Legends

Meet the Legends for 2024!

Legends have included coaches, successful graduates, former athletes, and other individuals who are associated with NC State and are well-known around the Wolfpack community.

Their involvement as a celebrity “fifth” player on a team has helped raise significant dollars each year that helped fund new practice tees, bunker renovations, on-course restrooms, benches and coolers, improved clubhouse amenities, additional parking, and general support for changes to enhance the golfing experience.

Debbie Antonelli

Debbie Antonelli is a seasoned college basketball analyst for ESPN and CBS Sports. She graduated with a double major from NC State and was a three-year starter for the Wolfpack Women’s Basketball. Antonelli went on to get her master’s degree from Ohio University in sports administration.

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Eddie Biedenbach

Eddie Biedenbach played basketball at NC State from 1965-1968. He was elected to the first All-ACC team twice and garnered the nickname “The Pittsburgh Pickpocket” for his defensive skills. Biedenbach graduated in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in natural resources and is the only player to have played under Everett Case, Press Maravich, and Norm Sloan. Biedenbach served as an assistant coach at NC State (1974 National Championship Team), Georgia, and UNC-Wilmington. He was the head coach at Davidson and UNC-Asheville, where he is the winningest coach in UNC-Asheville and Big South Conference history.

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Neil Chance

Neil Chance is a track and field alum who continues to hold the outdoor long jump record for NC State. He also holds the title of 1992 World Junior Long Jump Gold Medalist. Neil was a two-time Olympic Trials Qualifier, two-time All-American, and three-time ACC Champion.

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Francis Combs

Francis Combs played baseball at NC State and was a member of the 1968 College World Series team along with his twin brother Freddie. After graduating in 1969, he was drafted by the NY Yankees and played four years of professional baseball. While in high school he was the catcher for Hall of Fame pitcher Jim “Catfish“ Hunter. Combs serves as a spotter for the Wolfpack Sports Network at all NC State football games, a position he has held since 1966. His consecutive game streak reached 598 games before missing a game in 2016.

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Thad Daber

Thad Daber is a four-time “World One Club Champion” and holder of the Guinness World Record for the lowest round of golf played using only one club. Using a 6-iron, Daber shot a sensational 2-under par 70. He has the ability to do things with a golf club that are often thought to be impossible and has been featured in a variety of national publications and television shows, commercials, and more. He is an NC State graduate and a member of the golf team from 1977-1981. Daber helped establish a national charitable foundation aimed at introducing golf to inner-city youths and at-risk children in 1995. He also conducts Junior Golf instruction clinics and with USA Network. PGA Tour Junior Golf Programs through the Peggy Kirk Bell Girls Junior Tour and the MGAA and entertains corporate golf groups in a number of cities nationwide. Thad’s professional golf career has afforded him three professional tournament victories. Since 2006, he has hosted a charity-celebrity event he founded, the Maui Charity Classic, in Hawaii, a premier event to raise funds and awareness for Food Banks and Stand Up 2 Cancer initiatives. He is involved in the golf marketing and event management business and resides in Hilton Head Island, SC.

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Chase Duncan

Chase Duncan was a  four-year letter winner under Hall of Fame coach Richard Sykes and has experienced competitive golf at the highest level. At only 24, Duncan was named lead instructor of the Wildwood Green Golf Academy at Wildwood Green Golf Club in Raleigh, NC. He joined the Lonnie Poole Golf Course in 2009, where is the lead golf instructor.  During his playing and teaching career,, Duncan has had the opportunity to learn from some of the game’s most knowledgeable minds including a number of the top 100 worldwide instructors.

In addition to his in-person lesson success, Duncan founded OwnYourGolfGame.com to be able to share his techniques and insights with a much broader online audience.

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Caroline Ellington

Caroline Ellington played golf for the NC State women’s golf team. She joined the Pack in 2009 when she was awarded a prestigious Park Scholarship; after which she was invited to join the golf team by Coach Marsh. Ellington earned a bachelors and masters degree in textile engineering from the Wilson College of Textiles, during which time she studied abroad in Vietnam and completed a research internship in Germany. She has also competed in the Mexican and Canadian Women’s Amateur Championships, US Mid-Amateur Championship, and the St Rule Trophy at St Andrew’s Links. Ellington works as line review director for the locally-based luxury apparel brand, Peter Millar.  

