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NC State Athletic Hall of Fame: Willis Casey

Casey becomes much more lovable when reviewing his coaching record, his administrative successes and the accomplishments of the athletics department under his guidance. Not to mention his enormous impact on both the Atlantic Coast Conference and the NCAA.

Reclusive and uncomfortable in the spotlight, Casey probably wouldn't embrace his deserved induction into the NC State Athletic Hall of Fame on April 13 any more than he embraced being inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Swimming Hall of Fame and the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics Hall of Fame.

Casey will join basketball players Rodney Monroe and Trudi Lacey, golfer Tim Clark, swimmer Cullen Jones and the 1983 NCAA championship team in the fourth class of inductees into the hall.

Few people had more impact on Wolfpack athletics than Casey from the day he was hiredat the same time as legendary basketball coach Everett Case, former major league pitcher Vic Sorrell and football coach Beattie Feathers in their sportsto be NC State's swimming coach on July 1, 1946.

In 23 years as a swimming coach, he won 11 Southern Conference and ACC swimming title, produced four NCAA individual champions, nine AAU individual titles and two AAU team titles. His Wolfpack teams owned a 189-23 record (.892 winning percentage) in dual meets and 33 of his swimmers won All-America honors. And every one of his scholarship swimmers, at his insistence, earned an NC State degree.

Among his greatest achievements, Casey said, was winning the 1964 AAU outdoor national championship with just five swimmers, easily defeating teams that brought more than two dozen swimmers to the event.

NC State's swimming complex, the Willis R. Casey Natatorium, is named in his memory.

While serving as a successful coach, Casey was the only assistant to athletics director Roy Clogston. He was the manager of Reynolds Coliseum and was the tournament director for the Dixie Classic and the ACC basketball championships, handling the department's finances.

"He was a master at budgeting and controlling finances," Weedon once said.

In 17 years as Clogston's successor, Casey's department won 49 ACC titles, two NCAA team titles, two AIAW (Association in Intercollegiate Athletics for Women, the early governing body for women's sports) and 15 individual national championships. He turned a $700,000 budget that was $100,000 in debt into a $9 million annual budget that was always black when he retired.

Shortly after the passage of the 1972 Education Acts, Case became one of the first leaders at a Division I coach to embrace women's athletics. He hired Kay Yow to start women's athletics at NC State, with the full expectation that she would create successful programs. He approved a total of 50 scholarships for women athletes in volleyball, slow-pitch softball and basketball.

Casey had an uncanny knack for identifying talented young coaches. During his tenure, he hired Yow, Lou Holtz, Jim Valvano, Dick Sheridan, Don Easterling, Bob Guzzo, Rollie Geiger, Richard Sykes, George Tarantini and Mark Stevenson, just to name a few.

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NC State Athletic Hall of Fame: 1983 National Champions


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The monumental win is why that team will follow the 1974 championship team in the NC State Athletic Hall of Fame, in a ceremony inside Reynolds Coliseum on April 13. Others who will be inducted will be former athletics director and swimming coach Willis Casey, basketball players Rodney Monroe and Trudi Lacey, golfer Tim Clark and swimmer Cullen Jones.

NC State Athletic Hall of Fame: Tim Clark


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Everyone saw what Tim Clark could do on the golf course. The two-time PGA Tour winner and multiple-time international champion has won nearly $24 million so far as a professional golfer.

Few people, however, know what Clark couldn't do.

Namely, a congenital condition in Clark's arms"radial and ulnar deviation of the wrists"prevented the diminutive South African from turning the palms of his outstretched arms toward the sky. That's why he used one of those now-banned pendulum putters throughout his career on the PGA Tou

He had graduated high school and spent two years working in a pro shop in his hometown when a friend of his family recommended Clark to NC State head coach Richard Sykes. Tony Matkovich had enrolled NC State from South Africa in his quest to become a golf course architect. Matkovich's father was a business partner with PGA superstar Nick Price, who had seen Clark beat Tiger Woods in at the 1994 World Amateur match play in Paris.

The elder Matkovich convinced Sykes to give Clark a shoteven though the coach had never seen him play. On Christmas Day 1995, after months of trying to figure out how to pass the SAT and navigate the U.S. visa process, Clark flew to Raleigh on Sykes' promise of a one-semester scholarship.

If he did well, Sykes said, Clark could stay.

In three seasons, Clark was twice named All-American with top 10 finishes in the NCAA Championship and he twice won the NCAA East Region title. He was the 1997 ACC Player of the Year as a sophomore. He also won the 1997 U.S. Amateur Links Championships, which earned him a berth in the 1998 Masters, his first professional tournament.

