(6 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5)
Loading ...For years, I have grown up hearing my father tell me about NC State and how impressive NC State’s history really is. The facts are the facts: the NC State of my father is not my NC State. My father’s NC State was building on a rich history of success while mine was wallowing in the mud. My father’s NC State had legends that were parts of world-beating teams while I had, at best, one player from the early 2000′s. It’s not that NC State didn’t have a little success here and there or a few good players, but my father’s NC State was not my NC State. My father’s NC State wrote history, but I was just watching it pass by.
It’s no one’s fault and it’s everyone’s fault. It’s “the system’s” fault for putting Valvano in an untenable position and forcing him out of the program. It’s the administration’s fault for not defending our tradition and values. It’s our own fault for allowing us to get into a position where we had reason to worry. It’s the following athletic directors’ fault for not running a program focused on success. It was the players’ fault for making bone-headed mistakes at the worst possible moment. It’s our coaches’ fault for not running and developing a better team. We created blogs, we wrote letters to the athletic director, we blew up forums and news articles, but none of that changed the fact that for all the faults we could identify, my father’s NC State was not my NC State.
You see, history isn’t just a story you’re told or a page written in a book. History lives on. Even when the things your history is written about die, history continues to be written. I couldn’t see my place in that history that my father’s NC State helped to write.
Today, NC State didn’t just win 1 game. We didn’t just upset a top ranked team or play unusually well. We didn’t enter a game knowing we had almost no chance of success and win. Today, NC State walked into a game they knew they could win, knew they should win, and knew they had to win… and we won. Today, NC State took all of the expectations, cheers, and dreams from last season, and proved that it wasn’t just a bullet-point in a history book. Today, NC State didn’t just contribute to history, we showed that we could write the history. NC State, for the first time, picked the pen back up that it laid down over 20 years ago, and began writing it’s own history.
And just like that, my father’s NC State became my NC State. For the first time I can look at fans in youth, fans in their twilight years, and fans everywhere in between and finally see that we are all part of one NC State. Not an NC State that contributes to history, but an NC State that writes it. Today, my father’s NC State became my NC State.
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