Back in 1990, when my family moved down to North Carolina from Conn. I had to make a choice. Like every kid in North Carolina, I had to choose sides. No matter where you were from, you were in NC and you only had 3 options to pledge your allegiance; You could hop on the Puke Blue or Baby Blue bandwagons, or you could pull for the manly Red and White Wolfpack. I always thought the ram looked like a cross between Princess Leia and a frog and the devil had the goatee that made him look like a wine and cheese eating Frenchman which made the choice very easy. I was to be an NC State fan (it helped my bro decided to go there at that time). Little did I know I was in for the most painful emotional rollercoaster of my life.

Any NC State fan will tell you that, the early ’90s was not the best time to choose the Wolfpack as my team. Our luck had run out after ‘The Game’ in ‘83 and the whole shoe fiasco brought to us by the late Jimmy V. NC State was in for a bumpy ride through the ’90s, and so was any 5th grader who so happened to be a Wolfpack supporter. Watching the Tarheels and Blue Devils win ACC and National Championships didn’t make the constant losing any easier, but just as many others had done, I grew a thick skin and the losing didn’t hurt as much anymore.

After all the mental beatings I took in middle and high school for being an NC State fan, I still decided to attend NCSU. It was my freshman year along came Herb Sendek (and Anthony Grundy) and a glimmer of hope was born. Sendek’s system caught the ACC off guard and with sub-ACC talent CiCi Harrison was able to knock down 8 3’s in the Dean Dome and upset then #2 Tarheels. There was a glimmer of hope among the Wolfpack fans. The following year Anthony Grundy joined the team in Dec. and helped carry the Wolfpack to the ACC Championship game along with his slightly different free-throw style and Justin Gainey. NCSU lost to Duke and it was all downhill from there. Recruiting classes were brought in with super-stars such as Corneillus Williams, Keith Bean, and Damien Wilkins. The Wolfpack was a contender, and then reality sat in. “Corn-Dog” couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn…during layup drills, Damien Wilkins decided shooting 28ft bricks that rattled the RBC Center’s rafters was a good idea (how he is in the NBA, I don’t have a damn clue) and the laziness they called Keith Bean decided the food in College Station was easier to obtain (although I don’t think he’d find any girls in Texas that will go down on him in a club when his pickup line is pulling out his wang through his fly). Obviously it was all down hill.

Multiple straight loses in ACC Tourney Championship games and inexcusable meltdowns in the NCAA tourneys to the Vanderbilts of the world only added to the constant heatbreak and the painful rollercoaster that is NC State basketball.

In came Chuck Amato, with lofty promises and high expectations for Wolfpack football. Being a realist I didn’t get my hopes up. Then in came Philip Rivers and his clutch throws and game winning drives drove the Wolfpack to 4 straight bowl games including an 11-2 season and a pounding of Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl. Unfortunately, there is an NCAA conspiracy that says Rivers can only play 4 years at State and the Jay Davis era began. Disappointment and chaos ensued. Then Marcus Stone era began. Disappointment and chaos continued (read: Akron and So. Miss). Then Daniel Evans era began.

Evans came in and it seems the Wolfpack decided not to play like the Jay Davis / Marcus Stone led Wolfpack. There were minimal errors and execution was pretty good. Wins over BC and FSU showed a shining light to the Wolfpack’s 2006 campaign. Chuck was off the hot seat and a win over much improved Wake Forest would put the Wolfpack in the driver’s seat to the ACC Championship game. Wake is a good team but the Wolfpack has the superior athletes and was in a position to overcome its own mistakes and escape with a win over the Deacs. Evans calmly drove the Pack down the field and even covered up some bad snaps and questionable play calls and had the Pack around the 40 yard line. Five more yards and we’d be in field goal range with less then 30 seconds left but Evan’s who we later found out was playing with a mild concussion and doesn’t remember the plays of the last drive, picked up a bad snap escaped a rush and while trying to make a play through an INT across the middle. Game Over. Wake Wins.

After all the years of being a hardcore fan I took losses in the past really hard, it would ruin my week or until the Pack played again. I have put that behind me in the last few years, watching Jay Davis / Marcus Stone lead teams I expected the worst and I didn’t think twice about a loss. Daniel Evans has ruined all that for me. I thought it was behind me, but when Evans took over the Wolfpack showed life that I haven’t seen since a boy named Phil was behind center. The Pack hasn’t made many stupid mistakes, and the poor mental errors that have plagued Chuck’s boys in recent years have been missing. I’ve been excited to watch the Pack and idiotically started thinking about what could be for the Wolfpack this year, the schedules lined up for the Pack to put the rocky start behind them and still wind up in Jacksonville. But as Evans’ passed sailed across the middle into the hands of that Wake linebacker I got that feeling that can only be described as Wolfpack Pain. (Think of a bad headache along with a gut-wrenching stomach ache, that is Wolfpack Pain. It hurts bad for days and makes it hard to sleep.)

There were a lot of plays during that game that could have changed the outcome so I don’t blame the loss at all on Evans’. Mistakes like that happen especially to a guy only making his 3rd start, but what I do hang on Evans is making me into a Wolfpack fan again. Making the Pack play well, giving me that glimmer of hope for the Wolfpack’s season and bringing back the ability for me to feel that Wolfpack Pain again. Thanks!

tags: Wolfpack Pain, NC State, NCSU, Daniel Evan, Chuck Amato, Wolfpack