40 Fun Facts About NC State University

What did NC State's wolf mascots, Mr. and Ms. Wuf, do at halftime of a 1981 home basketball game?

Mr. and Ms. Wuf got married on court, and the visiting team's mascot, Wake Forest's Demon Deacon, fittingly presided over the ceremony.

NC State's Memorial Belltower stood for more than 80 years without which feature, finally installed in 2021?

Real bells were in the original plan, but money ran short and an electronic carillon was fitted in 1947; the full set of 55 bells gave its first recital in May 2021.

Which championship ritual did NC State coach Everett Case bring from Indiana high school basketball in 1947?

Cutting down the nets was an Indiana high school custom; Case's team did it after winning the 1947 Southern Conference title, and he is credited with introducing the practice.

Which top-ranked team, led by Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler, did NC State stun in the 1983 NCAA championship game?

Houston saw Olajuwon leave the game several times for oxygen in Albuquerque's mile-high air, slowed the pace to protect its lead, and lost 54–52.

Which NC State engineering graduate became the first woman to fly around the Moon, aboard NASA's Artemis II?

Christina Koch earned three degrees in Raleigh, and after her 2026 flight the university renamed an engineering building Koch Hall in her honour.

Which 5-foot-7 former NC State guard won the 1986 NBA Slam Dunk Contest?

Spud Webb is the shortest player ever to enter the contest, and 20 years later 5-foot-9 Nate Robinson won it with a dunk in which he leaped over Webb himself.

Which star of The Hangover films studied communications at NC State before breaking through as a comedian?

Zach Galifianakis went to Wilkes Community College first, and he later won an MTV Movie Award for playing Alan in the first film.

How are most books retrieved at NC State's Hunt Library, the high-tech Centennial Campus building opened in 2013?

A robot system called the bookBot does the job: four 50-foot machines pull volumes from more than 18,000 bins while visitors watch through a glass wall.

Which NC State basketball coach announced a cancer research foundation in a famous speech at the first ESPY Awards?

Jim Valvano was terminally ill when he accepted the first Arthur Ashe Courage Award in 1993, and he died less than two months later, aged 47.

Which school's run of seven straight national titles did NC State end in the 1974 NCAA semi-finals?

UCLA and coach John Wooden led by seven points in the second overtime before NC State rallied to win 80–77, then beat Marquette for the title.

Which future Super Bowl-winning quarterback played three seasons at NC State before transferring to Wisconsin in 2011?

Russell Wilson also played baseball for the Wolfpack and graduated in three years with a communication degree before his final college season with the Badgers.

What do NC State students call University Plaza, the open square in front of D. H. Hill Library?

The Brickyard is named for its paving and has been likened to St. Mark's Square in Venice; white brick mosaics are set into the red.

Which NC State women's basketball coach led the United States to Olympic gold in 1988 while fighting breast cancer?

Kay Yow won more than 700 games in her career, and the Wolfpack Women's home court was named after her in 2007.

NC State's 115-foot Memorial Belltower was built to honour alumni who died in which conflict?

World War I killed 33 alumni, yet the plaque lists 34 names: a man wrongly reported dead was altered into a made-up name to stand for unknown soldiers.

Which usually indoor sport drew 56,961 fans to NC State's Carter–Finley Stadium for an outdoor game in February 2023?

Ice hockey took over the football field when the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Washington Capitals 4–1 in an NHL Stadium Series game.

Which NC State great, nicknamed Skywalker, did Michael Jordan pick to introduce him at the Basketball Hall of Fame?

David Thompson led the Wolfpack to its first national title in 1974, and his 73 points in one 1978 NBA game still fell just short of winning him the scoring crown.

Which NC State defensive end did the Texans draft first overall in 2006, passing over the heavily favoured Reggie Bush?

Mario Williams was a surprise choice, since draft analysts had expected Bush to go first, and he signed a six-year, $54 million contract.

NC State anchors one corner of the Research Triangle; which two universities anchor the other corners?

Duke and UNC–Chapel Hill complete the trio, and the name dates from the 1950s, when Research Triangle Park was created between the three home cities.

Which Super Bowl-winning NFL head coach was a three-year starting linebacker at NC State in the late 1970s?

Bill Cowher coached the Pittsburgh Steelers for 15 seasons, and his Super Bowl XL winners were the first sixth seed to lift the trophy.

Which YouTube comedy duo were roommates at NC State in the 1990s while both studied engineering?

