Tim Peeler: Remembering former NC State men's basketball assistant Art Musselman

Art Musselman, who coached one of the top five men’s basketball teams in NC State history, was a valued assistant to head coach Norman Sloan in the 1970s, in one of the top eras in Atlantic Coast Conference basketball history.

He was a regular on the sidelines with Sloan, Eddie Biedenbach, Sam Esposito and others, but he made his mark on the Wolfpack program as the head coach of the freshman team, especially in 1971-72, when he coached an immensely popular team that featured David Thompson, Monte Towe, Tim Stoddard and other contributors to the varsity’s 1974 NCAA championship.

Musselman died last week in his adoptive hometown of Wendell. He was 86.

The relationship between Musselman and Sloan dated back to 1955, when Sloan was the head coach at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina, and recruited Musselman from Huntington, Indiana, to play for the Bulldogs.

A lanky forward, Musselman became a star for Sloan’s famous “Blitz Kids,” similar to how Sloan was part of Everett Case’s “Hoosier Hotshots” as an NC State freshman in 1946-47. Musselman became a star at the military school, averaging 15.9 points a game in his four-year career.

“Without Coach Sloan, none of what I’ve done from age 17 to 75 would have been possible,” Musselman said in 2014, when he was — like Sloan, Case and a dozen other former Wolfpack players and coaches — inducted into the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame. “I had no dreams of ever accomplishing something like this, but he not only helped me have dreams, but also fulfill them.”

A three-time collegiate all-state player and the 1957 South Carolina college player of the year, Musselman scored 1,506 points at the Citadel, a record that stood for a quarter century.

In 1981, he was inducted into the Citadel Athletics Hall of Fame and in 2009 he became only the second person and the first player to have a jersey honored by the school. The other was former Citadel basketball coach and athletics director Les Robinson, who held those same two positions at NC State.

Musselman spent three years in the U.S. Marines after his college career ended in 1960, and he then, on Sloan’s recommendation, became the head basketball coach at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, just as Sloan had been a decade earlier.

He was the head coach of the Blue Hose from 1963-68 and then moved to Clemson to be the freshman coach. Midway through the 1969-70 season, Sloan called Musselman and asked if he would move to Raleigh to replace departing assistant Charlie Bryant, who was heading into private business. Musselman arrived late in February, just in time to help the Wolfpack win its first ACC championship under Sloan, by upsetting heavily favored South Carolina in the title game.

Soon after, recruits Tommy Burleson, Thompson, Towe and others signed to play with the Pack.

The freshman team of 1971-72 was made up of Sloan’s largest recruiting class, seven players that included Shelby-native Thompson and Indiana products Towe, Stoddard and Leo Campbell and Ohio natives Craig Kuszmaul and Mark Moeller. Four starters and one reserve averaged in double-figure in scoring, led by Thompson’s 35.6 points and 13.6 rebounds per game. Stoddard also averaged 13.1 rebounds per game.

The legendary team, which often drew as many fans as the varsity team, posted a 15-1 record, with the only loss at North Carolina, a setback that made Thompson vow he would never lose to the Tar Heels again. It scored 157 points in one game, which included 54 from Thompson, his highest point total until he scored 57 in his senior season against Buffalo State.

They outscored their opponents by nearly 500 points, averaging 108.6 points a game. To put that in perspective, in 1973, ’74 and ’75, Thompson, Towe, Stoddard and company had three of the five highest scoring teams in ACC basketball history and the best of those, during the undefeated 1972-73 team, scored more than 15 points per game fewer than the freshman team they were part of.

It was, quite simply, a team too good for Musselman and his assistant Biedenbach to coach.

“When they are that good, all I had to do was just stay out of the way,” Musselman said in 2021. “I can’t say we had much to do with it. They were just the greatest group of talent that I had ever been around. To see their demeanor against each other, the respect they had for one another.

“They knew all they had to do was play as hard as they could and play well together and no one could touch them.”

In 1972-73, State posted an undefeated 27-0 record. The following year, it went 30-1 and ended UCLA’s seven-year reign over college basketball, beating the John Wooden-coach Bruins in the NCAA semifinals in Greensboro. Two days later, the Pack beat Marquette for the school’s first NCAA team championship.

In his four-and-a-half years, Musselman was part of a staff that won three ACC titles and the 1974 NCAA championship.

Musselman says he never knew why Sloan recruited him to the Citadel from tiny Huntington High School. The answer isn’t really hard: Sloan, an Indianapolis native, knew he was getting a player with basketball genes and savvy.

“I came from a little country town in Indiana, and how he came to find out about me I have no idea — we never discussed it,” Musselman said. “It just kind of came out of the blue.”

Musselman left basketball on a high note, taking a job with IBM shortly after the 1974 title. He then became a teacher and the boys and girls basketball coach at Cape Fear Academy. He moved back to the Triangle in Knightdale, becoming a public school teacher, a prison educator, a contributor to the Wendell Parks and Recreation department and a part-time car salesman.

“Everything that has happened to me since 1956 is because of Coach Sloan,” Musselman said in 2014. “I can’t thank him enough for teaching me to have dreams.”

Musselman is survived by his wife Carol, three children, two stepchildren, four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. A visitation and celebration of life will be held by Musselman’s family on Sunday, beginning at 2 p.m., at Hephzibah Baptist Church in Wendell.

You may contact Tim Peeler at [email protected].