Remember back when the News and Record used to have the Athlete of the Year, the Team of the Year, the Coach of the Year and the Story of the Year for the entire state and they would print it on News Year Day……
Remember Brad Evans of Durham High School, as the Athlete of the Year for high school football and basketball….He went on to play both at Duke….
Bobby Jones(South Meck) and David Thompson(Shelby Crest) as the Athelte of the Year….
Richard Petty from NASCAR and Level Cross, as the Athlete of the Year…..1967 I think it was….
Dean Smith(UNC) as the Coach of the Year….
N.C. State 1974 as the Team of the Year….UNC hoops Team of the Year in 1982 and Duke in 1978….
UNC-Charlotte as the Team and Story of the Year in 1977 when they made it to the NCAA Final Four with Cedric ‘Cornbread’ Maxwell, Melvin Watkins, Lee Rose and others…
Tony Waldrop(Runner) as Athlete of the Year….
John Lucas from Durham Hillside High School, as Athlete of the Year for basketball and tennis….
Norm Sloan(N.C. State), Lefty Driesell(Davidson) and Jack Jensen(Guilford College) as Coach of the Year…
Guilford College Quakers basketball as Team of the Year in 1973 with their NAIA Championship….
Phil Ford(Rocky Mount High School) as the Player of the Year….
Richard Petty’s NASCAR team with crew cheif Ray Inman as Team of the Year…..
The Carolina Cougars of the American Basketball Association move to North Carolina and begin play in Greensboro, Charlotte and Raleigh, as the Story of the Year in say 1971….
The Greensboro Generals as the Team of the Year when they won the old East Coast Hockey League title, with victories over the Charlotte Checkers in the finals…..
Ron Muir or Wally Spong(Sprange?) of the Generals as the Athletes of the Year….Was their a Warren Spong and was it Wally Sprange?? Remember When back on Pat Kelly, Bill Young and Ron Hindson later last night…
Wake Forest football as Team of the Year when they won the ACC Title with Cal Stoll as Coach of the Year at around 1973….
N.C. State with Team of the Year and Coach of the Year when Lou Holtz was there with Dave and Don Buckey, plus Stan Fritts, Willie Burden, Roland Hooks and Charley Young, plus Tom Higgins in the early 70’s….
Bill Dooley as the Coach of the Year at North Carolina in the late 60’s and the death of UNC football player Bill Arnold as the Story of the Year during that same time frame….
Many, many ‘Remember When’ memories here…….
I remember Brad Evans playing basketball at the Central “Y” when he was personnel manager at Dillard Paper—-he eventually got fired for displaying the same attitude at work that he showed on the court—-he was an angry guy!!!
Good history Andy.
A few years off here and there.
Wake Forest football ACC title was 1970.
Carolina Cougars coming to Greensboro was in 1969.
How was UNC hoops the team of the year in 1983 when NC State won the National Championship? UNC won it in 1982.
UNC football player Bill Arnold died in 1971.
Yes sir that was what I was calling quick history on this topic last night…9 0’clock curfew time was about to expire at the Wendy’s…
I do want to go back and fix that N.C. State year, but the hard part on remembering some of the years is that in basketball season, half of the year is in one part and the other half is in another….
For instance 2012/2013….Got to get that 1983 straight though and good call….
At one time they also used to have an Executive of the Year….Bob Kent at the Greensboro Coliseum got it once, Carl Scheer got the executive of the year once, Don DeJardin got it and he was the one who helped bring in the Cougars….Pretty sure that name was DeJardin, he was good frinds with Jim Garnder who also helped bring in the Cougars…Jim Gardner was a Republican who ran for Governor against Bob Scott and he gave Bob, the son of Kerr Scott, a run for his money…
Don’t know what ever happened to Jim Gardner, but at one time he was involved in many different items/activities across our state….
Good topic and I think the Greensboro Coliseum has only ever had 4 leaders…..Just 4 top men in the history of the Greensboro Coliseum…
Bob Kent
Jim Oshust
Jim Evans
Matt Brown…..
Kent and Oshust probably both got that Executive of the Year award…..
Again, good topic with a lot of history involved….
Others please feel free to add more…..
On McDonald’s time today, so should be OK for a while….
Who was that Greensboro Hornets baseball brassman that got the Executive of the Year? Was it Larry Schmittou for bringing them back to town in 1979 or was it his GM?
Could have been the GM Tom Romenesko that got the award for the Greensboro Hornets…
Lots of names keep coming back our way….
Remember When???
On another note/idea:
What if we changed the name of the Greensboro Grasshoppers to the Greensboro Hornets before the Charlotte Bobcats can get the name back from the New Orleans Hornets????
Could we then grab another million dollars from Charlotte to have them gain sole rights to the name in North Carolina and at the same time we could retain the Grasshoppers name and go right back to that(Grasshoppers) once Charlotte forks over our one million dollars for the exclusive Hornets name….
Sounds convaluded and could become complicated, but could also be very profitable in the end…..