NC State Athletics mourns the passing of former Wolfpack quarterback Roman Gabriel. The 83-year-old passed away Saturday morning, his son announced. Gabriel, who was inducted into the inaugural class of the NC State Athletic Hall of Fame in 2012, was the ACC Player of the Yer in 1960 and ’61, setting 22 school and nine ACC records during his career. He quarterbacked 16 seasons in the NFL and was a part-time actor. Please click here and here for more.
Category Archives: N.C. State
After two one-run losses, UNC baseball takes third game of NC State series, 14-3
Alex Madera and Colby Wilkerson provided a spark at the bottom of the order, combining for six hits, five RBIs, and seven runs, and No. 11 North Carolina defeated NC State 14-3 Saturday afternoon to become the first team to clinch a spot in the 2024 ACC Tournament. Please click here for more.
NC State Walks Off UNC Baseball in High-Scoring Series Opener
The Diamond Heels and NC State played home run derby all night long in Raleigh on Thursday, but it was Wolfpack who got the last laugh with a walk-off home run by Brandon Butterworth in the bottom of the ninth to take a 9-8 victory in the first of a three-game series. Please click here for more.
Former Tar Heel, Hoya Dontrez Styles Transfers to NC State
The Wolfpack picked up a very good commit in Dontrez Styles. Styles was four stars coming out of HS and spent his first two seasons at UNC, before transferring last season to Georgetown. Coach Keatts was heavily recruiting him both from HS and last season before he chose Georgetown. Please click here for more.
NC State’s DJ Horne Declares for the NBA Draft
NC State guard DJ Horne has officially declared for the 2024 NBA Draft. While Horne might not currently be projected to be drafted, he is trying to change that tune at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament which begins Wednesday. Please click here for more.
Classy Gary Hahn, NC State announcer, got the last word
After 34 years in the booth, Gary Hahn signed off for the last time following the Wolfpack basketball team’s final game. His retirement was delayed by NC State’s astonishing run through the ACC Tournament and to the NCAA Final Four. He weathered an unwarranted attack on his character and had the last word following the Pack’s loss to Purdue which ended the season.
Below is his farewell oratory. Many of the sentences that don’t mention God or Jesus or his spirituality have been printed elsewhere but this is the entirety of his comments.
“In Pittsburgh, and then in Dallas, and then here in Phoenix, I’ve had so many people come up to me and say so many nice things and so many kind words,” Hahn said. “‘I’ve been listening to you all my life’ and ‘We’re gonna miss you’ and ‘Thank you for 34 years of wonderful service.’ And it’s just been great. I couldn’t go through the hotel lobby without five or six people wanting pictures. I was floored. I couldn’t believe it.
“So as this broadcast comes to a close, so does my 34-year career as the radio play-by-play voice of NC State basketball and football. And I’d just like to take a few minutes — if you don’t mind — to say a couple of words that we don’t say enough in our culture, and that’s ‘Thank you,’ before I leave the air tonight. First, I want to thank the Lord Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, for wiring me with a desire and a talent for radio announcing and then for developing that talent so that I could perform at the major college level. If you’d have heard me as a high school senior and you said this kid wants to get into broadcasting, you’d have been laughing at me because I sounded terrible. So, I want to thank the Lord for that and thank him for opening up some doors for me to come to NC State 34 years ago. Coming to Raleigh has been the greatest professional blessing of my life. The Lord has guided me – he’s protected me the entire time I’ve been here representing NC State and I’m grateful for that too.
“I want to thank my teammates. God put a wonderful team of people around me. I basically consider myself sort of an average announcer but I’ve got a tremendous support team. I could not have had better broadcast partners than Johnny Evans and Tony Haines for football. Johnny has been a hero of mine as I’ve told him many times and it has nothing to do with his All-America football career at NC State. For basketball there is no better radio analyst than the guy sitting to my left here, Tony Haynes. He’s been absolutely outstanding – He has incredible insight. He’s just made our broadcast so much better and a lot more listenable. Tony, I just appreciate you as a friend and coworker and all that you’d done for the 25 years or so that we’ve worked together. I have enjoyed my statistian for 34 years – Howard Baum – he’s already moved to the bus. He’s been amazing and he’s always added the right information at the right time to our broadcast. I’ve always appreciated that and I’m sure you listeners have too. Frances Combs has been my extra pair of eyes during football games as my spotter. He’s bailed me out of potential mistakes more times than I can count. He’s a good friend as well. David Modlin is so talented. He’s our producer engineer although he wasn’t here tonight. The ACC hires him to set up radio row at the men’s basketball tournament and there’s nobody more loyal or has more attention to detail than David Modlin.