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Jim Kerns

Jim Kerns, Ph.D., is a professor and extension specialist at NC State. His program focuses on etiology, epidemiology and management of turfgrass diseases. Kerns and his team, which includes three research and extension associates and three M.S. students, provide improved disease management strategies to turfgrass managers in North Carolina and throughout the Southeastern United States. Kerns holds a bachelor’s degree from NC State in agronomy, a master’s degree in soil and crop sciences from Texas A&M, and a Ph.D. in plant pathology from NC State. After completing his Ph.D., Kerns was hired at UW-Madison as the turfgrass pathologist but returned to NC State in 2012 in his current role.

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Joe Giglio

Joe Giglio graduated from NC State in 1997 with bachelor’s in history. He has regularly reported on ACC sports since 2005 for the Raleigh News & Observer, WRAL, and ESPN properties. 

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Jeff Gravley

Jeff Gravley is a 1985 NC State graduate with a long career in reporting local sports. During his undergraduate, he was a walk-on baseball player for Coach Sam Esposito. He spent 35 years working on local TV, earning seven regional Emmy Awards and was twice named NC Sportscaster of the Year. He joined NC State Athletics in 2020 as director of content strategy. His role includes creating stories highlighting our athletic teams and coaches. He is also a part of the pre-game radio for football and the weekly radio coach’s shows for football and basketball.

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Henry Gutierrez

Henry Gutierrez played midfielder and forward for the NC State men’s soccer team from 1988 to 1991. He was named an All-American player, both as a midfielder in 1989 and as a forward in 1991, and he was also a two-time ACC player of the year. 

From 1991-1994 he played for French Second Division club soccer teams, then in 1994, he joined the Cleveland Crunch team. In his first season with the Cleveland Crunch Team, Gutierrez won the National Professional Soccer League’s Rookie of the Year. He was also a part of the team when the Cleveland Crunch won the National Professional Soccer League’s championship title in 1995-1996. Gutierrez now coaches youth soccer in Fuquay-Varina, N.C.

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Lonnie Poole

Lonnie C. Poole, Jr. is a philanthropist and founder of Waste Industries USA Inc. Poole has more than 30 years’ experience in the solid waste industry, serving his company in the capacities of chairman of the board, chief executive officer and director until his retirement in 2008. He has served in a number of leadership capacities for the Environmental Industry Association (EIA). He also serves on the board of directors for the NC State Foundation and currently serves as its vice-chairman, and he has been a significant contributor to the Poole College of Management and Lonnie Poole Golf Course. Poole is a past president of the Occoneechee Council of the Boy Scouts of America and continues to serve on the Council Board of Directors. He holds a B.S. in civil engineering from NC State and an M.B.A. from UNC-Chapel Hill.

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Bob Hounsell

Bob Hounsell was a swimmer at NC State. Hounsell set two NCAA freshman marks in one day at the UNC freshman invitational championships in Chapel Hill. Bob was an All-American for State in 1965 and received the Sports Illustrated Award of Merit for Oustanding Athlete in April 1965.  Bob is a great Wolfpack supporter and avid golfer.  

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Brandon Johnson

Brandon Johnson was one of the lead golf course designers for the Lonnie Poole Golf Course. He graduated Summa Cum Laude from NC State in 1997 with a degree in landscape architecture and a minor in music and was awarded the 1997 ASLA Award. He received his master’s in landscape architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1999.

Johnson joined the Arnold Palmer Design Company in 2006 where he was a lead designer for our course along with fellow alum Erik Larsen (‘77). As vice president, senior golf course architect and ASGCA associate member, he has worked on notable projects such as the 2012 remodel of Old Tabby Links at Spring Island (#67 Golfweek Top 100 Modern 2014), 2011 redesign of Wexford – Hilton Head Island (#67 Golfweek 2015 Top 100 Residential), and 2009 remodel of Arnold Palmer’s Bay Hill Club and Lodge (#48 Golfweek Top 100 Resorts).

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Press McPhaul

Press McPhaul competed at NC State from 1991-96 and served as an assistant under recently retired Richard Sykes from 1998-2000. In 2017 Press McPhaul was named the head coach of the NC State men’s golf program after 11 seasons as head coach of East Carolina’s men’s golf program. During his tenure, eleven ECU golfers earned all-conference honors, and the Pirates won 12 tournament titles. Under McPhaul’s leadership, the Pirates additionally qualified for four NCAA Regionals (2011, 2012, 2015, 2016) and made one appearance in the NCAA Championships (2012): the first in the history of the ECU men’s golf program. Prior to his time at ECU, McPhaul was the head coach at Vanderbilt from 2000-06. He led the Commodores to three consecutive NCAA Regional and two NCAA Championships appearances. In total, McPhaul has led three different schools to the NCAA Finals including Vanderbilt, ECU, and NC State. He coached four All-Americans and three All-America Scholars while in Nashville and in his first two years at NC State, had 3 All-Americans and 4 Academic All-Americans. McPaul has also coached 3 conference players of the year (SEC, CUSA, and ACC) and 6 players who have gone to the PGA tour, earning over $50 million dollars combined. Additionally, the 2018-19 NC State team finished the year with a 3.26 GPA earning outstanding academic team distinction by the Golf Coaches Association of America.

