten years old when they won the first time, and just about everyone in Raleigh was thrilled about the team. (Some UNC fans couldn’t get on board.)

The 1974 Wolfpack team—Norm Sloan in plaid.

But the days of wine and roses were over by the time I went to college. The previous coach, Norm Sloan, left town for greener pastures in 1980 (the same year I left town for NCSSM), but before he left, he recruited some promising players from DeMatha High School in D.C.—Sidney Lowe and Dereck Whittenburg.

In 1982, guards Whittenburg and Lowe were seniors, and there were some other pretty good players — forward Thurl Bailey, center Cozelle McQueen, and guard Ernie Myers, who played sticky defense.

Guard Terry Gannon, the sixth man, was a good three-point shooter, taking shots from behind the arc. It was the first year that the three-point shot was introduced (as an experimental rule) in the ACC. There was hope that the new season would go well for the Pack.

And there was a promising rookie, named Lorenzo Charles, who was muscular and talented. He was a wildcard.

There was also a young but unproven coach from Iona named Jimmy Valvano, who was a brash Italian from Queens with some new ideas, and a unique affinity for the media. Folks didn’t really expect him to amount to much.

Valvano, at a press conference on his first day

This was the situation when I transferred in the fall of 1982, from Vanderbilt University to NC State. I moved into Turlington Dorm on central campus in January of 1983, and began to take my classes in PE, English, Psychology, Calculus, and Physics.

No one expected too much of the basketball program, but we still liked to go from time to time and join in the excitement at Reynolds Coliseum. It was only a block away — on the other side of the Talley Student Union.

We dressed up in the school colors. We created wolf shapes with our hands. We would cheer “Red!” from one side of the stadium and “White!” from the other side, until it turned into “Fred” and “Fwhite”.

And when the marching band played the intro to the fight song, we sang:

We’re the Red and White from State,

And we know we are the best.

A hand behind our back,

We can take on all the rest.

Come over the hill, Caroline.

[Or, more often, “Go to hell, Carolina!”]

Devils and Deacs stand in line.

The Red and White from N.C. State.

Go State!

Members of the Wolfpack fanbase

With our raucous fan support, the ‘82-‘83 season got off to a pretty good start: N.C. State started off 7-2, before meeting the University of Virginia on January 12, 1983. That’s when disaster struck.

Derrick Whittenburg got hurt during the game, breaking a bone in his foot, putting him out of commission for the next 14 games in a row. Still… the team played well enough to go 9–5 during his absence. When ‘Whit’ came back, the team initially struggled, losing two more games, to Virginia and Maryland.

I was at the final regular season game of the season against Wake Forest. We won! And it was a slaughter. The Wolfpack played so well that they ended the game with a 41-point lead, winning 130 to 89. We believed we still had a chance to make the NCAA tournament.

The ACC Tournament

At the end of the season, the team had a record of 17 wins and 10 losses. No one had ever been sent to the NCAA tourney with double digit losses before. But we were fourth in the conference, and had a chance to advance if we won the ACC tournament. It was still possible.

But it was a real long shot because UNC was returning from their own NCAA national championship season (in 1982) with Sam Perkins and Michael Jordan.

And, even worse, Virginia had the national player of the year, Ralph Sampson, and was ranked fourth in the nation.

But first we had to play Wake Forest again. The second time around, only six days after the rout in the season finale, the Demon Deacons were well prepared. I don’t know the details, but the Wolfpack barely won the game, winning by a single point, in a nail-biter, after coming from behind.

Then they beat UNC in the ACC semifinals, in a game that went to overtime.

Then they played Virginia, the source of their earlier misfortune (and two regular season losses). And they won again, barely – by three points.

But they won, nonetheless. They were the ACC tournament champs, and they earned themselves an automatic bid to the NCAA tourney.

Somewhere around this time, the media dubbed them The Cardiac Pack. Watching them play from behind most of the game, only to win and advance, could give you a heart attack. Lots of red and white apparel, bumper stickers, and NC State merchandise were being sold at the student store and on the streets of Raleigh. Tuffy, the wolf, was everywhere.

“Tuffy” - the NC State mascot

Cinderella at the Ball - The NCAA Tournament.

Five days after the ACC tournament win, the team flew out west, to Oregon, for a game against Pepperdine. I watched this game from home on TV as it ran late into the night. State struggled mightily, barely tying the game to force an overtime. After another five minutes of game time, they were still tied, and a second overtime ensued. It was after midnight before the game was decided.

The Pack squeaked by with a win in double overtime.

In the next game, NC State was given little chance of winning. They faced the ‘running rebels’ of UNLV, a team with a reputation for blowout victories. Many pundits noted, rightly, that NC State depended quite a bit on outside shooting. The NCAA had not yet adopted the three-point shot that was a feature in the ACC. So outside shooting was of significantly less benefit in the NCAA tourney.

