Something good, indeed, came from some of the worst days in NC State history — the state of North Carolina’s affinity for championship basketball.
State College suffered greatly during the 1918 calendar year. It had a state-champion basketball team, but the football season was decimated by the twin threats of the First World War and the deadly Spanish Flu Pandemic that killed 10 times more people globally than the war.
Because it was a military institution at the time, State did not shut its doors when the great pandemic appeared in Raleigh in September 1918. It continued to train officers for the U.S. Army through the Student Army Training Corps, even after more than half the students, professors and staff contracted the deadly strain of influenza in a two-week span.
A total of 13 students died in the makeshift infirmary, as well as two nurses, Lucy Page Thompson and Eliza Riddick, niece of school president Wallace Carl Riddick.
All extracurricular activities, including five football games, were canceled. Athletics director, and football and basketball coach Harry Hartsell was drafted into the Army, leaving a void in leadership that was filled by Hartsell’s top lieutenant, Tal Stafford, who coached football, baseball and basketball.
Hartsell had guided the football team to a 6-2-1 record in 1917 and the basketball team to a 12-2 mark in 1917-18. It also won the mythical state title, with a 2-1 record against Duke, a 2-0 record against Wake Forest, a 2-0 record against Elon and a win over Guilford.
There was a huge gap in that successful record, however, because at that time State and North Carolina did not play each other because of an eligibility feud that dated back to 1905.
Stafford took over the football team in 1918, but the wheels came off quickly with the cancellation of all school activities. When practice and play resumed, Stafford’s team traveled to Atlanta to face Georgia Tech coach John Heisman’s defending national champion Golden Hurricane. Completely outmatched in that early November contest, State suffered the worst loss in school history, 128-0.
No one knew what to expect a month later when Stafford’s first basketball team began its preseason drills. The school desperately needed some good news, and the basketball team had the potential to provide it.
Almost all of the players from Hartsell’s 1918 state championship team returned, led by team captain Franklin D. Cline and Raleigh’s own Thomas N. Park. Stafford directed them through the regular season, posting an 11-3 record and beating every team in the state except Davidson and North Carolina.
Davidson simply couldn’t find a date to play State College that season. The Wildcats, however, made no claim on the state championship, but Carolina did.
The White Phantoms had also beaten every other team in the state. In a time before conferences, state titles were meaningful for college teams, so both schools were eager for a resolution.
On March 15, 1919, the two schools put aside their eligibility differences to schedule a one-game playoff to decide the state championship in Raleigh’s downtown auditorium, which State used as its home court.
It was the official beginning of “March Madness” in the state of North Carolina.
The two teams were not that evenly matched. North Carolina had a height advantage in center Benjamin Lipfert over NC State’s J.D. Groome, but the Aggies liked playing a fast style of basketball. Stafford’s “tossers” jumped out to a 15-7 lead early in the game. North Carolina slowed the pace by closely guarding the NC State forwards and managed to cut their deficit to just 17-14 at the half.
The Aggies resumed their speedy play in the first seven minutes of the second half, forcing North Carolina to call a time out just to catch its breath. Trailing 23-17, the White Phantoms of the University had little hope of catching the Aggies, who finished strong by outscoring its new rival 12-8 over the final five minutes of the game to secure a 39-29 victory.
Park scored 14 points for the Aggies, while Groome, who was out-sized but not out-done, scored 13. Captain Cline added 10 more to take care of most of the scoring.
North Carolina’s Percy Lynch was the game’s leading scorer with four field goals and nine foul shots for 17 points. Billy Carmichael – the future UNC system administrator who is the namesake of UNC’s Carmichael Auditorium and NC State’s Carmichael Gym – added 10 more.
The News & Observer described the game like this: “Witnessed by an audience that nearly packed the big place, the exhibition was hotly contested from beginning to end and full of thrills and pretty plays.”
NC State had a private celebration a few weeks later, when almost the entire student body gathered to cheer on Riddick as he presented each member of the team with a small gold basketball in honor of their victory over North Carolina and their state championship.
The two schools met later that spring in baseball and that fall, in front of more than 7,500 spectators on the Thursday of the State Fair, NC State and North Carolina faced each other in football for the first time in 14 years. North Carolina won 13-12, in what was considered the biggest social and athletic event of the entire year.
For most years since, NC State and North Carolina have faced each other in all three sports.
You may contact Tim Peeler at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.
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