RALEIGH, N.C. – It’s been 25 years. The principal players are a little thicker around the middle. And the coach that inspired them has been gone for a decade and a half. But the memories of NC State’s 1982-83 championship season seem to linger longer than most national titles.
Maybe it’s the constant replays of the final shot of the season, Lorenzo Charles’ catch-and-dunk of Dereck Whittenburg’s airball, the most famous miss in college basketball history.
Or the enduring legacy as one of the greatest upsets in the history of team sports, right up there with the Miracle Mets, the 1969 Super Bowl and the 1980 United States hockey team.
Or the fondness the world now has for then-NC State coach Jim Valvano, whose V Foundation for Cancer Research has refurbished the shine to his coaching career in general and that season in particular, thanks to his trademarked phrase “Don’t give up. Don’t ever give up.”
That was the mantra of the 1983 Wolfpack, as it won seven of its nine post-season games either on the final play of the game or in overtime. Eight times, the Wolfpack had to come back from second-half deficits. The only breather in the bunch was the NCAA semifinal game against Georgia.
For the next seven months, exclusively on GoPack.com, college basketball fans can relive the magic of the 1982-83 season, as it happened a quarter century ago, by navigating to this special section of the school’s website. The “Relive the Magic of 1983” button on the top right-hand side of the page will remain on GoPack.com throughout the coming basketball season.
Read about Valvano’s thoughts on the preseason, his expectations for the team and the roller-coast ride that took the Wolfpack from a 9-7 record in the regular-season to the pinnacle of success on a cold and windy night in Albuquerque, N.M., as it slew Houston’s Phi Slama Jama giant.
Throughout the year, GoPack.com managing editor Tim Peeler, whose book “When March Went Mad: A Celebration of NC State’s 1983 National Championship” is slated for release on Nov. 1, will retell the story of that season, through game and feature stories culled from newspaper and magazine stories at the time. There will also be dozens of pictures, some never before published, by professional and student photographers of that era.
And, unlike 1983, fans can relive the season via the internet with multimedia presentations that will include some audio of the coaches and players, as well as selected video clips. The 1983 media guide will also be on-line, along with biographies of the players and coaches. Fans can also view boxscores and statistics from the 1983 season, beginning with the first of three Red & White games played by Valvano’s team and one exhibition game against Marathon Oil.
Fans are also encouraged to share their stories from the 1983 season, from their experiences on The Brickyard and Hillsborough Street to the treks they made to see “Destiny’s Darlings” on their cross-country journey to history. E-mail your favorite anecdotes to tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
It was a season quite unlike any other, one that is etched in the memories of Wolfpack fans and college basketball fans alike. For those who were either too young to remember it or not yet born, this is a chance to see why Valvano’s “Cardiac Pack” remains one of the most enduring Cinderella tales in sports history.
Courtesy: Greg Hatem
