Statues of former coaches unveiled at renovated Reynolds Coliseum

As they loosened the red ribbon and raised the black sheet off the statue, some in the crowd of nearly 200 at N.C. State gasped in delight.

It was a statue of former N.C. State basketball coach Jimmy Valvano, wearing a big smile with both hands raised in the air, one holding a net. A “V” pin on his bronze suit. His widow’s eyes started to water and she smiled.

“There are no words that can really say how I feel, it seems like he’s alive again,” Pam Valvano Strasser said. “He would be so proud to see it and I think it looks very much like him.”

Coach Valvano was one of four basketball coaches recognized on Friday at N.C. State’s newly renovated Reynolds Coliseum for their accomplishments and impact on the community. The others were Kay Yow, Everett Case and Norm Sloan.

“We looked at the broad spectrum of N.C. State history and we thought the basketball program has just had a special impact here on campus and also in the world of college athletics,” Andy Walsh, former student government president during the time of the planning for the project, said.

Funds for the project, which cost $220,000, were raised through private donations.

It started as an idea six years ago from a student who thought it would be great to honor some of the late great coaches at the school. The students at the school rallied behind the idea and they started the design phase.

Yow served as the head coach of N.C. State women’s basketball team from 1975 until her death in 2009. She is a member of the Naismith Hall of Fame and accumulated 737 wins in her career, four ACC Championships and won a gold medal as the head coach of USA women’s basketball team in the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Before she died in 2009 from breast cancer, she helped raise awareness and money for the deadly disease.

Case, nicknamed “Gray Fox,” was coach of N.C. State from 1946 to 1964, where he won six Southern Conference Championships, and four ACC Tournaments. He died from inoperable cancer in 1966 and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1982 and the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006.

Sloan played at N.C. State from 1947 to 1949, and coached there from 1966 to 1980. He finished his coaching career with 627 wins, and an NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship in 1974. He died of pulmonary fibrosis in 2003. His wife, Joan, was at the unveiling and says she appreciates the statue.

“I think it’s very good,” she said. “My last remembrance was when he was older. I just got startled when I saw it.”

Valvano coached at N.C. State from 1980 to 1990, winning one NCAA Division I championship in 1983. He also won the Arthur Ashe Courage Award, where he gave a speech encouraging people to never give up, on their hopes of finding a cure for cancer. Valvano died from the disease in 1993. His speech is played every year before the ESPY awards.

“When we won the championship we were met with so much spirit and determination and love from Wolfpack Nation,” Dereck Whittenburg, a guard on the 1983 championship team, said. “So what he’s done here will last forever with Wolfpack nation.”

This story was originally published September 16, 2016 at 4:36 PM with the headline "Statues of former coaches unveiled at renovated Reynolds Coliseum."