TECHNISHIT: Jim Valvano’s statue fills coaching void

“There are three things we all should do, if we do this every day of our lives, number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think, you should spend some time in thought, and number three, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. Think about it, if you laugh, you think and you cry every day, that’s a full day, that’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re gonna have some- thing special.”

" />

Dereck Whittenburger

Hi, I’m Marty McFly’s kid. Some of you all may know my father as the most famous time traveler to ever live. He didn’t use it for our gain … but I will.

He was working as an investment executive at Chrysler when he was goaded by his co-worker Douglas J. Needles into a shady business deal, which led to his firing. So I decided to pull a Biff. I went to the future looked for the most unlikely event possible and bet on that thing happening. I then took out several small business loans and placed them on that thing happening.

That’s what brought me to Raleigh. I was watching one of those crappy YouTube rewinds for the year 2019. One of the goofiest storylines was the new athletic director, Wolfgang Tuff, at NC State deciding to literally hire the statue of a former great, Jim Valvano.

I had to look up the betting pool on this and, according to Vegas, the odds of a statue being hired were 100,000-1. So for every dollar I bet, I received $100,000 back. When I tried to place the bets, most small-time bookies refused to let me in, but all the major players did. They laughed in my face and happily took my money. All the while, they had no clue that I was coming back to bankrupt them all.

When I saw that this was an actual thing, I looked back at how something as goofy as this could happen. The entire time this coaching search was going on, the leading candidates were head coaches Matt McCall of the Chattanooga Mocs, Randy Rahe of Weber State or Greg Gard from Wisconsin. Gard was the fan favorite. However, he took a job at Texas replacing Shaka Smart. The other two coaches were excited about the prospects of this job until they were completely and utterly dismantled by Duke in the NCAA Tournament.

“Play those guys twice a year and recruit against Coach K,” McCall said afterward. “Yeah, I’ll pass.”

Tuff was left stunned hurt and disappointed by so many coaches turning down the job. Then, just two days before the start of the 2020 season, he had a great idea. He hired the statue of Jimmy V because it couldn’t say no.

“My favorite band has always been TLC,” Tuff said. “So during this stressful search process, I was listening to their hit single ‘Waterfalls.’ Some may call me crazy, but in all reality, I’m making sure this team just sticks to the rivers and the lakes that it’s used to.”

“The statue of Jimmy V can’t be any worse at coaching fundamentals like defense and rebounding than we have had here in the past, so I don’t see the problem here,” Tuff said.

I’m not a big NC State fan so I don’t know how much truth there is to that. But the fact that fans were delighted with the decision says something about the condition this program was in the past.

While Valvano was known for his eccentric personality and being a walking quote machine, his statue did not comment when asked how it felt to get the job.