NC State basketball's notable fan favorites

The legend of NC State basketball post player D.J. Burns Jr. is growing, exponentially expanding with every flip of the sunglasses, every crowd-pleasing hook shot and every sideline shimmy. The graduate-level center from Rock Hill, South Carolina, has become a media darling for his active energy on the court and his bellyful of personality off of it.

So entrenched in the lineup has Burns become, it’s hard to remember when the two-time transfer wasn’t scoring, rebounding and smiling for Kevin Keatts’ program.

Burns spent a redshirt season at Tennessee, then three years at Winthrop, but he seems to have found a forever home with a NC State basketball program that has been searching for a player to rally around during the Keatts’ era.

And that’s how Burns has become a fan favorite, an undefined, but coveted title that is organically decreed and not intentionally given.

NC State has had more than most through the years, players whose names bring a smile because of a full career or a specific memory for a program that has produced some iconic personalities in the nation’s best basketball conference.

There are various kinds of fan faves, of course. There are the end-of-the-bench guys like Kenny Poston or Staats Battle who brought sideline cheers went they went to the scorer’s table to enter the game.

There are unknown players who earn a special place in everyone’s hearts for doing something special in the right place at the right time, kind of like sophomore Al Green did in 1976 when he made a single free throw with no time left on the clock to beat North Carolina in Chapel Hill or the postseason defense Alvin Battle played against Virginia National Player of the Year Ralph Sampson during the 1983 run to the NCAA championship.

There are also players who brought something special in lean times. Sharp-shooting C.C. Harrison and Lakista McCuller had that quality, as did scoring dervish Migjen Bakalli in Les Robinson’s first days as head coach.

Big men always tend to be fan favorites, players like 7-foot Glenn Sudhop, 7-foot-5 Chuck Nevitt, 6-11 Cozell McQueen or 7-foot Omer Yurtseven.

Burns, though only 6-9, fits that description. He has girth and grins, in the mold of BeeJay Anya, who blocked shots, flashed smiles and always did the unexpected. Anya once pulled a loose tooth on the free throw line and threw it over to the Wolfpack sidelines for the bench to keep until the game ended.

In the end, the selections for the five biggest fan favorites in Wolfpack basketball history were pretty obvious, and Burns might soon join them.

Monte Towe, guard (1971-75)

The 5-foot-7 point guard on the most successful teams in NC State basketball history was unlike any player in the ACC at that time. He was practically as popular as his All-American teammates, David Thompson and Tom Burleson, even though he did not have the same skill set, height or natural talent as the other two.

Towe, however, was a central playmaker with a salad-bowl haircut who reminded television viewers of teen idols like Davy Jones, David Cassidy or early versions of the Beatles. All eyes were on him as he started coach Norm Sloan’s offense, and few people ever saw him coming on defense.

From the first days he stepped on the NC State campus, the former high school football quarterback, baseball shortstop and basketball point guard proved himself to be an unparalleled winner and competitor.

And then there were his free throws. He took them so quickly, you had to hold your eyes open like Wednesday Addams or be in danger of missing them. He was once timed at a little less than two seconds between the time an official handed him the ball and it swished through the net.

“I didn’t want to think about them,” said the career 76% free-throw shooter.

Imagine what might have happened in the final seconds in overtime of the 1974 ACC tournament finals against Maryland if Towe had over-worried his free throws in a game that Burleson carried his team through more than 45 minutes against Maryland’s Len Elmore.

Not long after teammate Phil Spence had given the Pack the lead, Towe was fouled with a few seconds remaining in overtime, going to the line with a one-and-one opportunity. Had he missed the first of those two, Maryland could have easily gotten the ball down the court for a game-winning shot.

Instead, in the flash of an eye, Towe sank both shots to give the game its 103-100 final score, cementing his Wolfpack legend.

Two weeks later, after Thompson and Burleson played significant roles in ending UCLA’s seven-year reign on the NCAA championship, Towe was the catalyst for NC State in beating Marquette in the title game.

“I thought we did a good job on Thompson,” said Marquette coach Al McGuire, “but the little white point guard is the reason NC State won the game.”

So put Towe down as a fan and coach favorite.

Spud Webb, guard (1983-85)

In the aftermath of the 1983 NCAA Championship, NC State basketball coach Jim Valvano desperately needed a point guard. He had the frontcourt replacements he needed for Thurl Bailey in Lorenzo Charles, Cozell McQueen, Alvin Battle and incoming freshman Russell Pierre. He had a shooter to take the place of Dereck Whittenburg in Terry Gannon.

He needed something special, though, to take the place of fire-hydrant shaped point guard Sidney Lowe, who finished his career as the most prolific point guard in ACC history.

Valvano sent assistant Tom Abatemarco to Texas to check out a junior college phenom who didn’t have a lot of size but was creating a stir with his leaping and driving ability. The young guard recorded more than 100 dunks in two years at Midland Junior College and enough assists to make an ACC coach interested.

However, the 5-foot-7 kid Abatemarco brought back to Raleigh looked like he played for a junior high, not a junior college.

“If that’s Spud Webb,” Valvano said to Abatemarco when the player walked off the plane, “you’re fired.”

In the end, Anthony Jerome “Spud” Webb became a fan favorite whether he was at home in Reynolds Coliseum or other places around the ACC. He once got a standing ovation from Duke’s Cameron Crazies for stealing the ball, racing down the court and doing an uncontested 180-degree dunk against the Blue Devils.

Webb had a decent outside shot in the first year of the NCAA-approved 3-point shot, but he preferred to drive inside the lane with all those bigger players. Why?

“That’s where the basket is,” Webb said.

What more could NC State fans ask for?