Even so, State managed to win the game against UNLV, 71–70.

At this point, I wanted to see the games with my fellow fanatics. So I planned to see the Sweet Sixteen game on a big screen that was set up on “The Brickyard”, just outside the ground floor of the D. H. Hill library, right on campus.

This just happened to be the one game in the tournament that was a decisive double-digit win. The crowd of jubilant students were treated to a game that finally looked like it wasn’t just a fluke.

The national media was starting to pay attention. But in the end, we had to face Virginia again, in the Western Conference finals, in a game in Ogden, Utah. We had to get past Ralph Sampson and the Cavaliers again, in a revenge game.

In the end, it didn’t matter. We beat University of Virginia 63 to 62, to win the West bracket.

And we beat the University of Georgia 67 to 60 in the Final Four.

We were facing the University of Houston in the national championship game.

The Finals - David and Goliath

Houston was nicknamed Phi Slamma Jamma, for their dominant full court game and their high-flying dunking abilities. They had Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, two future NBA Hall of Famers. No one gave the Cardiac Pack a chance. It was pretty much over if you believed the national media. They were honestly wondering how to hype the game since it seemed so obvious that Houston was going to wipe the floor with NC State.

I watched this game at home, two miles from campus, with my brother. I was too worried about the outcome to watch it anywhere else.

In the first half, we came out aggressively, keeping Olajuwon away from the basket — protecting the rim. At the other end, Olajuwon was swatting away everything in his reach. Two or three baskets were awarded on goaltending calls alone. Still, Houston ran out to a sizable lead, and by the second half things looked pretty grim.

But somewhere in the second half, the game took a turn for the better. Houston stopped running the full-court break for reasons that the announcers couldn’t fathom. (It turns out that the elevation was causing exhaustion for some of the players on their team.) NC State crept back into contention through a combination of long-distance shooting and intentional fouls.

As Houston missed free throws and State hit their shots, the game became deadlocked at 52-all. NC State took possession and held it for a last second shot. They passed the ball around the perimeter.

Benny Anders nearly stole the ball from Whittenburg.

But Whit maintained possession.

He turned toward the basket, gathering the ball for a shot.

He was too far away.

Still, he had to let it fly.

Going in the right direction.

A pretty good arc.

But coming up short.

And that’s when it happened.

Lorenzo Charles’ Alley-oop Dunk at the buzzer

The best moment of my life (up to that point).

Still the third best moment of my life ever, over forty years later.

Epilogue

Mike and I drove up to Hillsborough Street after the buzzer, joined in the mob of jubilant fans, watching bonfires burn in the middle of the asphalt.

I went to the pep rally, set up on “The Brickyard” when the team returned from Albuquerque.

I saw Thurl Bailey once, on Western Boulevard when we pulled up to a stop light at the same time. He was in a convertible with some friends. I was all by myself. I was so stunned, I probably had a comical expression on my face. They gave an appreciative smile and a laugh, and they drove away.

The team struggled after the three seniors, Whittenburg, Lowe, and Bailey, graduated. The magic was gone.

I went to games to watch Spud Webb and Lorenzo Charles try to recapture the magic.

I watched as the fiasco of the recruitment and the antics of Chris Washburn played out while I was still an undergrad.

I watched from the wings as Chris Corchiani and Rodney Monroe tried to rekindle the magic while I was a student at Duke and at UNC. They made it to the Sweet Sixteen in 1989.

The following year the program served probation and sanctions for NCAA violations involving the sale of complimentary tickets and sneakers. I heard that some media hound (other words come to mind that I just can’t use) wrote a book that led to Jimmy Valvano’s departure in 1990: (Personal Fouls: The Broken Promises and Shattered Dreams of Big Money Basketball at Jim Valvano’s North Carolina State)

Jim Valvano left and became a media sensation on ESPN, with Dick Vitale, but he tragically died in 1993, at age 47, from prostate cancer.

Before he died, he gave one of the most inspirational speeches I have ever heard (maybe I’m biased), concluding with the phrase, “Don’t give up, Don’t ever give up.” After his death, it became the tagline for his foundation, the Jimmy V Foundation, ultimately raising hundreds of millions for cancer research.

Jimmy Valvano’s inspirational words

Since then I have followed NC State in spirit only, waiting for the magic to return.

Acknowledgements

I wouldn’t be writing these stories without the love and support of my beautiful wife, who I met about six years after the Cinderella season — ironically, at UNC–Chapel Hill.

Dianne Shihadi Gallup, in her bridal gown.

…and my two beautiful daughters, Jasmine and Samantha, who encouraged me to recall, and write about, the years of wine and roses. They were born about eleven years later – too late to understand the ecstasy of a national men’s basketball college championship victory.

Steve Gallup with Samantha and Jasmine.