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Wes Moore

Wes Moore is one of the top head coaches in NCAA women’s basketball. Most recently, Moore led NC State to back-to-back ACC Tournament titles for the first time in program history. The team’s win in 2020 was its first conference tournament championship since 1991, and the team repeated in 2021. Moore spent 15 seasons (1998-2013) as the head coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC) where he led the Lady Mocs to 12 Southern Conference (SoCon) regular-season titles, nine SoCon tournament championships and nine NCAA Tournament berths. While at UTC, Moore became the winningest coach in program and SoCon history. He came to Raleigh as the reigning SoCon Coach of the Year, an award he earned on six separate occasions. Moore is the first coach in history to advance three different teams to the NCAA Tournament at the Division I, II and III levels. From 1993-95, Moore served as women’s basketball assistant coach at NC State under legendary head coach Kay Yow. Originally from Dallas, Texas, Moore earned a bachelor’s degree from Johnson University and his master’s degree at Tennessee.

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Joe Ovies

Joe Ovies is a 2001 NC State graduate who has been a part of Raleigh-Durham sports talk radio for over 20 years. In 2015, the Adam and Joe show on ESPN Radio 99.9 The Fan was named “Show of the Year” by the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters.  He, alongside his co-host Adam Gold, were awarded a Mid-South Emmy Award for their work on the WRAL documentary entitled “Mission Or Money: — a look into the financial ties of college athletics.  

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Lou Pucillo

Lou Pucillo played guard for the NC State basketball team from 1956 to 1959 where, as a standout, he scored 944 points in 74 games. He was named first-team all-ACC and the ACC Tournament first-team in 1958 and 1959, and he was named the 1959 ACC Player of the Year. 

Pucillo was drafted that same year by St.Louis of the NBA, but played amateur basketball for the Wichita Vickers in the National Industrial League. A year later, he was named freshman basketball coach at NC State. In 1991, he was inducted into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame. 

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Koren Robinson

Koren Robinsonwas a wide receiver for the NC State football team before joining the Seattle Seahawks as the 9th pick in the 2001 NFL Draft. Robinson also played for the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers. He was selected to the Pro Bowl with the Vikings in 2005 where he also received the Ed Block Courage Award given by his teammates. 

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Christian Salzar

Christian Salzar played on the NC State men’s golf team from 2016 to 2020. During his senior year, he had a 71.57 average round score, which ranks number 12 lowest in program history and was the teams’ low scorer in two tournaments.   He also led the Pack to team title at Wolfpack Intercollegiate with three-round score of 12-under par to finish in second place out of 87 golfers. Salzer recently earned membership in the PGA Tour and has been playing on the Canadian and Korn Ferry circuits. 

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Mark Thomas 

Mark Thomas played tight end for the NC State football team from 1994 to1997. During his four seasons, he caught 59 passes for 629 yards and three touchdowns. He then went on to play in the NFL for the Jacksonville Jaguars and the New York Giants. Thomas spent eight years as co-host of the morning drive sports talk radio show on The Buzz. He currently hosts the NC State coaches show and works with Mark Thomas Media, a local marketing and ad agency.

Justin Walters

Justin Walters was a two-time All-American golfer during his time at NC State. He returned to his homeland, Johannesburg, South Africa, and played professionally both there and in America before graduating to the Challenge Tour in 2012. He finished a career-high 64th in the 2013 Race to Dubai. Walters has two runner-up finishes to his name on the European Tour – one being at the Portugal Masters in 2013 which secured his card for the following season.

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Dereck Whittenburg

Dereck Whittenburg was a member of the 1983 NC State National Championship basketball team under Coach Jim Valvano. His slightly off-target shot/pass was grabbed by Lorenzo Charles for the game-winning dunk to defeat the University of Houston in the championship game. Whittenburg became an assistant coach at NC State in 1985. Over the next 15 years, he was an assistant at six different colleges: NC State, George Mason University, West Virginia University, University of Colorado, Long Beach State University, and Georgia Tech. He was the head coach at Wagner College from 1999-2003 and Fordham from 2003-2009. He is now an assistant for NC State and was the executive producer for “Survive and Advance,” an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary.

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