Refuse to accept that status quo. That has been Athletics Director Debbie Yow’s motto since she was hired in May of last year.
And she has done just that as she has already revamped two of the schools sports programs, with the supposed retiring, and I say retiring with a lot of skepticism, of long-time head soccer coach George Tarantini and the resignation of former men’s basketball coach Sidney Lowe.
She is bringing in guys that have not been a part of what has been the past 15 years of overall athletic mediocrity for N.C. State, guys that aren’t content to finish in the middle of the ACC, guys who want to win championships.
And head baseball coach Elliott Avent could be next.
There is no knocking the intensity of Avent on the baseball field. The head coach of the Wolfpack baseball team has been giving umpires and opposing teams headaches over the fourteen years he has spent in Raleigh and has changed the mentality of the program.
During that time he has taken the baseball program to a new level. He has taken the team to eleven NCAA regional appearances, is the all-time winningest coach in the program’s history with 539 wins and was named the ACC and NCAA Coach of the Year in 2003.
However, Avent does have a few knocks on him, knocks that are growing bigger and bigger every year.
The first is that Avent has never been able to take his team to the College World Series. He came close twice, losing to Miami in 2003 and losing in the third game of the three game series against Georgia in 2008 but still hasn’t been able to take the Pack to Omaha.
To put this in perspective, Since 2000, Miami has made it to the College World series five times, North Carolina four times and Clemson and Florida State have made it three times a piece.
Also, Avent has been unable to capture an ACC Championship. His closest finishes came in 2008 when he finished second in the Atlantic Division, fourth overall and in 2003 where his team finished third overall in the league. On top of that, he has struggled against ACC competition as he is only 187-193 overall during the fourteen seasons.
Couple these two problems with teams that have underperformed in the last two seasons and counting, and Avent could be facing a problem.
The 2009 season was the worst in Avent’s history as a coach at State as the team managed to only win 25 games compared to 31 losses. The 2010 season was better as the team finished 38-24, but it finished only .500 in the ACC at 15-15 and was on the bubble in terms of making it to a regional prior to a surprise ACC Tournament run in which it made it all the way to the championship game, catapulting it into the Myrtle Beach Regional, where it lost both of its games.
And this season hasn’t been much better as the team is just 5-10 in the conference and just 18-15 overall. After dropping the first two series of the season, State began to come on, winning two straight series against Clemson and Wake Forest. However, the team was swept against a good Miami team in Coral Gables.
But if this team doesn’t catch fire and finish strong in these next few weeks and secure itself a NCAA Regional bid, Avent, like Tarantini and Lowe, could be on his way out because as we have seen, Yow means business and expects nothing but excellence.