Professional basketball crowds also learned to love the first under 6-foot player to ever win the NBA dunk contest, which rookie Webb did in his hometown of Dallas in 1986, beating out one-time NC State recruiting target Dominique Wilkins.

Webb spent a total of 12 years playing for four different NBA franchises, starred in a Paul Simon music video and had innumerable fans in every city in which he played.

Pano Fasoulas, center (1985-86)

Arriving practically unannounced from Thessaloniki, Greece, Fasoulas was a 7-foot center with a gloriously floppy mop of shoulder-length hair and arms so long he was given the nickname “The Spider.” He had a bright smile he flashed whenever someone asked a question he didn’t understand. He was the last known ACC player who regularly lit up a postgame cigarette in the locker room, to savor victory or salve defeat.

He was an accomplished shotblocker with a decent baby hook shot. He was a total offensive black hole who never passed, at least not to someone who made a shot. He went the entirety of his only season at NC State without an assist.

What made him a Reynolds Coliseum favorite — students often showed up with big curly wigs that mimicked Pano’s hair — was that he played every home game with his name misspelled on the back of his jersey. (When told about it, Valvano said: “Hell, he’ll never see it.”)

As NC State basketball’s first one-year international player, Fasoulas was an important cog on a team that went to the 1986 NCAA Elite Eight and might have gone farther had the reserve center been able to play in the postseason.

In the Pack’s regular-season finale at Oklahoma State, opposing fans taunted Fasoulas so mercilessly that he went after the entire students section, eventually restrained by two teammates and arena security.

In the postseason, Fasoulas just disappeared. He didn’t play in the Wolfpack’s 64-62 loss to Virginia in the first round of the ACC Tournament in Greensboro. He was not dressed out for NCAA tournament games against Iowa and Arkansas-Little Rock. When asked, Valvano said Fasoulas had a back injury.

As it turns out, though, Fasoulas was being held out of postseason games because NC State athletics director Willis Casey was worried that he would be declared ineligible and any NC State wins would be invalidated, as part of the NCAA’s crackdown on international players who may have been paid by club teams.

Fasoulas eventually went back to Greece to play for his country’s national team, including in the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta. He is one of four personalities affiliated with ACC schools who has been inducted into the FIBA Hall of Fame: coaches Dean Smith and Kay Yow, superstar Michael Jordan and “The Spider.”

Tom Gugliotta, forward (1990-94)

No one knew that the forward from Huntington Station, New York, would become a beloved member of the Wolfpack, because only one person really knew he was coming to Raleigh.

Valvano recruited Tom Gugliotta as a favor for an old friend, Frank Gugliotta. As a freshman, Gugliotta barely got off the bench and Valvano subtly suggested he think about going elsewhere.

And he did: he went to the weight room. Gugliotta added 30 pounds to his growing frame and quickly became one of the most well-rounded players in NC State basketball history.

Fans showed their appreciation by yelling “Gooooogs” whenever he did something big, which was often after teammates Chris Corchiani and Rodney Monroe finished their careers.

Eventually, he was the No. 6 pick in the 1992 NBA draft by the Washington Bullets. He scored nearly 10,000 points and grabbed almost 5,600 rebounds in a 13-year career in the NBA.

Both Googs and Corchiani, another all-time favorite, added to their favored legacies in 2012 when they were ejected from their seats in PNC Arena for disagreeing with ACC official Karl Hess.

As he left the court, even the students and fans who never saw him play were evenly split in booing Hess and “Googs”-ing Gugliotta.

Julius Hodge, guard (2000-2004)

It was easy to spot Julius Hodge on the court during his NC State career. He was the one with the lightning rod sticking out of his back.

“Da Jules From Harlem on His Way to Stardom” never lacked for a clever saying, a personality conflict with an opponent or a big friendly bear hug for his favorite Carnegie Mellon-head, NC State basketball coach Herb Sendek.

From the day he stepped foot on campus, Hodge was a much-anticipated fan favorite, a splash of red-and-white neon who added needed flavor to Sendek’s personality that was often as dry as unbuttered toast.

Part of it was because Hodge was the top recruit in a class of six that completely changed the trajectory of Sendek’s program, returning the Wolfpack to the NCAA tournament after a 10-year absence. A good bit of it, however, was Hodge’s way with words, his appearance in the middle of most things controversial and his unfettered love of Sendek.

Remember his freshman year when he was suspended for a game by the ACC for elbowing Maryland’s Steve Blake? Or when Wake Forest’s Chris Paul was suspended for an ACC Tournament game for punching Hodge in the, um, reproductive region?

“When I found out I could still have children, it was all good,” Hodge said.

Or when he heard that North Carolina guard Rashad McCants compared playing for a college basketball team to being in prison: “I’d hate to see what their shower scene is like.”

He threw out phrases that Wolfpack fans still repeat today:

• “When you’re hungry, you eat; if you’re a frog, you leap. If you’re scared, get a dog.”
• “I turned around and he stole my cookies.”
• “We’re hard to kill — like roaches.”

Hodge really had no idea he was being colorful. He was just being Jules.

“I say what’s on my mind,” said the 2003-04 ACC Player of the Year. “Some people love it; some people hate it.”

There’s no doubt how most Wolfpack fans felt, especially on the seminal play of Hodge’s career, when he took the ball with seconds remaining in a 2005 NCAA Tournament game against defending national champion Connecticut and scored the game-winning basket.

It just so happened that he scored it against Huskies player Ed Nelson, the former Georgia Tech forward who had beaten out Hodge for ACC Freshman of the Year, largely because of negative response to the Blake game mentioned above.

Like Burns, Hodge is a favorite not only because of what he says and does off the court, but because of the things he did to make his team successful.

Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at [email protected].