More than 300 area members of East Carolina's Pirate Club turned out at the North Raleigh Hilton Wednesday night to cheer athletic director Terry Holland, football coach Skip Holtz and men's basketball coach Mac McCarthy.

There is a lot to cheer.

ECU has one of the most respected athletic directors in the country, one of the top young football coaches and a proven winner at the helm of the basketball program.

The Pirate Club's membership in Wake County is about 960, up from 755 a year ago and perhaps headed quickly to 1,100. The overall membership tops 12,500.

ECU sold all 22,000 of its football season tickets last year and is well ahead of last year's pace for the 2008 season.

Holland, a Clinton native, took the opportunity to praise and challenge the faithful.

He talked about the power, collectively and individually, of what he calls the Pirate Nation.

"Collectively, you can see the power with the atmosphere we are creating at our stadium," Holland said.

"After our Southern Miss game, they said it was the best atmosphere they had ever played in ... and they had played at Tennessee the week before."

BOWL GAMES: Holland and Holtz, the football coach, are enthused with a football schedule that includes Virginia Tech, West Virginia, N.C. State, and Virginia.

Holland said the schedule included four "bowl games."

"We can't get into some BCS bowl games, but we can play the teams that do," Holland said.

"If we were playing Virginia Tech in Charlotte in the postseason, we would think it was a great bowl game. That's exactly what we are doing, except it's our opener."

Holtz said he is on the same page with Holland as far as scheduling.

PIRATE PRIDE: Holtz is pleased with the progress that the football program has made, but he said he is most proud of progress off the field.

"When I got here, we had five players in the program who had 3.0 [grade-point averages]," he said. "Last fall, we had 42."

Nothing the team has done on the field has made him happier.

FOOTBALL RECRUITING: East Carolina's football recruiting base used to be east of Interstate 95, but there are few if any hidden gems there now.

Holtz said the Internet, combines and camps have changed the recruiting landscape.

"There may be a player at a small school in Eastern North Carolina, but if he can play, Southern Cal, Notre Dame and everybody else knows about him," Holtz said.

"We may not win many of those head-to-head, but we can find 25 players who believe in what we are doing and who can help us do it."

BREAKTHROUGH RECRUIT: McCarthy said there is no reason that East Carolina can't have a great basketball program, but acknowledges it hasn't been in the past.

He said Memphis' run to the NCAA Final Four was a positive for the Pirates.

"It showed that a Conference USA team can get to the national championship and that its best players can be drafted by the NBA," McCarthy said.

A team like Memphis forces the other teams in the conference to get better. McCarthy said Memphis' success raises the bar for the rest of the league teams.

East Carolina probably sometime will need a breakthrough recruit -- a player who is capable of boosting the entire program.

When McCarthy was an assistant at Auburn under Sonny Smith, the breakthrough recruit was Charles Barkley.

"He helped us get to the NCAA," McCarthy said. "He got there only once, but we went for six straight years."