The NC State Athletic Hall of Fame is growing again.
The third 10-member class of the hall, which was established in 2012, will be inducted on Friday night at the Talley Student Union Ballroom and celebrated Saturday at Carter-Finley Stadium during the Wolfpack’s football game against Boston College.
Kickoff is set for 3:30 p.m. Athletics is offering a special Breast Cancer Awareness package that includes a ticket to Saturday’s football game and a ticket to the annual women’s basketball Hoops 4 Hope game on Feb. 22 against Duke. The price is $35 for the two-ticket package.
Tickets are still available for the Hall of Fame reception and ceremony through the GoPack.com Ticket Center. The price per ticket is $75 for adults and $30 for students. Cocktails and heavy hors d’oeuvres begin at 5:30 p.m., with the program and inductions following at 7:30 p.m. The evening will end with autographs from the new inductees.
This year’s class includes the first special contributor, former state legislator and former chair and current member of the NC State Board of Trustees Wendell Murphy of Rose Hill, N.C. Murphy, a 51-year member of the Wolfpack Club, has been a longtime supporter of Wolfpack athletics and is the namesake of the Murphy Football Operations Center adjacent to Carter-Finley.
The class also includes a pair of multisport athletes, Jack McDowall and Danny Peebles. Both played football and ran track, and McDowall was also a member of the baseball and basketball teams. The late McDowall, who competed from 1924 to 1928, was named the top athlete in the first half century of the college and was the longtime athletics director at Rollins College in his native Florida.
Peebles was a nine-time track and field All-American and nine-time ACC champion. As a freshman in 1985, Peebles helped the track team win its only NCAA 4 x 100-meter relay championship. He was also a wide receiver for Dick Sheridan’s football team and was selected in the third round of the 1988 NFL draft. He played three years for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before suffering a career-ending head injury during a game.
Other inductees include late All-American football player Dennis Byrd, a first-round pick of the AFL’s Boston Patriots in 1968; Everett Case-era basketball players Lou Pucillo and the late Dick Dickey; women’s basketball player Chasity Melvin; women’s soccer player Charmaine Hooper; Olympic gold-medal-winning swimmer Steve Rerych; and former baseball coach Sam Esposito.
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