Monday, March 25, 2024

Harper: Born to Coach

Kellie Harper, coaching NC State in the 2010 ACC Championship game against Duke.
 

This profile of Kellie Harper was first published on GoPack.com, the day she was hired to succeed the late Kay Yow. Harper was young, just 32 years old at the time, but her basketball pedigree was already well-established. Maybe it didn't work out for longterm success in her four years at NC State, but she was a coach on the rise and she's now the head coach at her alma mater, Tennessee, which plays NC State at Reynolds Coliseum for a chance to go to the Sweet Sixteen. If you enjoy reading "One Brick Back" and would like to help offset research expenses for stories such as this one, please make a small donation to the cause and help keep posts like this free of ads.

Other


profiles: Wes Moore | Kay Yow | Pat Summitt

BY TIM PEELER

RALEIGH, N.C. – The day Peggy and Ken Jolly brought their daughter Kellie home from the hospital, they put a basketball in her hands and snapped a picture. She’s rarely been caught without a bouncing ball ever since.

Who knew on that day some 32 years ago that Jolly could produce so many championships, from her playing days in Sparta, Tenn., and with the University of Tennessee, to her coaching days at Auburn, Chattanooga and Western Carolina?

In those three short decades – shorter than Kay Yow’s35-year tenure at NC State – Harper won two Southern Conference championships as the head coach at Western Carolina, three SoCon titles as an assistant coach for Wes Moore at Chattanooga, four SEC titles and three NCAA titles as a collegiate player at Tennessee and three AAU state championships during her high school career.

In short, since first slobbering on that family basketball as a two-day-old infant, Harper has been a basketball winner.

She always knew that she would be a basketball player and a coach. Both her parents played basketball at Tennessee Tech. Her father, Ken, was a Tennessee high school coach and an assistant at White County High during Kellie’s junior and senior seasons there.

“I have always loved the game of basketball,” Harper said Thursday morning, shortly before she was named just the third women’s basketball coach in NC State’s history. “It’s been such a big part of my life. I could not imagine graduating college and not having that part of my life any more. I love teaching the game. I love it.”

So, early on, she decided she would follow in her father’s footsteps and become a coach. She didn’t know until she got to Tennessee, where she played for the most successful coach in women’s college basketball history, that she wanted to be a college coach.

“Coach Summitt knew it was something I wanted to do, whether it was on the high school or college level,” Harper said.

Her coaching career began as a program assistant at Auburn, and quickly advanced to an assistant coach for the Lady Tigers, then a full-time assistant position at Chattanooga under Moore [profiled here]. She became the head coach at Western Carolina – a team that had never won a conference title – at the tender age of 26. At the time, she was the youngest coach in NCAA Division college basketball. She proceeded to lead the Catamounts to two tournament titles and a regular-season title in just five years.

“She is the perfect fit to follow in the footsteps of Kay Yow,” said Western Carolina men’s coach Larry Hunter, who was an assistant for the NC State men’s team from 2001-05. “In some ways, Kellie is a younger version of Kay, possessing many of the same high personal and humanistic qualities. She is a great person and the Wolfpack nation will quickly recognize that fact and grow to love and respect her.”

Harper admired and respected Yow, who died on Jan. 24 after a courageous battle with breast cancer. Harper never competed against the Wolfpack during her playing career, while helping the Lady Volunteers become the most dominant program in women’s college basketball.

But she faced the Pack as an assistant for the Auburn team that beat NC State 79-59 in the first round of the 2001 NCAA Tournament. And on Dec. 30, 2007, Harper visited Reynolds for the first time, as the Pack beat Western Carolina 75-61.

She remembers walking to midcourt, shaking Yow’s hand and saying “It is an honor and a privilege to play here.”

It wasn’t the first time the two had met, but it was the first time that Harper ever had the opportunity to be one of Yow’s peers. Now she is her successor.

“Obviously, if you are in the women’s basketball coaching community, you knew Kay Yow,” Harper said. “I look at this job as the opportunity to continue her tradition.

“Coach Yow built such a great legacy here. To respect her and to honor her, I want to continue that tradition. That’s going to be a big challenge.

“The ACC is a tough conference, but it’s something I am really looking forward to and am excited about.”

Harper became a coach by translating her playing skills. Hall of Fame Tennessee coach Pat Summitt once said Harper was “the smartest and most consistent point guard I have ever coached.” In that way, she is similar to Wolfpack men’s head coach Sidney Lowe, who guided NC State to the 1983 NCAA Championship. The difference is, Harper helped the Volunteer win three of them.

The young coach has big plans for the program. She wants to run an up-tempo game that relies on high scoring and strong rebounding. She wants to recruit versatile players who are capable of shooting inside and outside. She wants her teams to be entertaining, as well as successful.

“We are going to play hard,” Harper said. “When you play hard and have that passion, the fans can’t help but love it.”

But there is more to the program than just success on the court. Western Carolina was ranked No. 15 in the nation academically two years ago and fifth in the nation last year. Harper, who graduated third in her class in high school, was a three-time Academic All-SEC selection.

“We understand, regarding academics, that the word ‘student’ comes before athlete,” Harper said. “When you target very driven kids, you also find that they are driven in the classroom.

“We let them know it is important to our entire staff.”

Harper wants the entire NC State community to know that she is dedicated to building a championship program for the Wolfpack. She can think of no better way to pay homage to her predecessor.

“I have to be me,” Harper said. “I can’t be someone else. We will do our very best, in the coming years, to put this program in the position that she would be proud of.”

 


Saturday, March 16, 2024

When Rivals Collide for a Championship



I needed to kill some time on the train to Washington, D.C., for tonight’s ACC Championship game between NC State and North Carolina, the seventh time the two old rivals have met for the title. So I did this. If you enjoy reading "One Brick Back" and would like to help offset research expenses for stories such as this one, please
make a small donation to the cause and help offset the travel expenses for covering a game important to so many people.

