NC State Wolfpack baseball coach Elliott Avent survives tough times

Entering his 25th season as NC State’s head baseball coach, Elliott Avent has one of the best teams of his long career, with a roster full of returning veterans, talented freshmen and a sense of urgency that all teams who had last season cut short have going into 2021.

It could be a banner year for the Wolfpack and its popular and passionate coach on the field.

It will also be a season tinged with sadness for the emotional coach, who lost his father and biggest fan, Jesse “Jack” Avent, on Jan. 30, following complications of a surgery to repair a broken hip. Jack Avent, 93, spent most of his retirement years following his son’s teams, traveling from the Nash County community of Aventon, where he lived all but five years of his life.

What a way to enjoy the final years of a full life.

He was a fixture at Doak Field at Dail Park and at postseason series wherever the team played. Having last year’s season cut short after just 17 games, only a few of which were at home, Avent was optimistic about his father being in his regular seat this season, which begins Friday with a three-game series against Virginia Military Institute.

“I was hoping he’d get to see one more season,” said the Wolfpack coach, who honored his father Wednesday during his preseason Zoom conference by wearing a houndstooth Tam O’shanter.

Jack and Vernon, his wife of 71 years, were at their son’s side when the Wolfpack went to the 2013 College World Series, the only thing that ever topped Jack being able to see his beloved New York Yankees in person.

The elder Avent wasn’t the world’s most talkative dad — amazing considering his son’s gift of gab — but he had a bagful of baseball stories that he loved to share in pregame conversations with fans or over game day meals with his son and his staff.

Like anyone who loses a parent, Avent was hit hard by his father’s death, as other recent losses have over the last two years. In addition to losing the program’s long-time communications director Bruce Winkworth to lung cancer in 2019, Avent said goodbye to former first baseman and team captain Chris Combs last September after a five-year fight with ALS.

Just a month earlier, Avent helped Combs to centerfield to lift his honored No. 26 jersey onto the outfield wall at Doak Field at Dail Park.

Avent, who will turn 65 during the upcoming baseball season, has won 1,114 overall games against 744 losses at North Carolina Wesleyan, New Mexico State and NC State, and he has also left a lasting mark on the program for his contributions off the field.

He’s not only the most popular speaker at every Wolfpack Club event he attends, he also makes sure his players learn to give back during their time with the program, whether it’s running with the school’s ROTC programs on Veteran’s Day, taking his team to work with players in Raleigh’s Miracle League or making personal connections with young players going through health issues.

Avent reached out to one of those kids, Harrison McKinion of Wake Forest, shortly after he was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer at the age of 11. The coach invited him to games, camps and practices, as he has often done for kids in the Raleigh community.

Last year, after going through nearly a decade of treatments, with multiple setbacks, McKinion was accepted as a student into NC State’s general studies program. This spring, at Avent’s invitation, the freshman will serve as a team manager for the Wolfpack, a circumstance that few believed might ever happen given the rarity and severity of McKinion’s form of cancer.

It’s been a difficult time for Avent, but after a quarter century at the helm of the Pack, he won’t let that affect what happens on the field.

In fact, if all goes well, maybe Avent and his team will be rewarded for all he’s been through, with a season unlike any other.

“I would love to get to Omaha this year, especially for Coach Avent,” said fifth-year senior pitcher Kent Klyman. “He’s going through a lot right now. As a team, we’re a little extra motivated to help him out.”

Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.