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This is an open collection created by the University Archives from various sources.
[Identification of item], University Archives Photograph Collection, Athletics Photographs, UA 023.004, Special Collections Research Center, North Carolina State University Libraries, Raleigh, NC
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Athletics began unofficially at the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (North Carolina A&M) on March 2, 1892, at what by 2006 was Raleigh's Pullen Park. On that day, a football team made up of students at the college defeated the Raleigh Male Academy, a local high school, by the score 12-6. That fall, the team scrimmaged for the first time against the second-string teams of area colleges. After losing badly to the University of North Carolina and Wake Forest, the football team decided that it lacked the funds necessary to compete on an equal level with other colleges and universities. Therefore, they petitioned the college Board of Trustees for fifty dollars to finance travel and team equipment. With this request, the faculty and trustees of the college first became involved with intercollegiate athletics. After the board made the decision to grant the team the requested funds in 1893, North Carolina A&M played its first formal (non-scrimmage) game that fall against the University of North Carolina's second-string team, to which it lost, 22-0.
Football remained the most popular sport at the college throughout its first decades. Its first on-campus game was played in 1907 at the athletic field that would become Riddick Stadium. That same year, North Carolina A&M won the Southern Intercollegiate Association championship, with six wins and one tie, and in 1918, football player John Ripple became the school's first All-American.
By the first decades of the twentieth century, other sports had been organized and began to gain in prominence as well. The baseball team, which had played its first official game in 1894 against Guilford College, won its first state championship also in 1907. Four years later, the school played its first official basketball games against Wake Forest, with North Carolina A&M's home game played in the Pullen Hall auditorium.
In 1921, NC State became a charter member of the Southern Intercollegiate Conference, which also included Alabama, Alabama Polytechnic Institute (later Auburn), Clemson, Georgia, Georgia School of Technology (later Georgia Tech), Kentucky, Mississippi A&M (later Mississippi State), North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Washington and Lee, and Virginia Tech. In 1923, the conference changed its name to the Southern Conference. NC State remained in the Southern Conference until 1953, when along with Duke, North Carolina, Maryland, South Carolina, Wake Forest, and Clemson, it withdrew to form the Atlantic Coast Conference.
Until 1921, all teams had used the nickname "Red Terrors." In 1921, the NC State football team began using the name "Wolfpack." Although prominent NC State individuals such as Chancellor J. W. Harrelson disliked the name, it became popular among the student body, and in 1947 "Wolfpack" was adopted as the official nickname of all NC State teams.
Although by the latter half of the twentieth century basketball had become the most popular college sport in North Carolina, prior to World War II NC State's basketball teams never sold out games and lost as many games as they won. In 1946, NC State hired Everett Case to coach its men's basketball team. During his first decade coaching the team, its record was 267 wins and 60 losses, including six straight Southern Conference titles, three straight Atlantic Coast Conference titles, and six of seven Dixie Classic tournaments. Case retired in 1964 after popularizing college basketball not just at NC State, but all over North Carolina and the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The racial integration of athletics at NC State began in 1957, when African Americans Manuel Crockett and Irwin Holmes joined the track team. The integration of the most popular, money-making sports, however, did not begin until 1967, when Marcus Martin, a walk-on, became the first African American football player. The first African American scholarship football player, Clyde Chesney, joined the team in 1969. In 1973, basketball player David Thompson was the first African American NC State athlete to be named All-American in any sport.
In 1972, two students, Kathy Bounds and Deb Webb, organized an NC State women's basketball team, and in 1974, the Athletics Department agreed to support it as an intercollegiate team. The women's intercollegiate athletics program at State expanded rapidly after 1975, when athletics director Willis Casey hired Sandra Kay Yow. Yow and her assistants organized women's volleyball, softball, rifle, and fencing teams in rapid succession, and women also began to join the swimming and tennis squads. Susan Yow, on the basketball team, became the first woman NC State All-American in any sport in 1976. Currently, in 2006, NC State has eleven men's and eleven women's varsity athletic teams in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which consists of twelve colleges and universities in East Coast states from Massachusetts to Florida.
For more information about the history of NC State athletics, please see the
The athletics photographs contain largely black-and-white photographic prints and contact prints, but it also includes slides, transparencies, negatives, and color photographic prints. These photographic images document the history of
The photographs include images of the following men's intercollegiate sports:
There are images of individual players, coaches, competitions, groups of players, and entire teams. The photographs also include activities with an integral relationship to intercollegiate athletics, such as
The athletics photographs are organized into series and subseries that are listed below. Contact prints and slides have been placed at the end of the subseries in which they most closely fit. Due to their nature, many contact prints contain multiple images. These have been placed into the subseries in which the majority of the images would fit. Contact prints with multiple images of various individual athletes have been placed in the Team Pictures and Group Portraits subseries. Negatives, as well as oversized photographic prints, have been placed wholly at the end of the athletics photographs, although they are listed first in this finding aid according to the previously delineated classification schema.