Clark is obviously grateful to Sykes and NC State for the life-altering opportunity. So grateful, in fact, he and former roommate and fellow PGA Tour standout Carl Pettersson have taken every opportunity to thank and support their former coach, especially in the fundraising for the Lonnie Poole Golf Course.

NC State Athletic Hall of Fame: Cullen Jones

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Yet Jones is a wave-breaking pioneer, someone who went from foundering at the bottom of the pool as a 5-year-old to the top of swimming's highest podiums. He won the 2006 NCAA championship in the 50-yard sprint as a senior at NC State. He grabbed a piece of his first world record at the World University Games. He won gold and silver medals in relays and in individual races at the Beijing and London Olympics.

His credentials are not just impressive; they are historic. And that's why Jones will be one of four athletes, one administrator and one team that will be inducted into the NC State Athletic Hall of Fame next weekend, April 13.

When Jones became a national champion, the Atlanta pool deck that hosted the NCAA Championship was filled with previous Wolfpack champions and his current teammates, all there to show their support and push him to victory. Even when he went to China, former assistant coach Chad Onken was poolside shouting "Wolf" and "Pack" every time he came up for air and flashing the wolf hand sign.

Jones postponed his academic career to turn pro in 2006, and quickly gained the swimming world's attention by setting the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships meet record in the 50-meter freestyle. Later that year, he became the first African-American swimmer to own part of a world record, which he shared in the 100 free with Michael Phelps, Neil Walker and Jason Lezak.

In 2008, he broke the American record in the 50 free and qualified for his first Olympics. He was part of the gold-medal winning 4X100 relay team with Phelps, Lezak and Garrett Weber-Gale in Bejing, and later won an individual silver medal in the 50-meters in London.

He won the 50 free at the 2012 U.S. Olympic Trials and was second in the 100 free, earning him a second berth on the U.S. Olympic team. He won silver in the 50 free and in the 100 free relay and his second gold in the 100 medley relay.

In NC State history, he is one of five swimmers to win Olympic gold and he and fellow sprinter David Fox are the only Wolfpack swimmers to win an NCAA title and an Olympic gold medal.

While he's spent countless hours in the pool perfecting his craft, the biggest contribution Jones has made to the sport is his devotion to the USA Swimming Foundation's "Make a Splash" initiative, teaching young children around the country and throughout the world the importance of learning life-long swimming skills.

After nearly 10 years of living and training in Charlotte, Jones moved back to Raleigh to complete the final classes he needed to earn an English degree from NC State, a promise he made to himself and his mother when he turned pro in 2006.

He was a member of the 2018 graduating class, receiving his degree at commencement last spring.

NC State Athletic Hall of Fame: Trudi Lacey


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Trudi Lacey learned more than just basketball in her four years playing for legendary head coach Kay Yow.

One of the best players in program history, Lacey scored 1,957 points and grabbed 1,051 rebounds, both of which rank in the top five of those statistical categories. She's one of just three players in program history to be reach 1,000 career points and rebounds.

The pioneering player from Clifton Forge, Virginia, was the first African-American woman to receive a four-year scholarship in a program that has been integrated since it became a varsity sport in 1974.

She helped Yow and the Wolfpack win the school's first ever ACC women's basketball title in 1979. In fact, she was at her best in the postseason, becoming the first player in ACC history to earn four consecutive all-tournament honors.

Lacey twice represented the United States at the World University Games, bringing home gold medals in 1981 and '83. After a brief professional career overseas, she followed in Yow's footsteps as a college basketball coach at Francis Marion, South Florida and Maryland.

When the Women's National Basketball League began, Lacey served first as an assistant coach and then as head coach for the Charlotte Sting and as the head coach and general manager of the Washington Mystics.

She's also been head women's basketball coach at Queens College and at Johnson and Wales University, both in Charlotte, and currently serves as NCAA Division II Johnson and Wales' athletics director.

Under her guidance, she has elevated the school's athletic profile and was named the 2018 U.S. Collegiate Athletics Association Athletics Director of the Year after the Wildcats had the highest finish ever in the final director's cup standings.

Last year, Lacey spearheaded the formation of the Eastern Metro Athletic Conference, a collection of southeastern small colleges that began competition this past fall.

Lacey not only learned athletic and administrative leadership from the most prominent coach in NC State women's basketball history, she's helped share those messages to subsequent generations of players and coaches she has touched through a lifetime of mentoring, management and community relations.