Will Wade completely betrayed NC State. But how much of a surprise should that be?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Will Wade used N.C. State to revive his basketball coaching career, then left for LSU.
- Wolfpack leadership ignored prior red flags and hired Wade anyway. He lasted one year.
- Wade’s public promises clashed with exit; he resigned by having his agent send an email.
When I think of what Will Wade has done to N.C. State — the glittery promises, the tough talk, the snarky pooh-poohing of the very idea he might consider a return to LSU — I’m reminded of a story from more than 2,000 years ago.
In one of Aesop’s fables, called “The Farmer and the Viper,” a kind farmer finds a nearly frozen snake in the winter. He takes it home and nurses it back to health.
Once revived, the viper immediately bites the farmer. As the farmer lays dying, he asks the snake why it would do that.
The snake replies: “You knew I was a snake when you picked me up.”
Is that too on the nose? N.C. State isn’t dying, but it certainly has been wounded by a coach who used the Wolfpack basketball program for his own purposes and then threw it away when it got him back to where he wanted to go: LSU. He accepted the head coaching job at LSU, with his former employer, on Thursday.
N.C. State is certainly the harmed party here, but it’s also not without blame. The Wolfpack knew what it was getting into. It happily signed up for the “Rehab of Will Wade” seminar, which was conducted for two years at McNeese State after Wade’s embarrassing and major NCAA violations in his first stint at LSU. Then Wade moved the seminar to Raleigh for a single year of what was grandiosely termed the “Red Reckoning.”
Oh, it was a reckoning all right.
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It was Wade, reckoning he could pretend like he was all about building N.C. State’s basketball team in 2026-27, when in reality he was all about getting out of town. He got his agent to send his resignation email to N.C. State athletic director Boo Corrigan, a cowardly touch.
In Charlotte at the ACC Tournament, exactly two weeks before Wade RVA-ed (Resigned Via Agent), a News & Observer reporter asked Wade about the rumors of him leaving Raleigh for Baton Rouge.
Wade acted like he had just been asked if he had committed any felonies that morning.
“Is the job open there?” Wade said with a glare. “Huh?!”
It wasn’t at the time, although there was little doubt it soon would be.
Then Wade said: “Listen, to be very clear. I’m excited (to be) at N.C. State. I was hired at N.C. State to do a job. This wasn’t going to take one year. I’ve already met with our administration about next year, and some of the changes that we need to make, and some of the things that we need to do to put this program where it deserves long term. So I’m not.... I’m not on social media. I’m not into gossip. I’m not into any of that sort of stuff. But look, we’re going to win, and we’re going to win big at N.C. State.”
There are so many things you could point out in that statement, but here’s just one. I’m not on social media. Funnily enough, do you know where Wade made his “see ya later N.C. State” statement after getting his agent to send that email?
Well, he put it on social media.
But that was par for the course. My Texas relatives have a term for someone like Wade: All hat, no cattle.
Let’s give the man credit, though: He can talk. It’s part of the reason why he just keeps getting hired.
Wade fed the Wolfpack faithful red meat a year ago at his introductory press conference by saying things like this: “You’re going to get that same passion and competitive fire I had at LSU without all the arrogance that got me in trouble. I’ve grown and matured since then.”
And, in terms of the Wolfpack’s prospects: “It’s going to be a reckoning for the ACC. It’s going to be a reckoning for college basketball. It’s coming, and it’s coming soon. I want to be very clear. This is not a rebuild.”
That wasn’t altogether wrong. N.C. State improved from 5-15 in the ACC in the final season of Kevin Keatts to 10-8 in the league this season. The Wolfpack also made the NCAA Tournament, barely, but lost in the First Four to finish 20-14. Wade reiterated after that loss to Texas his intention to return for a second season, calling that squad the “worst team” that he would have at N.C. State and “the floor of our program.”
It was also the best and the only N.C. State team he would have. Wade now will join the renegade row of coaches at LSU, which also employs football rapscallion Lane Kiffin and women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey. He’ll get more money, of course, because LSU’s athletic department (with the assistance aka meddling of the Louisiana governor) spends money like a drunken gambler on an endless Vegas bender.
Corrigan used the word “disappointed” seven different times in his press conference Thursday. He said he and Wade had met for two hours Tuesday evening, planning for next season in Raleigh.
“There was no reason for me, in my job, not to believe the words I was hearing that were coming back to me from Coach Wade,” Corrigan said. “.... I was surprised and shocked as anyone else.”
It was shocking to some, I guess.
But Aesop knew this 2,000 years ago:
A viper is still a viper.
And when it feels warm enough to bite? Watch out for the fangs.
This story was originally published March 27, 2026 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Will Wade completely betrayed NC State. But how much of a surprise should that be?."
