This is not a story about Joan Sloan. It’s not a reminder to everyone who got it wrong at Saturday’s NC State Heritage Game that the pronunciation of former Wolfpack men’s basketball coach Norm Sloan’s widow is “jo-ANN” not “JONE.”
It’s not about how, for 15 years, the classically trained opera singer performed the national anthem at every Wolfpack home game, while her Navy veteran husband stood at attention on the sidelines with his hand over his plaid-clad heart.
It’s not a subtle hint to the Duke’s Cameron Crazies who have no idea who Mrs. Sloan is to send out a male student in a wig to sing an intentionally warbled version of “The Star Spangled Banner,” as their predecessors once did, just to see if that vein in Stormin’ Norman’s forehead would pop in the pregame.
It’s a reminder that the soul of Reynolds Coliseum might be dressed up some after its recent $35 million renovation. It may look a little different than the best of the glory days, but the soul of North Carolina’s best basketball arena is still there, contained inside the Indiana limestone, Alabama steel, Tennessee marble and North Carolina bricks.
Anyone among the 6,000 or so fans jammed into the arena for the men’s return to its former home from 1949-99 now has a better understanding of the magic of “The House that Case Built.”
It’s a little less oddly shaped for a basketball arena now, and it doesn’t have the same rectangular configuration with deep end zones as it did when the men played there for a half century.
But there were times Saturday when the old place wasn’t just loud — it was Reynolds loud, the kind of noise that forces you to lip read the person standing next to you, that makes you look up to see if the final bulb of the noise meter has turned red.
Current head coach Mark Gottfried and his team noticed. They all loved being in the electric atmosphere of the overtime victory over Tennessee State.
“The atmosphere, the intimacy, the loudness — what a great college basketball environment today,” Gottfried said afterwards. “It helped us. They were loud, into it, enthusiastic. Our fans were phenomenal.
“I'm glad we were able to pull one out for them.”
That’s not an endorsement to send packing vans in the middle of the night, Robert Irsay-like, to PNC Arena and move everything back to Reynolds immediately. That ship sailed with decisions made long ago for reasons that were sound at the time.
It is a reminder, however, of the devoted support every Wolfpack basketball coach who has competed in the old barn — Everett Case, Press Maravich, Sloan, Jim Valvano, Les Robinson, Herb Sendek, Sidney Lowe, Kay Yow, Kelly Harper and Wes Moore — and their teams have received from a vocal fan base.
Having Mrs. Sloan and the spiritual presence of Reynolds’ greatest characters didn’t hurt either. Certainly, former sports information director and athletics administrator Frank Weedon was smiling over the court from above — and complaining about missed and made calls that went against the Wolfpack.
Case surely smiled over the sheer showmanship of the LED lights, the video display board that showed highlights of current and former players, the absurdly loud pep band that he helped introduce to college basketball. Though, as a Navy man, he may not have enjoyed so much “Seven Nation Army” over the new speaker system.
The sweet baritone voice of C.A. Dillon will forever echo through the building, thanks to our memories of his 50 years behind the microphone and an audio recording that is included in one of the displays in the Grand Hall.
“Welcome to William Neal Reynolds Coliseum, where today NC State is pleased to welcome as its guest …” Dillon always said.
Forgotten names from the past kept popping into my head: Duma Bledsoe, who scored more points than anyone else in Reynolds (he was the official scorekeeper for an estimated 750 games in the building); the Bowles family, a collection of brothers and sons who maintained the facility for years and who often ran the noise meter at home games; Lenny Wirtz, Dick Paparo and Lou Bello, officials that fans loved to hate; veteran golf coach Richard Sykes, who kept a close eye — the only one he had — on everything that happened inside the coliseum.
Saturday was Joan Sloan’s 90th birthday, and the NC State athletics department asked if she would come out and be recognized prior to the first Heritage Game since Reynolds reopened. She was handed a dozen roses, as the crowd rose for a standing ovation. Then, as a surprise, the public address announcer said, “And now, one more time, here’s Joan Sloan singing the national anthem.”
For a few frightening moments, Mrs. Sloan thought she was going to be expected to sing. It took a few moments into the playing of the only known recording of her rendition of the song to realize that no one was going to hand her a microphone and want her to belt it out like she did in the glory days of Vann Williford, David Thompson, Tommy Burleson, Monte Towe, Phil Spence, Kenny Carr, Clyde Austin and Hawkeye Whitney.
Her eyes weren’t the only ones that welled with tears during the two-minute playing of the song. It was like the ancient haze of blue cigarette smoke that once hung with the championship banners in the rafters of Reynolds settled into the sockets of everyone in the sold-out gym, even for those of us who came of age when former Wolfpack player Sotello Long marched out to midcourt to sing the pregame song.
Midway through the first half one of Norm’s final recruits, 6-11 forward Thurl Bailey, approached Mrs. Sloan while the game was underway. Bailey was recognized during an earlier media timeout, and he couldn’t wait for the next break in the action to go give Mrs. Sloan a hug.
They held on to each other tightly, remembering the joys they shared and the coach who first brought them together.
Mrs. Sloan remained on the sidelines with her son throughout the first half. She faded into the crowd for the second half, quietly drifting away into echoes like the final note of “the home of the brave” did so many times before.
Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.