Series include the following:
University Archives Photograph Collection, Athletics Photographs, 1893-2003
This series contains three photographs, 8x10 or smaller, of a general nature depicting trophies and a locker room. It also includes 937 individual negatives and negative strips of the following men's sports: baseball, basketball, cross-country and track-and-field, football, soccer, golf, swimming and diving, wrestling, lacrosse, and rifle; and the following women's sports: basketball, cross-country and track-and-field, golf, swimming and diving, and softball. There are also negatives portraying cheerleaders, mascots, marching band, and the athletics administration. They are mainly black-and-white, with some color negatives mixed in. Additionally, the series contains oversize images, which are mainly contact prints but also include one photograph and one transparency. Finally, there are a handful of slides, most of which seem to be reproductions of historic images.
Various sports, historic images.
The baseball series contains images of NC State freshman and varsity baseball. The majority are black-and-white, but there is one color photograph in the competitions album as well as color slides. Most are photographs of individual players and of baseball games. There are also some photographs of teams and groups of players and several of coaches and managers (several additional images containing manager Vic Sorrell are contact prints in the Competitions subseries).
This large series contains a number of images of NC State men's basketball players and competitions, many of which are from the 1960s and 1970s. The majority of images are individual players, groups of players, and competitions.
Contact prints only. These duplicate photographic prints in other albums.
Contact prints only. These duplicate photographic prints in other albums.
This series contains images of men's cross-country and track-and-field runners and athletes, along with the meets in which they participated. Most images are of individual or groups of athletes, or competitions.
The football series is the largest in these photographs, and contains a multitude of images of players, coaches, and games documenting one of the most popular sports among NC State fans and students. The majority of images come from the 1960s and 1970s, although a number also exist from before and after this period. Most images are of groups and individual players and competitions from the 1960s-2000s. The series also includes a number of slides.
NCSU vs. Duke
NCSU vs. UNC and NCSU vs. USC
Coach Al Michaels and players
This series contains images of NC State men's golfers and tennis players, as well as men's golf and tennis matches. The majority are either individuals or groups of athletes, and there are also 17 prints of competitions.
This series includes images of men's soccer players, in groups and as individuals, and also soccer matches.
including Somnuk Vixaysouk
The majority of images in this series portray men's swimmers and divers, both individual and in groups. It also includes some photographs of swimming and diving meets, and several photographs of coaches.
This series contains a substantial number of images of wrestlers, wrestling competitions, and images of groups of NC State wrestlers.
The majority of images in this series portray women's basketball games and groups of women's basketball players. There are also several images of individual players and coaches.
This series includes a small number of photographs of individuals and groups of runners and track-and-field athletes, along with one image of a cross-country or track-and-field meet.
The women's golf and tennis series contains images of NC State women's golfers and tennis players, both individuals and in groups. It also contains several images of coaches and competitions.
This series contains several photographs of gymnasts and gymnastic competitions from the mid- to late-1980s.
The women's swimming and diving series includes images of individuals and groups of NC State women's swimmers and divers, as well as several photographs of swimming and diving meets.
This series contains images of boxing, fencing, ice hockey, lacrosse, rifle, and rugby, some of which are no longer varsity sports at NC State. The series contains a fairly extensive number of lacrosse photographs in particular.
This series includes several images of women's soccer matches and groups of NC State women's soccer players.
This series contains images of softball players, coaches, games, groups, and teams. The majority document individual athletes and softball games.
The Volleyball series contains photographs of volleyball games and groups of volleyball players at NC State.
NCSU vs. UNC
Many images in this series are of NC State cheerleaders, male and female. The series also includes images of Wolfpack mascots, both live wolves and costumed students.
The majority of images in this series are of marching bands, both individual band members and bands in formation during games. The series also contains images of drum majors and majorettes.
The Sports Fans series includes images of fans cheering for NC State athletics teams.
This series includes image of NC State sports summer camps, particularly women's basketball.
The Wolfpack Club series contains several images of members of the Wolfpack Club, an organization supporting NC State athletics.
The majority of images in this series are of Athletics Department staff, some identified and some unidentified. The series also includes several images of coaches that did not fit in any of the individual sports series.
Includes images of trainers and coaches.