My dad is retiring from N.C. State again, this time for good. Everyone at State called him, “Dr. Talley” or “Dean Talley” but he has always been just “Dad” to me. You’ve probably seen him on campus, the elderly gentleman in a coat, red scarf and tweed cap with a walking stick. When I was a child, he used to hold my hand as we walked on campus. Sometimes, I have to help him walk now.
He has not, however, lost an ounce of his enthusiasm or love for the school where he spent most of his career, most recently helping fundraise for Arts N.C. State. I hear the excitement in his voice when he says, “We’ve raised $5 million for the Gregg Museum. We need 2 million more and we’ re going to get it!” I believe him.
He started his career at State in 1951 as the assistant dean of students. He was just 24 years old and barely out of college himself, having graduated in 1950 UNC-Chapel Hill after his U.S. Army service in the Philippines during World War II.
Since he’s been at NCSU so long, most people assume Dad was always a member of the Wolfpack. Bill Friday completed his undergraduate degree at NCSU and spent his entire career in Chapel Hill. My father did the exact opposite. Friday is the one who first told my dad about the job at NCSU. When he arrived on campus, his first boss was Dean Edward Cloyd, and John Harrelson was the Chancellor. Harry Truman was the President of the United States and Kerr Scott was the Governor of North Carolina. At that time, there were only 50 female students at State.
My father has been associated with N.C. State for 62 years, including 46 years working on campus. He left the University a few times, to work with the North Carolina Symphony, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Gov. Jim Hunt. Dad says he always knew Hunt, the only NCSU student body president to wear a coat and tie to class, would be governor someday.
When he called last week to ask if I would help him move from the small corner office in the building that carries his name, I wasn’t sure how to respond. I know it’s time for him to retire, but I have mixed emotions about him leaving State. After all, I grew up on this campus, thanks to him.
As a young boy, I was thrilled whenever Dad asked me to accompany him to the office. I would jump in his 1956 Thunderbird convertible to go to work with him at Holladay Hall on a Saturday. While Dad worked, I shuffled paperweights and played with a penguin snow globe, a gift from a former student. I loved using the dumbwaiter in his office, a relic of years past when Holladay Hall included a cafeteria, to send objects to the building’s basement. My father never seemed to mind. I think he was just glad to have his son around.
So many of my NCSU memories with Dad involve sporting events. My earliest memory from Carter-Findley Stadium, as it was known then, is sitting on the wooden bleachers to watch State defeat Penn State. A young Lou Holtz was the head coach then, and my dad called him “Hotshot.” My father had to attend games for work and always managed to get extra tickets so I could take a friend.
While I thought it was cool to sit in the Chancellor’s Box with free Cokes and packs of Nabs crackers, it was too exclusive for me. I longed to be in the raucous Wolves Den, the once grassy hill now covered in concrete at the Murphy Center end of the field. It cost five bucks to sit on the hill. It was so steep that several times I found myself pressed against the fence after rolling all the way down it. The Den was an interesting mix of kids and college students, the students were always willing to carry us kids back up the hill or catch the small plastic footballs we tossed around. When State won an ACC Championship in football in 1979 it was so exciting. My father wouldn’t let me sit in the Den when we played East Carolina University. I didn’t understand why until 1987.
Walking past Reynolds Coliseum now, you would never guess that it was once the loudest and most exciting place in Raleigh (with all due respect to our wonderful Lady Wolfpack). My father always tells me that I missed the glory days of N.C. State basketball — the Dixie Classic era. However, I did get to see David Thompson and the Cardiac Pack of 1983 play at Reynolds. My father and I always had the same seats, left of center court and three rows behind the green (now red) metal railing. It’s hard to imagine now, but even the seats were painted green until after our NCAA victory in Albuquerque.
Along with David Thompson’s brilliance on that court, I remember most the night he fell on the court in 1974. We were playing the University of Pittsburgh. He jumped so high that his knees were at fellow Wolfpacker Phil Spence’s shoulders. The thud when his head hit the hardwoods was sickening, louder than the constant squeak of rubber soled shoes. The entire Coliseum went silent.
They took David to Rex Hospital on Wade Avenue, the same hospital where I’d been born about six years earlier. When he returned with his head wrapped in gauze, the house erupted in cheers — from the hometown crowd and the opposition alike. It would not get that loud again until the winter of 1983.
As an early Christmas present in 1982, my father gave me season basketball tickets so we could attend all the home games together. I was 14 years old and wanted to spend quality time with my father. We had no idea what was in store for the Pack.
I remember a few monumental events from that season. 1. Terry Gannon’s four consecutive free throws against UNC-Chapel Hill after Dean Smith got called for a double technical foul. In the same game, Sidney Lowe passed between his own legs to Thurl Bailey for a game-winning dunk over Sam Perkins. 2. Dereck Whittenburg breaking a bone in his foot and young guard named Ernie Meyers stepping up to help the team regroup. 3. Beating Wake Forest 130-89 in the final regular season game, the noise meter staying in the red for the entire second half. 4. Our miraculous run to the National Championship, where we defeated Houston’s “Phi Slamma Jamma,” starring Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler.
My dad, never one to miss history, took my little sister and me to the Brickyard for the post-game celebration. The trees creaked loudly under the weight of students hanging from their branches. A junked car blazed brightly as the crowd sang the NCSU Fight Song. (The previous week, you could pay a dollar to hit it with a sledgehammer and help bash Houston.).
My other memory from 1983 is somewhat sillier but still resonates. That year, Van Halen played a concert at Reynolds. My parents wouldn’t let me attend, but my dad drove me over to campus so I could listen from outside the Coliseum. Only good fathers, who hate rock n’ roll but love their children, would do that.
Despite many happy memories, I was reluctant to come to NCSU as an undergraduate. It seemed too close to home and too familiar. I was frequently irritated when a professor would single me out during roll call and say, “I expect great things from you in my class.” While it may sound like adolescent whining now, I wanted to be my own person, freed from the expectations that came with being “Dr. Talley’s son.”
But I had a wonderful time at State. I loved being an English major, working late nights doing “paste up” at Technician in the pre-computer era, serving on the Student Media Authority and as an editor of the Windhover literary magazine. I also enjoyed getting a second undergraduate degree and later a master’s at the College of Design.
In 2001, when I completed my graduate degree, Dad handed me a small leather scrapbook. Two photos inside dated 1912 stood out. In one, my Grandfather Talley stands in front of Patterson Hall wearing a football uniform. In the other, he sits in front of the now demolished Fourth Dorm. I was confused. My grandfather attended veterinary school at Ohio State. Had he also attended NCSU? That day, I learned that my grandfather had attended North Carolina A&M, a former name of the University, before World War I. I was the third generation in my family proud to be associated with N.C. State.
As my dad and I moved the last of his packed boxes into the hall, I turned and looked back at the small office, my dad’s campus home for the last decade. It was time to go. “Don’t you want to keep your name plate?” I asked. “Just leave it,” he replied.
It was only then that I realized my mad wasn’t wearing a tie anymore. He looked relaxed and happy, ready to go home. I wrapped the penguin snow globe in some newspaper and carefully tucked it in my jacket pocket as he locked the door behind him.
