Coach did his normal rambling talk with a strong reference to his love for NC State and various people along the way.

Chuck Amato was in attendance. Coach spent time talking about Amato's teams always had you thinking as a State fan that we could win. Talked about influence of Sam Episito (sp?) in both of their lives as well as Guzzo and Valvano.

Told story he had told before how Episito & Valvano told him in a meeting in Valvano's office he was ready and should take the New Mexico job then when he returned to State Episito told him that after he left the original meeting they both said "he doesn't have a chance". Typical Avent humor.

Talked about his Dad who loved baseball. He had told his Dad last fall that this team would make it to Omaha. He kidded that part of it was to keep his Dad wanting to live to see it.

There has been some preliminary talk about a home and home arrangement with Miss State.

Did not get into CWS fiasco til Q&A which started with a question if time had changed his perspective on what happened. He went thru various comments to reply which I'll try to get it right

Did that mean would/should he had forced entire team to be vaccinated: no, it is not his job and he has never coerced or forced his political, religious or personal views on any player and the vaccine decision is a very personal decision. In many cases players and their parents made the vaccine decision.

Out of ~5000 letters and texts, 99% were supportive with a handful who questioned why he did not force all the team to be vaccinated.

NCAA was inconsistent in testing protocol as sometimes the swab went up the nose so far it caused bleeding. Other times it barely entered the nose.

Only non-vaccinated players had to be tested and the testing frequency changed from Super Regionals to CWS. In the middle of this J&J did a recall on some of their vaccines. Not sure what he was trying to say that the NCAA used the recall to justify testing of anyone vaccinated with J&J.

NCAA rep came to him to present the 2 options, forfeit or play with 13, Coach thought the NCAA anticipated they would forfeit. Coach after speaking his mind to the Rep went to players who knew nothing about what was happening and ask them did they want to play or forfeit without saying what he wanted to do which was play. Players did not take long to say they wanted to play. He then had 40 minutes of chaos to put together a line up. He figured they would lose ugly because of the distraction but was so proud of how the team fought to having winning run on first in 8th who was fast and a guy at 3-1 in batter's box.

Spoke briefly about how poorly NCAA treated our players once the covid questions started.

Did not speak of Sat 2am decision.

The team will be honored during the 11/20 Syracuse football game.

There was no doubt Coach thought this special team got railroaded into a awful situation.

The 22 team is full of new faces with a strong core of players/leaders from the 21 team. They have a lot of work to do.

Decision has been made to upgrade Doak rather than new site. Had Doak re-invention document with him. Wish I would have taken picture of page 4 listing 4 phase plan for a new Doak to enhance training, fan ammenities starting with new scoreboard. No $ shown and no funding program referenced.