NC State football has a history of playing games in Charlotte area
Ken Martin/The Wolfpacker
The first time NC State’s football team made its way from Raleigh to Charlotte, it wasn’t for just one football game. The boys from A&M College, as they were generally known near the turn of the 20th century, took the train to town for a pair of games against Davidson and Clemson on the same fall weekend.
The first game, on Nov. 17, 1899, was against Davidson’s red-and-black clad team on the open fields of what is now Latta Park in the Charlotte suburb of Dilworth. The Friday afternoon game drew little attention, perhaps because of its outrageously priced admission — 50 cents for all spectators.
“Scant notice had been given of the game, and the attendance was not large enough to give the teams a trip to the Paris Exposition,” reported The Charlotte News. “The Davidson contingent of rooters was missed. The ‘student body’ did not get a chance to come down, as the game was on a school day. The game was rather slow and lacking in brilliant play, but was watched, nevertheless, with interest.”
After a pair of 25-minute halves, with a brief break in between, the game ended in a scoreless tie, with neither team seriously threatening to score. Victory, however, was found in the play of the game.
“Several men were laid out for wind and by slight sprains, but no one was seriously hurt,” reported The News. “The game was clean and devoid of unnecessary roughness.”
After spending a night in Charlotte’s Central Hotel, the largest hotel between Washington and Atlanta, the A&M team traveled by train the next day to nearby Rock Hill, South Carolina, to meet Clemson College at Oakland Park on the campus of Winthrop Normal and Industrial College of South Carolina, which was then a teacher training school for girls and is now known as Winthrop University.
The A&M team did not fare well, either, because of injuries sustained in two games against North Carolina and the previous day’s game against Davidson.
“It was a hard fought battle, but the Tar Heel boys were so badly crippled from preceding games that they fell before the snap and vigor of the Sand Lappers,” reported the Charlotte Observer. “The crowd was small.”
Early in its football history, State and Davidson frequently fought each other while chasing the Big Five championship that also included North Carolina, Wake Forest and Duke.
Those games alternated between State’s Riddick Stadium, Davidson’s campus just outside of Charlotte and on a municipal site in downtown Charlotte.
In 1938, the two teams began to play regularly at downtown’s American Legion Memorial Stadium two years after it opened. The facility was built by the Works Progress Administration and served Charlotte for generations, especially as the host of the annual Shrine Bowl game between all-star high school players from North and South Carolina.
In 1996, what is now known as Bank of America Stadium opened as the home of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers, giving Charlotte a new home for neutral-site college football games and a postseason college bowl game.
While there was some interest in having more college games in Charlotte, NC State’s four neutral-site games there with East Carolina and North Carolina, while popular, did not draw sellout crowds and forced the schools to give up lucrative home games.
About the only outcome from those four season-finale games was ending the careers of two coaches involved in the contests, NC State’s Mike O’Cain in 1999 and East Carolina’s John Thompson in 2004.
When the Pack did beat ECU by the whopping score of 52-14 on Nov. 27, 2004, it was State’s first win in Charlotte’s city limits in more than half a century. Quarterback Jay Davis threw three touchdown passes and rushed for another, and the Wolfpack blocked a punt for a score and generally had its way with the Pirates.
Since then, the Wolfpack has returned to Charlotte three times for postseason bowl games, beating South Florida 14-0 in the 2005 Meineke Car Care Bowl, stopping Louisville 31-24 in the 2011 Belk Bowl and losing to Mississippi State 51-28 in the rain-drenched 2015 Belk Bowl.
Saturday’s season-opener with the Gamecocks is the Wolfpack’s first regular-season game in Charlotte in 13 years, but it will be a grand homecoming game for about 20 percent of State’s roster. A total of 19 players on the opening-day roster — including offensive guard Tony Adams, defensive end Darian Roseboro and versatile back Jaylen Samuels — all grew up with 45 minutes of downtown Charlotte.
It’s an area that fifth-year head coach Dave Doeren and his staff — particularly tight ends/fullbacks coach and special teams coordinator Eddie Faulkner, who recruits that part of the state — have developed strong relationships that they hope to maintain.
Samuels and four other Wolfpack players came from Mallard Creek High School, which is coached by Doeren’s longtime friend Mike Palmieri, the two-time The Associated Press North Carolina High School Coach of the Year.
“We have been successful in Charlotte because, No. 1, Coach Faulkner does a great job there,” Doeren said. “He’s one of the best recruiters in the nation, in terms of maintaining relationships and finding players that fit.
“No. 2, we had some connections in that area when I was at Wisconsin, and I ended up recruiting several linebackers from there. I got to know the coaches in that area and I had known Mike Palmieri from when I recruited in Florida. So we have been able to find some under-recruited players from there and make them work in what we do.”
NC State Football Games In Charlotte Area
Tim Peeler is a regular contributor to The Wolfpacker and can be reached at tmpeeler@ncsu.edu.
——
• Talk about it inside The Wolves' Den
• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolfpacker
• Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolfpacker
• Like us on Facebook
