Isaiah Moore and Grant Gibson are two names any NC State football fan knows. As captains, standout players and members of Pack United, the two have stepped up to help create a new culture of Wolfpack athletes making a difference.
Moore and Gibson, both graduate students, have roomed together ever since they arrived on campus prior to the 2017 season. Gibson came to NC State as a three-star defensive tackle, eventually flipping over to center, while Moore was one of three three-star linebackers in the class.
While the two sat back and learned from players like Bradley Chubb, Garrett Bradbury, Jerrod Fernandez and more, the staff knew Moore and Gibson would be the ones to rely on after their current stars were gone.
“Coach [Dantonio] ‘Thunder’ [Burnette] told me and Zay [Moore], ‘Listen, you guys will lead this team one day,’ and after our 4-8 [2019] year, they felt it was time for me and Zay to take that next step,” Gibson said. “So after hearing the things from our staff, that we needed to take the next step, and then going through [The Program], I think that helped us both broaden our ways a little bit and get more comfortable with having to lead.”
The summer of 2020 changed things for NC State, North Carolina and the whole of America.
NC State football entered that spring and summer reeling from a 4-8 campaign, and through that time it closed its ranks. Moore and Gibson, along with redshirt junior quarterback Devin Leary and redshirt junior Payton Wilson emerged as leaders of a team determined to right its wrongs.
Through The Program, in which NC State’s football team goes through military-style training to gain mental toughness and teamwork, Moore and Gibson found the moment when they most clearly began to lead the team.
“That was the first time that I’ve ever had to lead the whole team, at the front, and Zay had to do the same thing,” Gibson said. “Going through that, I think that helped us both broaden our ways a little bit and get more comfortable with having to lead.”
But college sports, and college athletes in particular, don’t exist in a vacuum. While NC State football found a new identity with the two stepping up, turmoil permeated the other parts of life.
The COVID-19 pandemic was sweeping through the country, peaking in North Carolina at 2,000 daily cases. And at the same time, protests erupted after the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020. Things reached a breaking point, and during that moment Pack United was created. Across all of NC State’s athletics accounts, players were given the space and the platform to take a stand, and did so, taking over team accounts to post messages like “We want change. Black lives matter.” The NC State football twitter account posted an image made up of numerous players holding the names of murdered Black men, women and children.
“I think the best way to lead is showing that you’re human,” Moore said. “And we are very human. In these situations, we directly relate to a lot of these unarmed Black men getting killed because we see ourselves and we see our family members. And so I think showing that hurt is what really drives us, to continue to make change.”
Beyond making their voices heard, student-athletes quickly came together in action, organizing a June 6 march through campus and surrounding areas. They also organized a Sept. 12 demonstration in front of Holladay Hall. Afterwards, Moore spoke with the media in attendance about what Pack United stood for, explaining its core tenets of education, action and awareness.
“Before we were ever athletes, we were Black men in this country, and long after we’re athletes, we’re still going to be Black men in this country,” Moore said. “That’s never going to change. That’s what we are. And there are many issues that pertain to us that don’t pertain to other groups that we need to make known, because I think the only way that we’re going to actually change something is for people to continue to talk about it and be motivated to do something about it.”
Leading from the front, both Moore and Gibson are in leadership roles for Pack United — Moore as co-vice president and Gibson as its treasurer. The duo said joining the organization wasn’t a hard decision.
“These things really hurt me and Zay and we wanted that to be known,” Gibson said. “Like, ‘Listen, this is not okay.’ It would have been easy for me to just sit back and not say anything and just go about our day and just keep playing sports. But we’re more than that, we’re more than athletes.”
Gibson, in particular, knew what it meant to put himself out there. His grandfather, Harvey Gantt, was the first Black student at Clemson and went on to become Charlotte’s first Black mayor.
“He was actually one of the people, him and my parents, that encouraged me to speak up,” Gibson said. “Up until that point I was kind of quiet, didn’t use my voice as much. But they were like, ‘If this is important to you, then speak up and like, use your voice about it.’
Gibson said Gantt’s been teaching him about the world since childhood, and learning what he went through encouraged him to also use his voice.
“One of the stories that he always shared with me, is that he couldn’t sit near an open window [at Clemson]; because they were afraid that he might get shot,” Gibson said. “That was the rule for him at a school, ‘You have to be far away from windows at all times.’ So to hear that, and then just to know that that he did all this to make the world better for me. I felt like I needed to step up and say something.”
While the organization has seen support from NC State’s administration and much of the community, everyone didn’t agree with it. Moore said as Pack United continues to do more and show what it’s about, the negative comments are going away.
Over the past few years, Pack United has partnered with Athletics to raise awareness, created a student-athlete campus police committee after discussions with NC State police, mobilized student athletes to get out the vote, and donated proceeds from its shirt sales to charitable organizations. Over that time, a few teammates have joined as well, including graduate guard Bryson Speas, redshirt freshman lineman Sean Hill and sophomore linebacker Devon Betty.
“We didn’t start Pack United for us, all like-minded people, to be the only ones to gain something from it and we want people who view different from us and think differently from us to gain something from our knowledge as well,” Moore said. “While we can’t reach everybody, there have been people that we have reached and that’s what makes it worthwhile. If we can just change one person or get one person to look at our situation differently, that’s what Pack United is.”
Pack United is currently planning a community service project for the spring, according to Gibson. According to Moore, Pack United has achieved nonprofit status. The organization has financial partnerships with organizations like the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, Habitat for Humanity and Project CATCH.
“Now we’re just going to keep amplifying the movement,” Moore said. “Pack United wasn’t just a one-time thing that we started just because the topics were hot, it’s something that we’re going to continue to build and continue to sustain for years to come and long after me and Grant are gone.”
While Moore and Gibson have solidified their legacies through their play and their work with Pack United and the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, they have even more to offer.
Gibson is currently in grad school to pursue his passion of learning more about marketing analytics, pursuing a master’s in management while Moore’s studying youth development and leadership, and coached spring high school football with Cardinal Gibbons.
These future pros are set for life after football, though that likely won’t come too soon.
“I’ve gained so much socially, physically, emotionally, from football; I’ve gained so much from it that it’s in my heart to give back to the game,” Moore said. “Giving back to the game, is giving it back to young young kids and young young guys who love this game and want to excel in this game. And I want them to to be able to crack every potential that they have in this game, because football to me, it isn’t a sport, it’s a way of life. You learn so many things from football, you learn so many things that you can take with you into other areas of life.”
To learn more about Pack United, visit its website and its Instagram page.
