Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, April 16, 1990 TAG: 9004160054
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By BARRY JACOBS THE NEW YORK TIMES
DATELINE: RALEIGH, N.C. LENGTH: Long
Wintry winds and blanketing frosts have lingered far longer than usual.
Meanwhile the chill has been equally pronounced within a university community torn by the travails of its men's basketball program and its head coach Jim Valvano.
The Valvano era ended on April 7, when the school reached an agreement with the coach under which he left his position after 10 seasons, 209 victories and the 1983 national championship.
Many within and beyond North Carolina State saw the coach and his program as an embarrassment, an exemplar of the disdain for academics and overemphasis on winning that corrupt intercollegiate athletics.
But many others, especially Wolfpack fans, saw the coach as a scapegoat for institutional failures that were not Valvano's alone.
Further inflaming the situation, the coach was dismissed only after five weeks of very public discussions that included the threat of a lawsuit by the school to avoid honoring a buyout clause in his contract.
Ultimately, the coach was paid $238,000 by North Carolina State and $375,000 by its affiliated athletic booster organization, the Wolfpack Club.
"It's been a very unhappy experience for everybody," said William Friday, former president of the University of North Carolina system and co-chairman of the Knight Commission, which is examining the role of college athletics in the United States. "There certainly were no winners."
Even with his handsome settlement and a professed "excitement about the uncertainty of the future," Valvano did not leave without first fighting for his job. At one point he offered to work for a year without a contract.
"I battled because that's what I truly wanted to do," Valvano said last week as he prepared to vacate his campus office for the last time.
"I wanted people to know, whether you want to accept it, that there's a tremendous difference between accountability and culpability."
In the weeks in which Valvano's job status remained front-page news in North Carolina, rallies, petitions and letter-writing campaigns were mounted in his behalf.
He and his wife, Pam, engendered spontaneous applause upon entering restaurants and movie theaters.
North Carolina Gov. James G. Martin conspicuously wore a yellow ribbon to express his support, while Oliver North and others telephoned to express theirs.
But the interim chancellor, Larry K. Monteith, held firm in his intention to dismiss Valvano in the wake of allegations of point-shaving and the revelation of improper payments from an agent to a former North Carolina State player, Charles Shackleford, while he was at the school.
Now, while Valvano talks of the "wonderful world of opportunities" before him, the university begins the process of healing its wounds, hiring new personnel and addressing the shortcomings that led to its troubles.
"Phase one is over," said the commissioner of the Atlantic Coast Conference, Gene Corrigan. "The change has been announced, but it hasn't been done yet."
Some areas have seen change already. Faculty participation in admissions, athletic oversight and the development of higher academic standards for all undergraduates has increased substantially.
"We have to, as a university community, be a bit more aware that things, academic situations in an athletic program, can deteriorate over time," said Raymond Long, a crop science professor and president of North Carolina State's faculty senate.
"The faculty are going to be much more vocal and involved."
Also in the works is a restructuring of the relationship between the university and the Wolfpack Club.
Until now the fund-raising group has operated autonomously, though the approximately $3 million it garners annually goes only to school-approved projects.
"It's not a healthy situation to have an organization like that be totally separate from the university," said Corrigan, pointing out that North Carolina State is alone in the eight-member ACC in tolerating such an arrangement.
The Wolfpack Club balked at dismissing the popular Valvano, thereby complicating negotiations and undercutting the efforts of the school administration.
Even Valvano's North Carolina attorney found the situation perplexing.
"On the one hand they were our closest, most ardent ally," William Webb said, "and on the other hand, they were a stumbling block to a resolution."
That ambiguous position promises to change if, as expected, employees of the Wolfpack Club are made directly responsible to the athletic director.
But just who the athletic director will be hasn't been determined.
In fact, last August the woes surrounding the basketball program cost North Carolina State both its chancellor, Bruce R. Poulton, who resigned, and its athletic director, Valvano, who was forced to step down from that position.
Neither position has been filled permanently, though search committees expect to fill both in about a month.
Monteith is among five finalists for the chancellor's job, but will have to overcome lingering animosity if he's chosen.
"I'm distressed at the way the administration handled the Jim Valvano contract termination," said a North Carolina State trustee, Daniel Gunter, expressing a commonly held sentiment.
"I'm very proud of the job Jim did and the image he portrayed."
Valvano's successor as coach will inherit a National Collegiate Athletic Association probation, player unrest, and a divided base of support.
He also must be "someone that will really share the values of the institution, understand its history, and wants to play a part in its long-term future," according to the interim athletic director, Harold Hopfenburg.
One of the leading candidates appears to be East Tennessee State's coach, Les Robinson, a 1965 graduate of North Carolina State who has seen all but one full-term player graduate in 16 years of coaching.
As for the 44-year-old Valvano, he said he had no firm plans for the future, though he seemed particularly enthused about writing a book.
"Because of the position I've been placed in," he said, "I think I have a unique perspective on intercollegiate athletics, on the role it plays in universities, and the role the university plays in intercollegiate athletics. I'd like to share that."
Valvano also wants to resume coaching, though his agent, Arthur Kaminsky, said, "I really can't conceive of a scenario where he would be coaching a college team next year."
Whatever happens, a relentlessly upbeat Valvano anticipates remaining in the Raleigh area, where next year his two oldest daughters will attend N.C. State.
"I'm fine," Valvano said. "I don't know what else to say. I don't believe in being depressed. It doesn't work."
by CNB