NC State Wolfpack

By Tony Haynes

If you turn down on Trinity Road in Raleigh and pass by NC State's Carter-Finley Stadium this week, you'll see a sure sign of progress. The near antiquated scoreboard that had been perched above the south end zone since the 1980's is now gone. Yep, that's right, it's been wiped out to make room for some long overdue improvements to a facility that opened in 1966.

When coaches Lou Holtz and Mike O'Cain met at midfield prior to a game between South Carolina and the Wolfpack on opening night in 1999, Holtz said "the only thing that's changed around here in 25 years is a coat of paint."

Holtz, who coached the Pack between 1972-75, wasn't far off. But now things are about to change. The Carter-Finley facelift, which has been talked about and promised for so many years, is finally about to begin.

In what will be more than just a symbolic gesture on Sunday March 4, NC State football coach Chuck Amato we'll be joined by other university dignitaries for a significant groundbreaking ceremony.

"It's going to be an exciting day," said Bobby Purcell, the Executive Director of the Wolfpack Club. "We'll have coach Amato there, the Chancellor there, athletic director Lee Fowler and a lot of former Wolfpack football players. We hope everyone will come out and be a part of this historic occasion."

The Groundbreaking, which will begin at 12:15 p.m. behind the south end zone, will officially kick off Phase I of the stadium renovation project. And if everything goes as planned, Carter-Finley will have more than just a "new coat of paint" next fall.

"The new scoreboard will be in place prior to next season," Purcell said. "Also, the south end zone will be enclosed, and the grass bank will be gone. By next season, hopefully, we'll have 55-hundred permanent seats there which will include several hundred seats with chair-backs on that end."

The new $2 million scoreboard, which will be located behind the Finley Fieldhouse on the north end of the stadium, will feature a massive TV replay screen. Once Phase I is completed this year, there will still be plenty of work left to be done.

The next step will be to add a four-story football operations center on the south end, three new practice fields located to the northeast of the stadium and a new press box, which will cost approximately $2 million.

The cost of the entire project will be somewhere in the neighborhood of $55 million. That's a far cry from the $3.7 million it took to build the stadium itself in the 1960's.

Admission to Sunday's groundbreaking is free.

"Anybody can come," Purcell said. "We hope everyone will bring their families and come out. It won't be a long ceremony. Obviously, we're going to get out of there in time for people to get to the basketball game (vs. Wake Forest at 1:30 p.m.)."

Come out and allow yourself to dream as you stare at the debris and the dirt. Dream about what one day will be the state-of-the-art football facility NC State's coaches, players and fans have been talking about for a decade.

This time, it's finally going to happen.