RIP Lorenzo Charles

Just a warning up front: I'm going to get pretty excited about being a State fan in this post. So, you know. If you're a State fan like me or if you just like the way I write, by all means, continue on. Otherwise, you have been warned.

You've probably seen or read about the death of N.C. State legend Lorenzo Charles this week in a bus accident.

If you went to State, or if you're a basketball fan in general, you know the story of the 1983 Cardiac Pack. Charles caught the last-second heave from Dereck Whittenburg and dunked the ball home as time expired to give the Pack its second national championship (still tied for sixth most all time, by the way, making State one of only 14 schools with two or more national titles).

That team was the first Cinderella. The term "survive and advance," which is so popular now among coaches and analysts originated with Jimmy V during that run. It remains the biggest shot in NCAA tournament history. I will not argue about this. Facts are facts. The dunk, followed by Jimmy V dashing around the court afterward, is one of the most memorable scenes in the history of March Madness.

This post isn't so much about that iconic scene as it is about the feelings and emotions Charles' death brought to the surface.

Let me tell you something about State fans: we are a legit family. We are often the butt of jokes of almost every other school in the ACC, and the result is an almost cult-like protectiveness and intense love of each other. We band together because we have to and because, very often, we have many of the same awful -- and, a bit more rarely, wonderful -- experiences.

My ex-girlfriend used to make fun of me because of the wolfie hand sign State fans make at each other. But it's universal. If I'm out walking around or driving around and I see the Block S or some other State insignia, I know that person gets it. I make the hand sign, and, invariably, the other person smiles and makes it back because he or she knows I get it. It means instant brotherhood.

I spent a few formative years in New Jersey. I didn't move to North Carolina until I was 11. I didn't grow up a fan of any of the North Carolina schools. I sort of liked both UNC and Duke then because they were both successful while I was young, and that's what young kids do. They root for the winners. I knew of State. I knew of Jimmy V, but I didn't really understand what it meant to live in North Carolina and choose one of the three.

I never did, really. Not until college. And even then, I was originally accepted to Wake Forest. I'd told Wake Forest I was going to attend in the fall. I was getting orientation information and welcome phone calls. It wasn't until my old calculus teacher said I should consider State's engineering school because I was really good at calculus.

So I did.

While I didn't stay with engineering for long, I do not regret for one second choosing to attend State. I love everything about my tenure there, and I love how much we love our school.

Here's another thing about being a State fan: it takes work. It's not easy to root for State.

Think about it. How hard can it really be to cheer on Duke or UNC? I live in Maryland now. There's no other school around. How hard can it possibly be to cheer on Maryland? These are the three most successful ACC programs of the past 10 to 15 years.

Oh, poor you. Your team only won 23 games this season. Nothing against fans of these teams (well that's not true. I have a lot against fans of these teams, with a grudging exception for my friends haha), but c'mon.

State has been cursed with mismanagement, bad decisions, sloppy play and terrible luck. But that's OK. I love this team and this school. And I'm 100 percent proud to be a State fan.

ESPNU ran a series of commercials about colleges a few years ago, and this was the essence of State's commercial:

This is not red.
Not light red or dark red.
This is behaving like a pack of wolves.
It's where Torry first went deep and where Lorenzo made the shot.
This is never giving up,
Not ever giving up.
No, this is much more than red.

I get the chills when I read that to this day. Every time. I once wrote a column about it for Technician back in school. I got more feedback about that column than anything else I ever wrote for any newspaper for the simple reason it speaks to State fans.

As I wrote in the column, we always believe. It happened once. It can happen again. Why not now? Why not this game? Why not tonight? I was there for two of those exact scenarios back in 2006: the back-to-back games against Boston College and Florida State. I won't go into detail about them here, but man. Look them up if you need to. Awesome.

The point is the things that make us State fans go much deeper than "oh our team is so good!" Because, frankly, they haven't been very good for quite some time. And for as frustrating as that is now, whenever the teams finally break do through, it will be that much sweeter for us.

But State is responsible for some of the most important and memorable people and moments in the history of college sports -- especially basketball.

