The year is 1987. Kevin Howell is your student body president. Rent is $88 a month. NC State basketball is the reigning ACC champion after its 68-67 victory over the Tar Heels six months prior — you have no idea how long you’ll have to wait for another banner hanging ceremony.

But this weekend, the only thing you’re interested in is Wolfpack football. East Carolina is coming to town, and you’re in for a brawl.

Heading into the Sept. 4 matchup between the Pirates and the Wolfpack, there had already been concerns raised about unruly fan behavior. The Friday issue of Technician displayed such concerns with its front page article — ‘Public Safety gears up for NSCU-ECU game.’

“This is going to be the toughest game to work,” Maj. Larry Liles of Public Safety said in the Sept. 4 issue. “We have more injuries and arrests at this game than at all other games combined.”

Just like they predicted, mayhem ensued.

Fueling the fire, expectations for the Wolfpack were high to start the 1987 season. The year prior, the bar was raised as head coach Dick Sheridan went 8-3-1 in his first season at the helm with big wins over UNC, Clemson, South Carolina, Maryland and Wake Forest. It seemed like Sheridan was really building something, and fans expected the Pack to steamroll their pesky rival to the east.

It is safe to say it did not go as planned. Five Wolfpack turnovers made for a frustrating watch, alongside a strong performance from ECU quarterback Travis Hunter, who led a competent Pirate offense to a dominant 32-14 victory with over 50 rushing yards and 5-for-9 passing.

As the final whistle blew, ECU fans stampeded onto the gridiron, making their delight known to the remaining Wolfpack fans at Carter-Finley.

Field rushing remains a common occurrence to this day and is still a topic of controversy. But today, they are almost always perpetrated by home fans on their home field. To rush another team’s home turf is sacrilege.

“It was one of those days … hot, miserable, sweaty,” said former Technician sports editor Tim Peeler. “Tensions and emotions burned brighter on days like that. And that game, nothing went right for NC State, after a season of everything going right for Sheridan and his team. I just knew something was probably not going to turn out well out of all that.”

“East Carolina for the 15 previous seasons, when they played against NC State, always felt like they deserved to have a spot at the table,” Peeler said. “[They felt like] they deserved to be treated as an equal.”

By the end of the ‘riot’, both goal posts were torn down, resulting in an estimated $7,200 in damage. But along with the animosity, the rivalry was built on kinship.

“It’s a classic rivalry story of just the people you went to high school [with],” Peeler said. “Especially if you were from anywhere from the middle part of the state, the coast. You had many classmates who went to school at East Carolina … There’s no difference now between what the rivalry is like and what the rivalry was like back then, except for maybe the fact that East Carolina has been more successful.”

Another wrinkle: NC State legend Jim Valvano, athletic director at the time, was at the center of the story.

“[Valvano’s] reputation was not his modern legacy,” Peeler said. “He canceled men’s gymnastics, slow pitch softball and men’s and women’s fencing — so he came in and he made some changes, probably necessary at the time, but it wasn’t always popular.”

“He was never someone who shied away from attention,” Peeler said. “In fact, he always sought it out. So he was out front, wanting to make big and bold decisions, and when [the riot] happened, he knew that somebody needed to get control of what was going on in that rivalry. He was convinced almost immediately that he needed to cancel that rivalry because bad things were happening.”

The separation lasted five years. Both in the top 25, No. 21 NC State faced No. 12 ECU in the 1991 Peach Bowl in Atlanta, Georgia, and the Pack once again fell to the Pirates.

“That game was huge because it brought the two teams back together,” Peeler said. “The first couple of games they played in the aftermath of that were at neutral locations. They’d come away from that, and then more conversations started happening.”

With the rivalry renewed, the teams have matched up 14 times, series tied at 7-7.