“I’ve got a whole lot of problems with you people! And now you’re going to hear about it.”
The holiday of Festivus is six months away, but it became an airing of grievances at Doak Field Saturday night as roughly 2,000 NC State fans welcomed the Wolfpack baseball team home from Omaha after its trip to the College World Series was abruptly canceled due to multiple positive COVID-19 tests within the program.
No, Frank Constanza wasn’t there. But if he was, he would have had no problem fitting right in.
NC State fans were collectively processing the latest bout of trauma they’ve had to endure, a heartbreaking early exit from the College World Series. But this time, it was uniquely cruel and unusual.
The Wolfpack, arguably the hottest team in the country after taking down three of the country’s best pitchers in a span of eight days, was not eliminated because of a loss on the field, but rather stripped of an opportunity to compete for what would have been the school’s first national championship in a team sport since 1983.
So understandably, emotions were high Saturday. Yes, there was anger. But as frustrated as the Wolfpack fans were about how events unfolded in Omaha, they were equally proud of their team for the resiliency they showed and for the accomplishment of getting there in the first place.
And once the team arrived at Doak Field at roughly 9:15 p.m. Saturday night, NC State head coach Elliott Avent knew exactly how to play to his audience. The 25-year Wolfpack skipper, with the pain of the most gut-wrenching experience of his career still fresh, was able to put the thoughts of many of his fans into words when he was prompted to give a speech and was handed a bullhorn.
The Pack exited two charter busses and strolled out onto Doak Field, only to be greeted by a near full-house crowd filling the seats of Dail Park to celebrate the team’s accomplishments.
After 10 minutes of the team accepting cheers from the middle of the baseball diamond, a handful of students started chanting “Speech! Speech! Speech!”
And Avent was prepared to deliver the verbal red meat.
The skipper did his best to project his voice that was admittedly drowned out by the crowd size, but a police officer on the field handed him his bullhorn so the fans could hear what he had to say.
“At roughly midnight last night, the NCAA decided that our run in Omaha was over,” Avent told the crowd.
The fans, with years of pent-up frustration, responded with a chorus of boos directed towards the governing body of college athletics. The crowd fell silent, and Avent was able to continue.
The coach shared personal anecdotes of growing up watching the 1983 men’s basketball team win the national championship with his father and falling in love with the school he’s made his home for the past two-and-a-half decades.
He continued with stories of players and teams past, but nothing compared to the experience the team behind him had gone through over the past 36 hours.
After about 15 minutes of comments from Avent and a handful of his players, the coach left the Wolfpack fans with three things he asked them to never forget as his parting shot.
No. 1: The class his team showed in the face of adversity in Omaha.
No. 2: The support and love Wolfpack Nation had shown the team throughout its magical postseason run.
And the walk-off home run of the evening, No. 3: That his NC State team deserved the title of 2021 College World Series national champions.
The crowd, already on its feet, showered Avent and his team with cheers as the members waved back in gratitude.
This capped what had become an event that started hours before the team arrived back to its home stadium with fans pouring in as early as 5 p.m., anxiously awaiting the opportunity to cheer on the 2021 Wolfpack one last time.
In the hours leading up to the team’s arrival, fans packed the north end of Varsity Drive leading up to the stadium standing behind police tape. Almost everyone was in Wolfpack Red.
Several fans held up signs that said things such as, “NCAA = Joke”, “Test Vandy for Ligma”, and the NCAA logo with rainbow hair and a red circle nose meant to resemble a clown. There were also signs of support, such as “We Love You: #Pack9, #Pack13.”
Chants broke out nearly every other minute. Some of the most memorable included:
“We beat Vandy!”
“Vandy’s Daddy!” Which later turned into, “Arkansas’s Daddy!”
And for Avent, who turned 65 this past May:
“One More Year!”
One NC State fan towards the front of the crowd waiting for the team had been there for nearly two hours waiting to give his team the homecoming he felt they deserved.
“There have been gut-punch moments in the past, but nothing compares to this,” Kelson Crocker, a 2010 NC State graduate, said. “Waking up this morning and reading the news, it was a total gut punch. Me and my friend here actually went to Omaha last weekend to watch the first couple of games against Stanford and Vanderbilt. We were excited to continue watching the team play and hopefully compete for a national championship. It was a gut punch for sure.”
Another pair of Wolfpack fans were spotted wearing homemade shirts that said, “2:10 a.m. ET, June 26, 2021: Screwed By The NCAA.”
“You have to face the facts,” Justin, a recent graduate that made the shirts, said of how he came up with the idea. “It’s true, so I figured why not get it out there where everyone else can appreciate it.”
He says he’s working on selling the shirts online after several fans approached him throughout the afternoon asking where they could get one of their own.
“Just let them play,” he added. “There are so many ways they could have gone about it, and I feel like there were multiple ways they could have gone out and played the game.”
Like the rest of the crowd in attendance his frustration with the NCAA and the situation that unfolded was matched by an immense sense of pride he felt of his team’s lack of quit.
“I just wanted to be here to support the team,” Justin said. “They’ve already been through so much this year, positive and negative. I had to be out here to support them.”
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