TIM PEELER
© 2024

NC State and North Carolina have met six previous times for the ACC Tournament championship. Tonight’s game at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., means the two old rivals have met just about once per decade in the 71 years since the league held its first tournament at Reynolds Coliseum in the winter of 1954.

The Tar Heels hold a 4-2 edge, but edge of those games had special attributes that are the foundation of what the original ACC was set up to be: a raucous family affair between similar schools in the heart of the South’s Mid-Atlantic region.

UPDATED: The championship record is now 4-3 in favor of UNC-CH, after State won the 2024 title game 84-76 in Washington, D.C.


March 7, 1959
Raleigh, North Carolina
Reynolds Coliseum
https://timpeeler.blogspot.com/2024/03/when-lights-went-out-at-reynolds.html

 

 

 

 

March 10, 1968
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte Coliseum
https://timpeeler.blogspot.com/2024/03/norm-sloan-and-nc-state-standout-dick.html

March 9, 1975
Greensboro, North Carolina
Greensboro Coliseum
https://timpeeler.blogspot.com/2024/03/davids-last-hobbled-stand.html

 

March 8, 1987
Landover, Maryland
Capital Centre
https://timpeeler.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-perfect-title-run.html

 

March 9, 1997
Greensboro, North Carolina
Greensboro Coliseum
https://timpeeler.blogspot.com/2024/03/160-minutes-of-steady-effort.html

March 11, 2007
Tampa, Florida
St. Pete Times Forum
https://timpeeler.blogspot.com/2024/03/a-surprise-run-in-sunshine-state.html

March 16, 2024
Washington, D.C.
Capital One Arena
https://news.ncsu.edu/2024/03/spring-breaking-for-a-championship/

https://www.on3.com/teams/nc-state-wolfpack/news/tim-peeler-nc-states-acc-title-was-won-for-the-teams-that-didnt/

 

 



David’s Last (Hobbled) Stand

NC State Chancellor John Caldwell hands David Thompson his retired No. 44 jersey on Senior Day 1975.
 

This is a game I had never written about until traveling to Washington this afternoon for the 2024 ACC title game between NC State and North Carolina. If you enjoy reading "One Brick Back" and would like to help offset research expenses for stories such as this one, please make a small donation to the cause and help keep posts like this free of ads.

North Carolina 70, NC State 66
Greensboro Coliseum
March 9, 1975

GREENSBORO--The wonderful, incredible and as of yet unmatched career of three-time All-America forward David Thompson came to an abrupt halt, just as Phil Ford’s bright star began to rise.

In the 1975 Atlantic Coast Conference Championship game, the two favored sons of the Old North State, squared off in the final game of a tournament that was immediately declared the greatest in ACC history.

While Tar Heel fans celebrated their new leader, as Ford became the first freshman to ever win the Everett Case Award as the tournament’s most valuable player, Thompson ended his record-setting career disappointedly losing to a rival he and his teammates had beaten nine consecutive times.

Thompson was hobbled both by a sore leg he suffered in Friday night’s semifinal win over Maryland and cramps that slowed him down throughout the game. He made just seven of 21 field goal attempts for 16 points.

“They were a little sore,” Thompson said after the game. “I wasn’t 100 percent. I couldn’t jump the way I normally do. There was a little pain every time I jumped.”

Head coach Norman Sloan was certain throughout pregame warmups that his superstar, who had been such an integral part of leading the Wolfpack to the 1973 and 1974 ACC titles and the ’74 NCAA championship, would not be the same as the player the Pack had grown to rely on throughout his career.

“We had no way of knowing how he’d be before the game,” Sloan said. “I don’t think he knew either, not until we got to the coliseum.”

Afterwards, Thompson and his teammates were upset, not just because they lost, but how they lost.

“It’s kind of an empty feeling to go out this way,” Thompson said. “Every ball player would like to end his career on a winning note, but we have a lot of things going against us.”

Atypical of his usual demeanor, Thompson gave a loud postgame speech railing on the officiating to the media and several teammates chimed in.

“The officiating has been ridiculous this year,” he said. “I’m very angry about it. People have been bumping us and knocking us around all year. I get tired of it. On 90 per cent of the shots I’ve taken this year, I’ve been fouled. Apparently, the officials feel if they call it, they’ll be accused of protecting David Thompson.”

The game remained close in the second half, but the Tar Heels were in control after scoring 11 consecutive points to take a 63-55 advantage. Ford scored eight of those points, then began running the Dean Smith’s dreaded Four Corners stalling offense.

Ford, a star in the making, scored a game-high 24 points for the Tar Heels.

“I think I played my best basketball of the tournament tonight,” Ford said., the coveted net draped around his neck. “We always thought we could win.”

Mitch Kupchak’s defense and rebounded were a key complement to Ford’s scoring.

“I wanted this game as much as I’ve wanted any game in my life,” said Kupchak, who had 11 points and 12 rebounds. “I think emotion was the key thing for all of us.

“The guy most responsible for that is Ford. He comes out and just fires you up. He doesn’t say much. He just grabs you and says a little something. It’s something to see a fresh doing that.”

It was a tough pill for seniors Thompson, Monte Towe, Tim Stoddard, Moe Rivers and Craig Kuszmaul to end their career after vowing to never lose to their rivals after losing a close game in Chapel Hill while playing for the Wolflet freshman team.

It was a promise that nearly came true, but the Pack fell a little short of winning its third consecutive title.

The day after the tournament, Thompson and his teammates voted not to accept a bid to the National Invitation Tournament, since both North Carolina and Maryland were headed to the NCAAs.

And just like that, King David and his court were dethroned.