We are largely responsible for the formation of the ACC in the first place. Everett Case, who made State the dominant basketball program in the Southern Conference and early ACC, is responsible for many of the traditions schools everywhere still use.

In 1974, David Thompson, the best college basketball player ever, and his team ended the run of eight straight national titles for UCLA in the Final Four before taking the title themselves. And of course, the 1973 team went undefeated, but it was prohibited from tournament play for some terrible reason or another.

Then there's 1983. The original Cinderella team. And Jimmy V. It is impossible to watch his ESPY speech without getting teary-eyed. He died not long after, but his motto, "Don't give up. Don't ever give up," has been a mantra for State fans ever since. So much of what he said that night is valuable life advice.

"To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives.
Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day.
Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought.
Number three is you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy.
But think about it. If you laugh, you think and you cry -- that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special."

I like to think I've tried to live like that, especially these past few months where I've really been working on turning things around.

And then of course, the last thing he said that night:

"Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever."

Wow. What else can you say?

Because of how tight-knit we are (and I'm not saying other fan bases aren't like this. I'm just not writing about them.), things like Charles' tragic death hit us hard and bring up these emotions.

I love being a State fan, and I love that we have these common experiences and events in our past that draw us together. It's just hard work sometimes. But man will it be worth it when our time comes.

RIP Lorenzo. Go Pack.

On Sidney Lowe

"This is my school. I love this school. It was my hope and dream to come back here and do something special... it hurts me because I know what it's about down here and I know what it's like to win here."

-Sidney Lowe

It started with so much promise.

Lowe stepped into a terrible situation when no one else would. Herb Sendek left and headed to Arizona State, and in turn, we lost almost all our recruits and any continuity the program had accrued over the previous 10 years.

Lowe's first team was basically seven guys deep. They fought and clawed all throughout the season -- a season in which we didn't expect much because of how much we lost from the year before. But we beat UNC. We stormed into the ACC tournament finals and nearly won.

We made the NIT as a No. 6 seed, and through a freak sequence of events -- like the No. 7 seed Marist winning its first-round game and a previously scheduled event at the RBC Center -- Reynolds Coliseum hosted its first truly meaningful game in YEARS.

For those of you unfamiliar with Reynolds Coliseum, I'll say this. Cameron Indoor Stadium and the Cameron Crazies are WEAKSAUCE compared to Reynolds and the Reynolds Rowdies in their heyday. The Crazies wouldn't even exist if not for the Rowdies.

But I digress.

The NIT game at Reynolds -- both the game itself and the week-long lead-up to it -- was incredibly memorable. Demand for tickets was through the roof because the game was going to be at Reynolds. It wasn't exactly a "campout," but I got in line at 6 a.m. to make sure I got tickets and waited until the early afternoon. It was so much fun, the whole atmosphere of the mini-campout, walking up to Reynolds, the game itself.

It was truly special, not because of the game itself (let's face it: it was only an NIT game against Marist), but because it showed how unbelievable our games could be when the fan base is dialed in, involved and, most of all, hopeful that things could be heading in a positive direction.

I remember seeing a hand-made sign while I was in line for tickets to the game. Someone set up a sign that said "Loweville" outside the Reyonds ticket office. And I remember Tanner saying the picture would be a classic one day when the area was actually called Loweville.

It was an honest assessment of how hopeful we all were. We had one of us coaching the team. Lowe is Red and White to the core. He led the 1983 Cardiac Pack national champions. Surely if anyone could lead the program back to where we all wanted it to go, it would be Lowe.

Sadly, it did not turn out that way. This season, we easily had the most talented team we've had in years.

For many reasons -- some coaching miscues, some inexperience and immaturity, some injuries and illness -- we lost time and again to less talented teams. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of games where we were just outplayed and lost to better teams. It happens.

But too often, we clearly were the more talented team, and we took ourselves out of the game with poor defense, poor shot selection and sloppy play. It plagued us early in the season, and it was there in what will likely be Lowe's last game at State.

