Confident Wade Introduced as Men’s Basketball Coach

Will Wade is not necessarily unique in the annals of NC State basketball: He’s the third Wolfpack head coach since World War II ended who did not play college basketball but has been successful on the bench.

The other two, men’s coach Everett Case and women’s Kay Yow, are both in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.

“Well, let’s make it three,” Wade said, to a burst of applause from an eager crowd of media, university dignitaries, supporters and students at Reynolds Coliseum Tuesday afternoon.

Outgoing chancellor Randy Woodson and athletics director Boo Corrigan were on the stage to introduce Wade, while incoming chancellor Kevin Howell and most of the Cabinet and Board of Trustees were seated among the crowd at one of the hallowed halls in the history of college basketball.

“I want to be clear,” Wade said. “This is not a rebuild. We are going to win and do it quickly.”

Though only 42, Wade has a long resume in college basketball, dating to his student days at Clemson; assistant coaching positions at Harvard and Virginia Commonwealth; and head coaching jobs at Chattanooga, VCU, Louisiana State and McNeese State.

Their paths never crossed, but Wade and current Wolfpack women’s coach Wes Moore both spent their formative years in coaching at Chattanooga. Moore, whose team is preparing to leave for its NCAA Sweet Sixteen game against LSU in Spokane, Washington, on Friday, attended Wade’s introductory press conference.

Wade does not lack for confidence. His college coaching record (246-105) suggests he can return NC State to the successful status it has maintained as a charter member of both the Southern Conference and the Atlantic Coast Conference, where it has won a combined 18 championships. He has won four regular-season conference championships, won back-to-back conference championships at McNeese State and qualified for seven NCAA Championship appearances in his 11 years as a head coach.

He promised that next year’s Wolfpack team would be in the top half of the 18-member Atlantic Coast Conference and earn a bid into the NCAA Championship.

He’s exhibited strong confidence since his teenage years, when he took college visits to North Carolina, Duke, Vanderbilt, Clemson and some other high-profile basketball powers. He eventually called Clemson staff and told the coaches he was committing to the Tigers.

They had never heard of this private school kid from Nashville’s Franklin Road Academy.

“No, I’m not a player,” he told the Clemson staff, “I’m committing as a manager.”

For four years as a student and two as a graduate assistant, Wade learned the game from a coach’s perspective and eventually decided to make that his profession, learning under successful coaches such as Larry Shyatt, Oliver Purnell, Tommy Amaker and Shaka Smart.

This is not a rebuild. We are going to win and do it quickly.

“My degrees are in secondary education, history and geography,” Wade said. “My whole goal when I started was to be a high school history teacher, coach a little high school basketball and maybe impact some lives that way.

“Then I was given a chance by Oliver Purnell to be a graduate assistant at Clemson, to get a master’s degree and maybe make a little more money as a teacher.”

He eventually decided, however, that he could impact lives in a similar way by remaining in college coaching instead of high school teaching.

“I never left,” Wade said. “And here we are.”

Wade is certainly at the forefront of the players’ movement, a new phase of college athletics that’s heavily dependent on the NCAA transfer portal and relatively unfettered recruiting, with generous use of name and image licensing (NIL) funds. He knows that college basketball is no longer a developmental game, one in which players are recruited, seasoned and relied upon after several years in the program.

“The difference today is you’re no longer building a program, you’re just building a team every year, right?” Wade said. “So you just have to build the best team you can and then turn around and try to keep as many of those guys, then go build the next best team you can the next year around the guys that you’re able to build on this year.

“It’s just continually trying to build the best team. We’ve got a formula. We’ve got intel on stuff that allows us to do that at a pretty good level.”

Wade is the 22nd coach in NC State men’s basketball history, dating back to the inaugural year of 1911. He is the 10th since the end of World War II, when Indiana high school coach Case left the U.S. Navy to turn NC State into a national power that won nine conference titles in 10 years and subsequently won NCAA titles under Norm Sloan in 1974 and Jim Valvano in 1983.

However, until winning the ACC championship and advancing to the NCAA Final Four in 2024, the Wolfpack has not maintained a consistent presence at the top of the league or on the national level.

Wade promises to change that.

“This is going to be done quickly,” Wade said. “We are here to win. We’re here to win the right way. And we’re going to be aggressive, we’re going to be committed and we’re going to be thankful in all that we do.

“We’re committed to be the best team we can be, one that represents our fan base and one that represents our university as well as we can every night.”