Coach Case turned around NC State men’s hoops program

With the upcoming “Tobacco Road Classic” men’s basketball game scheduled on Dec. 15 in Greensboro between Atlantic Coast Conference foes North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina, this is a good time to brush up on the history of the rivalry.

Everett Norris Case was the guy who put NC State’s men’s basketball program on the map as an emerging powerhouse, beginning in 1946.

 

Case was a successful boys’ basketball coach at Frankfort (Ind.) High School, where his teams won four Indiana state championships.

 

At age 41, Case volunteered to join U.S. Navy during World War II. Commissioned as a senior-grade lieutenant, he drew the assignment to become athletic director at Naval Air Station Alameda (Calif).

In 1943, DePauw University in Greencastle, Ind., began a naval flight preparatory school, and Case, now a lieutenant commander, was transferred there as athletic director of the program. 

He was discharged in 1946 and was recruited by NC State to become the new head coach for the men’s basketball team.

 

How that came to be is quite a story.

Bob Warren, who coached NC State from 1940-42, left to join the military during World War II. Warren was replaced by Leroy Jay, who coached from 1942-46, while also holding down a regular office job with the state highway commission. After the war, Jay stepped down as coach.

The NC State search committee was advised by Dick Herbert, sports editor of The (Raleigh) News & Observer and a Duke alumnus, to consult with the iconic Charles Hollis “Chuck” Taylor of the Converse Rubber Company. He had contacts with every coach in the country.

 

Taylor was a decent basketball player coming out of high school in Columbus, Ind., in 1919. His talent as a guard was noticed by the Firestone Non-Skids, a semi-pro team owned by the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio. Taylor was hired as its player-coach.

 

Converse started out in 1908 selling rubber galoshes but added a basketball shoe in 1917, which it named the All Star. Converse recruited Chuck Taylor away from Firestone in 1922 to guide its company hoops team, which was based in Chicago.

The Converse team wasn’t in a league. Rather, Taylor took his team on the road traveling throughout the country, challenging local teams.

Additionally, at each location, Taylor would put on a clinic, complete with a sideshow, exhibiting his impressive array of trick shots. 

Local sporting goods stores sent representatives to the clinics to hawk Converse All Star shoes to a captive audience – touting the black canvas Converse model as “the best basketball shoes around.”

Converse added the now famous circular logo patch to the ankle of the shoe, complete with the Chuck Taylor signature in the early 1930s. Players loved that their All Stars had the “grippiest soles around.”

 

When basketball was introduced at the 1936 Summer Olympics, Converse provided the U.S. team’s footwear. 

The players debuted “Olympic White Chuck Taylor All Stars”…and brought home the gold medal from Berlin, Germany.

Joe Dean, a former Converse executive, said Taylor was “loveable, fun and a nice guy. At one point, he knew every college basketball coach in the country. If you wanted to hire a coach, you went through him. He’d recommend somebody.”

Taylor did not mince words: “The best basketball coach in the country is a Lt. Commander in the Navy. His name is Everett Case.”

 

It was up to Chancellor John W. Harrelson (shown below), John Von Glahn, representing of NC State’s athletics association, and faculty chair Dr. Hilbert A. Fisher, head of the university’s mathematics department, to reel in Coach Case.

 

More on NC State’s connection to Chuck Taylor:

One of the first Converse All Stars’ exhibition games and clinics ever run by the legendary Chuck Taylor occurred in Raleigh, hosted by North Carolina State University’s men’s basketball program. 

The event was arranged early during the tenure of Gus Tebell, head coach of the Red Terrors (the team’s nickname before they became the Wolfpack).

 

Tebell coached basketball at NC State from 1924-30, posting a 79-36 record. He also was the head coach of the football team from 1925-29 when his teams went 21-25-2. 

(Tebell was lured away from Raleigh in 1931 to take over the reins of the basketball program at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He coached the Cavaliers for 21 seasons.)

No one seems to remember the exact date or result of the Converse All Stars v. NC State Red Terrors exhibition game, but the Converse Rubber Company sold some basketball shoes.

Taylor’s secret to success was cozying up to the people who had the most influence over young basketball players – their coaches. Taylor worked long and hard to convince coaches that black canvas Converse All Stars were the best. He was very good at building relationships.

 

Young players often had one pair of All Stars for use indoors in the school gym and yet another to scuff and scruff around in when playing outdoors on concrete.

 

Chuck Taylor’s name and signature became associated with the shoe in 1932, and the iconic ankle patch became a mark of distinction. 

By 1955, Converse owned 80% of the entire sneaker industry. Low top All Stars made their debut in 1957.

“Chucks,” as they came to be known, took on a more rough-and-tumble image in the 1961 film adaptation of “West Side Story.” 

The Sharks wore the original black All Stars, and the Jets were outfitted in white All Stars, according to Whitney Matheson, a pop culture journalist.

At one point, an estimated 90% of professional basketball players wore Converse shoes during a stretch that spanned about three decades.

Oscar Robertson, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius “Dr. J” Erving, Larry Bird and Earvin “Magic” Johnson all occupy a page or two in the annals of Chuck Taylor Converse All Stars. 

Wayne “Tree” Rollins of the Atlanta Hawks is probably the last notable pro player to wear the original canvas Chuck Taylors, during the 1979-80 season.

Several NC State players have preferred the brand. 

One was Lou Pucillo, who was the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Player of the Year in 1959. He could go either way, wearing black or white Chucks.

Vic Molodet was the coach on the court who led the Wolfpack to three-straight ACC Championships, beginning with the 1st ever ACC Tournament in 1954.

The Converse model changed with the times, and Converse was the shoe of choice worn by the Wolfpack’s legendary David Thompson, who played for Coach Norm Sloan from 1972-75. 

Thompson led the Wolfpack to an undefeated 27-0 season in 1973-74 and captured the NCAA National Championship in 1974.

 

Today, a 13-foot bronze statue titled “Skywalker” is located on campus near Reynolds Coliseum. It depicts David Thompson – catching an alley-oop pass – that is mounted on a 44-inch stainless steel pedestal to represent his famous vertical leap. 

The sculptor is David Alan Clark of Lander, Wyo. Details include the unmistakable Converse shoes.

 

Shaunacy Ferro of Mental Floss reported that Chuck Taylor also enjoyed a friendship with Dean Smith, head coach of the University of North Carolina men’s basketball team. 

Larry Brown, who played for the Tar Heels from 1960-63, remembered a crazy encounter.

 

Chuck Taylor “told Coach Smith that he’d make us special weighted shoes in ‘Carolina blue.’ The idea was that we’d wear the weighted shoes in practice, and then during the games, we’d run faster and jump higher,” Brown said. “Well, we tried them for one practice, and everyone pulled a hamstring.”

Perhaps the original Chuck Taylors have been re-purposed.

The U.S. Navy SEALs have embraced Chuck Taylors as the “unofficial athletic shoe” of U.S. Naval Special Warfare Operations, remarked Blake Stilwell, associate editor at Military.com and an Air Force veteran.

“The reason is in the sneaker’s design,” Stilwell wrote. The Chucks’ “flat soles mean better balance and stability with a more equal distribution of your weight. And as anyone who’s sported a pair of Chucks knows, there’s not a lot of arch support, so you can feel the boat, the sand or whatever else is underneath your feet.”

 

“Chucks are lightweight and minimalist. They crush down and are easy to carry, provide stability to the wearer, and if they get wet, they dry off in a hurry.”