“Next, I want to thank you listeners, because you’re the real VIPs,” Hahn added. “Without you, I’d have no job. And your support and kindness has been incredible, as I mentioned earlier. And it’s been incredible, especially over the past 15 months. And I just want you to know that everything I tried to do in the 34 years that I’ve been at NC State, everything that’s come out of that radio speaker, has been designed to serve you and represent our advertisers and NC State at the most professional level possible.
“So, thank you for listening. Thank you for all the feedback over the years. You’re wonderful. I will never forget the big roar of approval and the standing ovation you gave me during the last home basketball game on March 3. I just wished my mother could’ve either heard it or witnessed it. I was her caregiver for the last two years and the Lord took her home on February 25th. I just wish she’d have been around to hear some of this. My parents were wonderful to me and I know they would have loved hearing that. So, thank you for all that tribute on March 3rd. My employer, Learfield, planned all of that. They have been absolutely wonderful to me for every bit, every bit of the last 14 years. And before that so was Capital Broadcasting. I worked for them for nearly 20 years. I want to thank all the players and coaches I’ve worked with during my time at NC State. You’re the real reason why we’ve got radio broadcasting in the first place. Without players like, well, the entire NC State basketball team that won the ACC championship last month and a lot of other great players. I can think of Torry Holt, Chris Corchianni and Tom Gugliotta, just one after another, Carlos Rodon in baseball, Trea Turner, thousands more. And coaches who treated me so well like Elliott Avent, and Dick Sheridan – the late Dick Sheridan – Mike O’Cain, probably the nicest man I’ve ever met in all college athletics, and probably the second nicest guy Les Robinson, Chuck Amato, Sydney Lowe, Mark Gottfried, Kevin Keatts. Without all of you, there wouldn’t be any Wolfpack sports. So thanks to everybody who’s ever put on an NC State uniform or coached a team over the last 34 years.
“Just want to let you know that before just about every broadcast for the last 20 years, I prayed to God I’d be glorified, and I’d be forgotten. Well, now it’s time for me to be forgotten. My time is up, and I thank you for yours for the last 34 years.”
Earlier in March, an interviewer asked Hahn about his “misstep,” which wasn’t really a misstep. He said it was really just irreverent humor – although it was more truth than humor – but he had been told not to comment on the controversy. He said he did learn one thing from the experience. “I can remember going back from the game and everyone’s deadly quiet in the car, no one wants to say anything. My phone’s blowing up with all this stuff. I just said ‘guys, you can talk. I’ve made a decision. I’m gonna let Jesus Christ fight my battle for me and whatever the outcome is, that’s going to be his will. And I’m cool with that.’ I found out the next couple of weeks that 90 percent of people out there love me. Ten percent hate my guts. The 10 percent called me every name in the book and 90 percent love me. That was the biggest thing I learned from that. I never knew how people felt about me. I knew they must have accepted me because I’m still there for, at that point, 33 years. But I never really thought of how they felt about me as a person and how I represented the university and all of that. It turned out that something that most people would think is a terrible, embarrassing moment actually to me, turned out to be a blessing.”
Former NC State Forward Named Varsity Men’s Basketball Coach at Green Hope
Former All-ACC NC State Forward Richard Howell has been named the new Varsity Men’s Basketball Coach at Green Hope High School right down the road in Cary. Please click here for more.
NC State: This is Why You Never Give Up
What happened in the regular season is irrelevant. In the postseason, NC State is playing like one of the Top-4 teams in the country, and Purdue just so happens to be the next opponent. It doesn’t matter that the odds were stacked against them. It doesn’t matter that a #11 seed has never made the NCAA Championship game (lowest is #8 seed). It doesn’t matter that a #11 seed has never won an NCAA Title (lowest is #8 seed). Never give up. Please click here for more.
Preview: NC State Takes On #8 Marquette
The Marquette offense runs through star point guard, Tyler Kolek who leads the nation in assists per game, and he has only increased his average in the tournament with 11 assists in each game. (tying Dwyane Wade’s team record). Please click here for more.
NC State ends Oakland’s Cinderella run in OT thriller to extend its own into Sweet 16
Somebody’s Cinderella run had to end early. On Saturday, it was Oakland’s. The 14th-seeded Golden Grizzlies put up a fight, but NC State came out on top, 79-73 in a second-round overtime thriller at the NCAA tournament. With the win, the 11th-seeded Wolfpack become the first double-digit seed this year to advance to the Sweet 16. Please click here for more.