Former NC State basketball coach Jim Valvano to take place in Naismith Hall of Fame

Jim Valvano’s first game at Reynolds Coliseum was not a memorable one or a winning one.

Nor was he coaching N.C. State.

Valvano brought his Iona Gaels into Reynolds on a chilly January night in 1978. Wolfpack coach Norm Sloan was fighting the flu but that was not a factor as the Pack easily won, 99-72.

A few days before, the Gaels played at East Carolina’s Minges Coliseum, taking a 96-74 victory as 6-11 freshman center Jeff Ruland had 23 points and nearly destroyed a rim with one slam dunk.

Ruland had 25 points against the Wolfpack, but star guard Glenn Vickers struggled and the Gaels had 26 turnovers. The Pack led 50-36 at the half in the nonconference game, which was overshadowed by North Carolina’s win over Maryland earlier that day in Chapel Hill.

What no one could have guessed was that five years later, Valvano would be on the NC. State bench, coaching a Wolfpack team that would create one of the brightest shining moments in NCAA Tournament history in 1983. Or that 10 years after that, Valvano, dying of cancer, would make Reynolds rock one last time and leave so many in tears with a speech for the ages.

Valvano will be enshrined Saturday into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, taking his place among the game’s greats. Had he lived, had he beaten cancer, he surely would have left everyone laughing and in tears, rolling out the one-liners in the Hall of Fame ceremony in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The News & Observer’s account of that 1978 game at Reynolds noted Valvano had a “slight resemblance to Joe Namath.” Valvano, in turn, would work the former New York Jets quarterback into one of his most-used jokes.

Valvano liked to say that on one plane flight, he was sitting in first class and some of the flight attendants were pointing and smiling at him. After all, as he put it, why not? The Pack had won the national championship and, hey, everyone knew Jim Valvano.

Then, the plane landed. Valvano said one of the flight attendants came over and said, “It was so nice to have you with us today, Mr. Namath.”

Ego deflated. Or at least a little.

Valvano would flash a bit of that humor after Iona’s loss to the Pack at Reynolds. Not happy with the three referees who worked the game, Valvano would say, “I didn’t know so many could miss so much.” Not said: Valvano also had a technical foul.

Valvano was called “feisty” in the N&O account and an “activist on the sideline.” He would always be that way at NC. State, taking over for Sloan in 1980 and coaching the Pack until 1990, his coattails often flying as he spun about in front of the bench during games.

The Wolfpack won ACC championships in 1983 and 1987 as Valvano coached and competed against Dean Smith, Mike Krzyzewski, Lefty Driesell, Terry Holland and others in the ACC. The Pack’s 54-52 victory over Houston in the 1983 NCAA championship game stands alone, arguably the biggest upset in NCAA history.

As Valvano would joke later, even his dear mother took Houston and gave the points that night.

Valvano’s departure from N.C. State in 1990 was a messy one. There was an NCAA investigation into program violations and a UNC System investigation amid allegations of academic improprieties.

There finally was a mutual agreement: Valvano and N.C. State would part ways. He would never coach another game.

Two years later, Valvano was diagnosed with cancer. In March 1993, he announced the creation of the V Foundation for Cancer Research while receiving the Arthur Ashe Courage and Humanitarian Award during the ESPY Awards. Its motto: “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up!”

“It may not save my life. It may save my children’s lives. It may save someone you love,” Valvano said in an inspirational speech so often replayed on ESPN.

“As many times as I’ve watched it, it gets better and better,” former Wolfpack guard Chris Corchiani once said. “I cry more and more.”

The V Foundation has awarded $310 million in research grants in the past 30 years. One of Valvano’s daughters, Jamie, is a cancer survivor.

“His real legacy is in fighting cancer. And it’s a great legacy,” former Georgia Tech coach Bobby Cremins told the N&O in 2018.

Such was the full measure of the man, James Thomas Anthony Valvano, now a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

He died on April 28, 1993 at age 47. He still is missed, his grave site at Raleigh’s Oakwood Cemetery often visited all these years later.

And Reynolds Coliseum? It’s called James T. Valvano Arena at William Neal Reynolds Coliseum. No one could have foreseen that on that January night in 1978.