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Saturday’s game classic moment in ACC lore RALEIGH — This was the place to be Saturday afternoon, on the front row of ACC history.
Maybe not the kind they talk about on television with the talking heads trying to put a kids’ game into self-important perspective. No, this is the kind of historic moment we talk about everywhere else.
Like in bars. And in the office hallways. And outside on the church steps where the preacher can’t hear us.
Did you see the game Saturday? It was a classic.
Karl Hess threw out Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta from State’s game against Florida State. It was a vintage moment in ACC lore. I was there. I saw the whole thing. And here’s what I think about it.
They probably deserved it.
Hess was probably wrong, though.
And nobody outside of Tobacco Road cares.
This was one of those great moments people will talk about for years when Hess is mentioned. Or for that matter, anytime Corchiani or Gugliotta are mentioned, too. This was like something out of the days of Bones McKinney, who sometimes tied himself to a chair during ACC games he was coaching while at Wake Forest.
It was during a Wake game in the early 1960s when Lou Bello blew his whistle right in the middle of a Deacons fast break. Bello came sliding on his knees right up to McKin- ney.
“I didn’t mean to blow my whistle, Bones!” he yelled. “Sorry about that! How’s the family?”
Corchiani and Gugliotta weren’t asking about the Hess family Saturday afternoon. Various accounts of what they were saying differed in the chaotic moments after FSU’s 76-62 win over State.
I asked a school official to go into the officials’ dressing room after the game for an explanation. We sometimes do this when we need something in a game explained — a call or a ruling that has some significance to the outcome or the telling of the story.
Hess told a State spokesman he would have no comment because what happened had no effect on the game. And he was right. The school’s athletics director, Debbie Yow, later demanded an explanation from the ACC office.
“Under Rule 10, when circumstances warrant,” was how the statement from league officials director John Clougherty began. It got more convoluted from there. The News & Record incorrectly identified the source of the statement as a conference associate commissioner in the Sports section.
So by Sunday morning, about the time everyone in the state was having a good laugh about the incident, things were at a boil in Raleigh. Fans were mad. Yow was mad. (She sent me an email Sun-day saying she’d spoken personally with the commissioner). Even some reporters who were there were mad.
Here’s what I think about all that.
Harrumph. Harrumph.
Hess, who I think is the best referee in America, threw out a couple of loudmouths. That they happened to be Corchiani and Gugliotta, two former Pack players whose jerseys are hanging in the RBC rafters, only made it more interesting.
Their removal thus became a conflict of conference sportsmanship and protocol and a rallying cry for a basketball program that isn’t having any fun these days.
And now that everyone else is, at State’s expense, well you could see how this would get under State’s skin. Which, of course, makes this all the more fun. Not that it’s State, but that it’s any pompous athletic body, or any pompous referee, or any pompous fan.
This is sports. It’s supposed to be fun. And when the anger boils out of the stands and onto ESPN, you can respond one of two ways. You can laugh or you can put out a statement. We got a little of both this weekend.
A dreary ACC season has become a lot more interesting the past few days with Austin Rivers shooting down Carolina and Duke coming from behind to drag down State and Hess wading into league lore by throwing out two beloved Wolfpack players from their own house.
Now get this. They’ll be honored Tuesday night in a ceremony for the 1989 Wolfpack team Gugliotta and Corchiani played for, a team that won 22 games and advanced to the Sweet 16, where State fans will remind you they were wronged by referee Rick Hartzell, whose traveling call against Corchiani ended their chances of beating Georgetown.
The team will receive something called the Wolfpack Unlimited Award, the first of its kind. The school apparently thought the 23rd anniversary of the team was a good time to honor it.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Bello understood that as few officials before or since. He once handed the ball to a player at the line with about three seconds to play.
“You have two shots,” he said to the player. “You’re down by two. Don’t choke.”
I miss those days. That’s why Saturday was so much fun.
Maybe not the kind they talk about on television with the talking heads trying to put a kids’ game into self-important perspective. No, this is the kind of historic moment we talk about everywhere else.
Like in bars. And in the office hallways. And outside on the church steps where the preacher can’t hear us.
Did you see the game Saturday? It was a classic.
Karl Hess threw out Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta from State’s game against Florida State. It was a vintage moment in ACC lore. I was there. I saw the whole thing. And here’s what I think about it.
They probably deserved it.
Hess was probably wrong, though.
And nobody outside of Tobacco Road cares.
This was one of those great moments people will talk about for years when Hess is mentioned. Or for that matter, anytime Corchiani or Gugliotta are mentioned, too. This was like something out of the days of Bones McKinney, who sometimes tied himself to a chair during ACC games he was coaching while at Wake Forest.
It was during a Wake game in the early 1960s when Lou Bello blew his whistle right in the middle of a Deacons fast break. Bello came sliding on his knees right up to McKin- ney.
“I didn’t mean to blow my whistle, Bones!” he yelled. “Sorry about that! How’s the family?”
Corchiani and Gugliotta weren’t asking about the Hess family Saturday afternoon. Various accounts of what they were saying differed in the chaotic moments after FSU’s 76-62 win over State.
I asked a school official to go into the officials’ dressing room after the game for an explanation. We sometimes do this when we need something in a game explained — a call or a ruling that has some significance to the outcome or the telling of the story.
Hess told a State spokesman he would have no comment because what happened had no effect on the game. And he was right. The school’s athletics director, Debbie Yow, later demanded an explanation from the ACC office.
“Under Rule 10, when circumstances warrant,” was how the statement from league officials director John Clougherty began. It got more convoluted from there. The News & Record incorrectly identified the source of the statement as a conference associate commissioner in the Sports section.
So by Sunday morning, about the time everyone in the state was having a good laugh about the incident, things were at a boil in Raleigh. Fans were mad. Yow was mad. (She sent me an email Sun-day saying she’d spoken personally with the commissioner). Even some reporters who were there were mad.
Here’s what I think about all that.
Harrumph. Harrumph.
Hess, who I think is the best referee in America, threw out a couple of loudmouths. That they happened to be Corchiani and Gugliotta, two former Pack players whose jerseys are hanging in the RBC rafters, only made it more interesting.
Their removal thus became a conflict of conference sportsmanship and protocol and a rallying cry for a basketball program that isn’t having any fun these days.
And now that everyone else is, at State’s expense, well you could see how this would get under State’s skin. Which, of course, makes this all the more fun. Not that it’s State, but that it’s any pompous athletic body, or any pompous referee, or any pompous fan.
This is sports. It’s supposed to be fun. And when the anger boils out of the stands and onto ESPN, you can respond one of two ways. You can laugh or you can put out a statement. We got a little of both this weekend.
A dreary ACC season has become a lot more interesting the past few days with Austin Rivers shooting down Carolina and Duke coming from behind to drag down State and Hess wading into league lore by throwing out two beloved Wolfpack players from their own house.
Now get this. They’ll be honored Tuesday night in a ceremony for the 1989 Wolfpack team Gugliotta and Corchiani played for, a team that won 22 games and advanced to the Sweet 16, where State fans will remind you they were wronged by referee Rick Hartzell, whose traveling call against Corchiani ended their chances of beating Georgetown.
The team will receive something called the Wolfpack Unlimited Award, the first of its kind. The school apparently thought the 23rd anniversary of the team was a good time to honor it.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Bello understood that as few officials before or since. He once handed the ball to a player at the line with about three seconds to play.
“You have two shots,” he said to the player. “You’re down by two. Don’t choke.”
I miss those days. That’s why Saturday was so much fun.
