TIM PEELER: NC State Football's Greatest Day

BY TIM PEELER

RALEIGH, N.C. For nearly six seconds, everyone stands on the field watching, as the low-liner of a kick wobbles towards the goal post. Literally, each player is standing with his arms at his sides, waiting to see if the ball will go through the uprights.

On this vintage film, it never does. But the celebration that ensues on the turf at Carolina Stadium leaves no doubt about what happened after that interminable wait: the 36-yard field goal is good, and the fuzzy team in dark jerseys begins a joyous celebration.

In exactly 50 years since that celebration ended with NC State beating South Carolina for the school’s first ACC football championship no one in any sport has ever had a more dominating individual performance than Wolfpack All-America halfback Dick Christy on Nov. 23, 1957.

The story is well known to Wolfpack fans. Christy scored all four of his team’s touchdowns, added a pair of PATs and then kicked the game-winning field goal, on the only attempt of his career.

Highlights of the game have never been readily available. But even in this rare three-minute video, culled from a long-forgotten season highlight tape owned by team member Fran Tokar and shared with GoPack.com earlier this season at a 50th anniversary reunion, it’s obvious that Christy is the most dominating player on the field. Sure, he may have muffed a kick after South Carolina scored the game's first touchdown, but he picked up the ball and ran back 56 yards, inside the South Carolina 20 to set up his first score of the day.

Never mind that left halfback and team captain Dick Hunter nearly stole Christy’s thunder in the second quarter by catching a pass and lunging towards the end zone. He went out of bounds at the 1-yard line, and on the next play, Christy plunged through the line for his second touchdown of the day, even though it could have been called back because left tackle Fran Paladrini left a little early on the snap.

Christy was clearly a tough guy. He was slammed with a late hit near the Wolfpack 20 yard-line in the third-quarter, but he dusted himself off and scored on the very next play. He got some height on his goal-line dives, taking off as early as the 4-yard line on one of his Superman flights.

He even took over the kicking duties from Hunter, who had missed his last seven extra-point attempts, to keep the Wolfpack in the game, booting through two PATs.

The Wolfpack needed every point it could get, because the Gamecocks kept scoring against the ACC’s best defense, which recorded five shutouts that season and had allowed just 41 points in the team’s first eight games. South Carolina tied the game at 26-26 with just over a minute to play when All-ACC halfback Alex Hawkins threw a 16-yard touchdown pass to Julius Derrick.

South Carolina thought it secured a tie which would have been the third of the season for the Pack, after a 14-14 affair with Duke and a scoreless tie at Miami -- on the game’s final play from scrimmage, when its defense intercepted a Tom Katich pass and returned it to the NC State 15-yard line as time expired. But the Gamecocks were called for pass interference, and the Wolfpack got the ball back, with no time remaining, on the 30-yard line.

Kicking had been a problem for the Wolfpack all season long. Hunter took over the kicking duties in the preseason his kicks were straight but not long. He did fine most of the year, but got a case of the kicking yips beginning with the 19-0 win over Wake Forest. He missed his final seven PATs of the season, including two against the Gamecocks.

Christy, who practiced kicking in his spare time, convinced Wolfpack head coach Earle Edwards to let him handle the extra points against the Gamecocks, making two.

When the Wolfpack had the one free play to win the game, there wasn’t much thought of kicking a field goal: The team hadn’t made a three-pointer all season long. Assistant coach Pat Peppler was in the press box trying to come up with a play that would get Hunter free in the open field, hoping the small but tough back could create a play to get into the end zone.

Instead, Christy was on the sidelines convincing Edwards to let him take a crack at kicking the ball. The coach finally relented.

“Well,” said the reserved Edwards, “you’ve done everything else today. Go ahead and try.”

With Hunter serving as the holder, Christy lined up for the game-winner, took his time and cleanly booted a wobbly line drive towards the uprights.

"I held my head down for a moment," Christy told newspaper reporters after the game. "Then I looked up and saw the official raise his arms. Man, I was stunned. But, oh, it felt good.

"No doubt, no doubt, it was the greatest day I've ever had on a football field."

Charlotte Observer sportswriter Herman Helms described what happened next, after the ball cleared the crossbar: “His jubilant teammates, bursting with emotion, proceeded to tear his clothes to pieces in a touching scene at midfield.”

The celebration didn’t end there. When the players returned to the lockerroom, they learned that North Carolina had beaten Duke, giving the Wolfpack the ACC Championship. Edwards also got a phone call from a strapping high school all-star from Wilmington, N.C., that afternoon, saying he would like to play football, baseball and basketball for the Wolfpack.

That’s the day Roman Gabriel said he would join the Wolfpack.

The team’s buses left Columbia soon after the game was over, though about half the players rode home with family or friends.

“I was on the bus with about half of the other players, with Coach Edwards and Mrs. (Mary) Edwards,” said Ken Nye, one of Christy’s backups in the backfield. “Somewhere outside of Columbia, the bus stopped and each of the players took their small carry-on bags and bought at least a six-pack of beer for the ride back to Raleigh.

“As the singing got louder, it was pretty apparent to the coach what was going on and he told all the underclassmen to move to the front of the bus and let the seniors do as they pleased. When the bus got to Raleigh, Coach Edwards asked the bus driver to let he and his wife off near their home on Dixie Trail.”

And the coach let his players go to the celebration in front of Reynolds Coliseum without him.

Christy, obviously, earned the game-ball for his performance that day, and it currently resides in Charleston, S.C., in the office of former NC State basketball coach and athletics director Les Robinson, who was given the ball and Christy’s game-worn No. 40 jersey by the Christy family when the player’s number was retired during the fall of 1997.

Robinson befriended Christy and his wife after Christy returned to summer school during his time off from the NFL to work on his college degree. They became close, though Robinson never knew about Christy’s greatest game until he read the tributes the day after Christy died in an auto accident in Chester, Pa., in 1966.

“I have such great respect for him and all that he accomplished,” Robinson said. “I talk about him a lot when I speak to groups about humility. All the time my wife and I spent with him and his wife, he never once talked about that South Carolina game. I read the stories about it and was shocked.

“My intention is to give the game ball back to the NC State athletics department. That time could be coming soon. I see that NC State and South Carolina play the next two seasons.”

You may contact Tim Peeler at tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.

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