Rhett & Link studied civil and industrial engineering respectively, then created the daily YouTube show Good Mythical Morning in 2012.

Which country singer from nearby Garner enrolled at NC State after winning American Idol as a teenager?

Scotty McCreery was a 16-year-old grocery bagger when he auditioned; he later studied communications in Raleigh and is an avid Wolfpack fan.

In 2024 NC State's men's and women's basketball teams both reached which NCAA tournament stage in the same season?

The Final Four had never before included both Wolfpack teams in one season; the women clinched their place just hours before the men on the same day.

Which famous aviator told future NC State graduate Katharine Stinson to study engineering rather than train as a pilot?

Amelia Earhart met Stinson, then a 15-year-old working at Raleigh's airport, and Stinson went on to become the FAA's first female engineer.

Which now-standard basketball play is NC State credited with popularising in the 1970s through Monte Towe's passes?

The alley-oop suited a team-mate with a 44-inch vertical leap; because dunking was then banned in college, he simply dropped the lob through the hoop.

NC State is home to the only college in the United States devoted entirely to which field?

Textiles have been taught on Centennial Campus since 1991, and the football rivalry with Clemson, another textile powerhouse, has been known as the Textile Bowl since 1981.

Which NC State player caught a team-mate's air ball and dunked it in the dying seconds to win the 1983 NCAA title?

Lorenzo Charles pounced when the centre guarding him hesitated, afraid of a goaltending call on the 30-foot heave, and the 54–52 win sent his coach running onto the court.

Which on-campus arena housed NC State men's basketball until 1999 and is still home to the Wolfpack Women?

Reynolds Coliseum got its steel during wartime because it was also meant to serve as an armory, and it was long the largest arena in the Southeast.

In 1953 NC State became the first academic institution to operate which kind of machine on its campus?

A nuclear reactor went critical on campus that September, and a journalist dubbed it the First Temple of the Atom because the public could come and see it.

NC State opened in 1889 as North Carolina A&M; what did the A and the M stand for?

Agriculture and Mechanic Arts reflected the land-grant mission; the school became a State College during the First World War and gained University in its name only in the 1960s, after years of protest.

Which NC State quarterback started a then-record 51 straight college games before starring for the Chargers in the NFL?

Philip Rivers was picked fourth overall in 2004 by the New York Giants, who traded him to San Diego during the draft.

Which NC State wide receiver became a star of the St. Louis Rams offence known as the Greatest Show on Turf?

Torry Holt set a school record with 16 touchdown catches in a season, then joined a Rams attack that scored over 500 points in three straight years.

Who built Holladay Hall, NC State's first building, in 1889 using bricks donated by their own institution?

Prison inmates from the state penitentiary built what was then called Main Building, which for years held virtually the entire college.

Which cause benefits from NC State's Krispy Kreme Challenge, the student-run race with a dozen doughnuts at halfway?

A children's hospital, North Carolina Children's Hospital, has received more than $2 million from the race, which began in 2004 as a dare among about a dozen friends.

Which wolf-like dog breed became NC State's live mascot, Tuffy, in 2010?

A Tamaskan fits the part because the breed, which comes from Finland, was selectively bred to resemble a wolf while behaving like a companion dog.

NC State's Centennial Biomedical Campus is anchored by North Carolina's only college of which profession?

Veterinary medicine students learn there in teaching clinics and on a working farm, about 2.5 miles west of the main campus.

NC State's fight song borrows its tune from the official song of which branch of the U.S. military?

The Army melody, written in 1908 as The Caisson Song, is simply played faster, with words by Hardy Ray of the class of 1926.

Which NC State quarterback, the first Wolfpack football player with a retired jersey, was the NFL's MVP in 1969?

Roman Gabriel, the son of a Filipino immigrant, was the first Filipino-American quarterback in the NFL, and his Rams opened that MVP season with eleven straight wins.

What were NC State's basketball teams called before they adopted the football team's Wolfpack name in the late 1940s?

The Red Terrors gave way in the late 1940s, when Wolfpack became the name for every team; the football side had carried it since an unsigned 1921 letter suggested it.

NC State and its three in-state ACC rivals are collectively known in college basketball by which nickname?

Tobacco Road covers four schools, three of them no more than 25 miles apart, and between them they won every Dixie Classic tournament held in Raleigh.

Which future Entertainment Tonight host was expelled from NC State for forging a professor's signature on a class form?

John Tesh, who was in his junior year at the time, went on to write Roundball Rock, the theme music for the NBA on NBC.