So, what's the point of this? Mostly to express my sincere sadness that it's come to this. Sid is one of us. He is family. We all wanted it to work so, so badly. Nothing would have been sweeter than having Sid coach us to the same promised land he led us to as a player. His quote above shows everything you need to know about why we loved him. He's one of us.

For that reason, I am relieved and happy to hear of reports that Debbie Yow won't fire him, but that he'll resign instead. Lowe deserves a dignified, respectful exit, and he will surely have the well-wishes of every State fan.

Thanks for the great memories, Sid. Thanks for your hard work. Sorry it didn't work out. You'll always be Pack family. Best of luck to you.

Big Game

State/UNC tonight at 9 p.m.

If you don't preface your attempts at communicating with me with some form of "UNC sucks," "Carolina sucks" or "Go to hell Carolina," you should probably reconsider your attempts at communicating with me.

If the team that played in the Duke game and the second half of the Clemson game shows up, I really like our chances -- especially at home, especially against a young, struggling Tar Heels team.

If the team that decided not to try very hard against Maryland shows up, I predict I will be watching a movie by 9:30 p.m.

I really, really hate those smug bastards. (No offense to any of my friends who went there. You guys are cool. But admit it, even you know what I'm talking about here.)

Basketball.

Well, N.C. State beat Duke last night, 88-74.

Hell of a game, too. We took the lead at 17-15 and never trailed the rest of the night. It was not without its tense moments. Duke hit a ridiculous 3 at the buzzer to cut the lead to 41-38 at halftime.

And then with an 8-point lead in the waning minutes of the game, Javi Gonzalez was dribbling out the shot clock and somehow managed the drill a 3 from WAY behind the line over 6-foot-10 Mason Plumlee to push the lead back to 11. Talk about the definition of a dagger play.

That was the game right there. State's up by 8 with around four minutes to play, and the shot clock winding down. If Duke gets a stop there, you KNOW they're nailing a 3 at the other end. It's Duke. That's what they do.

Then the lead is 5 points, and State would have found a way to blow it. We're State. That's what we do.

But Javi sank the 3, pushing the lead to 11 and igniting a crowd that has been yearning to explode for far too long now.

Where do we go from here? Well, in the most technical sense, we go to College Park for a date with Maryland on Saturday evening. Then what promises to be a lively atmosphere on Tuesday night as we host UNC (losers of three in a row, by the way [!!] Think that preseason No. 6 ranking with a first-place vote may have been a farce?).

In the more philosophical sense, I see this playing out in two ways.

First, the team who showed up for the second half of the Clemson game and the Duke win shows up Saturday and takes out Maryland to improve to 14-6 (3-3 ACC), setting up a ridiculous main event Tuesday night where we'd probably enter the top 25 if we beat Carolina.

Second, the team gets caught up in OMGWEBEATDUKE mode and sees a little powder blue on the schedule Tuesday night, and Maryland gets a little lost in the shuffle and blows us out of the water. The Terps have a talented senior point guard, and you cannot take those lightly -- especially not in the ACC (even if he is the biggest walking toolbox the ACC has seen since Chris Paul or Steve Blake).

The second scenario has been the story of this program for the better part of our recent history. We play to the level of our opponents, hanging with and occasionally beating the big boys, and tripping up against the mid-level teams. If Sidney Lowe is THE guy we all hope he is, he needs to put this trend in the past.

The team from the last game and a half should beat Maryland AND Carolina (especially with the way the Heels are currently playing).

That would be the first scenario, which would create some much-needed momentum for a program that has been caught in the doldrums all year. From narrowly missing out on Derrick Favors, John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins to Lorenzo Brown not being eligible to heart-breaking losses in games against Arizona, Florida and Virginia (all games where we held late leads and should have won).

Finish strong this season, make a run in the ACC tournament, perhaps an appearance in the NCAA tournament and then the stud recruiting class Lowe has for next year with Brown finally arriving, Ryan Harrow and Luke Cothron -- now that's some momentum.

LET'S GO BOYS. Play up to your potential for the first time in too many years and win the games you're capable of winning. Let's get this thing on the right track.