For the majority of the year, Carter-Finley Stadium sits like an empty shell among its dusty parking lots and sun-bleached streets.
Aside from the occasional practice and the comings and goings of the staff in the Wendell Murphy Center, the facility itself is a barren wasteland, the serenity of which is only broken by the occasional construction crew or maintenance worker.
But seven times this fall, one type of event will change this desolate landscape.
About 60,000 fans will stream in through the gates to transform the stadium into a living, breathing organism.
For a few hours each day, the masses will shatter the calm scene so characteristic of this structure, and the noise will reach an earth-shattering 120 decibels or more.
But whether they know it or not, the fans that drive the pulse of this place aren’t coming together to simply watch a game of football.
They’re here for the show.
And in this congregation, everybody plays a role.
A devoted fan. A spirited performer. A vigilant caretaker.
For a few hours on game day, these individuals will be more than students.
They’ll spend those hours helping to make memories, turning that empty shell of a stadium into a home for the Wolfpack nation.
Devotion
It was a Saturday afternoon and a young Chris Hathcock was crying.
A torrential downpour had beset Carter-Finley Stadium, and his parents were afraid he would get sick. It was time to go, they said. Arriving back in their hotel room shortly after, the little boy’s mood didn’t brighten until he was firmly in front of the television. He surfed the channels until he found a college football game.
“I thought it was State, but it wasn’t,” said Hathcock, now a sophomore in aerospace engineering. “They didn’t tell me otherwise because I was happy.”
An N.C. State fan “since birth,” Hathcock said he waited for the day he would get his acceptance letter from the University – the only school to which he applied.
“When I finally got here, I just wanted to show that I love the school and I love the team,” he said. “I want to see every event I can.”
He attended soccer games, baseball games, basketball games. He also attended every home volleyball game. As for his “holy grail,” of football, he never missed a home game, and he was present for every Walk of Champions his freshman year.
“If I’m not able to get to a game, I’m definitely watching it or listening to it on the radio,” he said.
But what sets this soft-spoken Gastonia native apart from other rabid fans is the fact that most people probably won’t recognize him if it’s not a game day. In fact, the only thing that may give away his passion is his wardrobe, which consists of nothing but sports-related shirts.
But when the Pack is playing, it’s a different story.
Hathcock dons his Student Wolfpack Club T-shirt. He puts on his Wolfpack dog tags and red suspenders. He tops the ensemble off with a red wig, a large foam wolf head, headbands and armbands, complete with the University’s logo.
But he makes it clear that this get-up is neither costume nor disguise. It’s just him in his most basic element: Chris Hathcock, the fan.
“I show it, but I can make it more known when I’m in the stands,” he said. “Usually I don’t like the attention, but whenever it’s athletics – and especially when it’s N.C. State – I just love every minute of it.”
Win or lose, Hathcock said he’ll remain firmly behind the team. He never leaves games early. He cheers harder when the team starts to lose. He stands the entire time the team plays. And through it all, he said he hopes he’s making the game a little more enjoyable to the other fans – a contribution to the atmosphere he loves so much.
“Even if we go 8-20 I’ll still be as big of a fan if we went 20-8,” he said. “I’m there through thick and thin, losing streak, whatever you throw at me – I’m always a State fan.”
Spirit
Leigh Justice had a lot of energy for a 3-year-old.
That’s why her parents decided they would put her in a program where she could exert that energy in a positive way.
Their solution: dance – and ever since then, the senior in communication has never looked back.
“Dance was always the constant, all the way through,” she said.
Ballet. Tap. Jazz. Lyrical. Justice didn’t care.
“I’ve done it all,” she said.
So naturally, after four years of dance team and cheerleading in high school, as well as teaching at the studio where she had been dancing since she was five, Justice decided she would try out for the Dance Team after arriving at N.C. State. And just like when she was three, she never looked back, making the cut semester after semester for her entire college career.
Justice said she still remembers the first time she ever walked onto the field.
“Our high school football games were always pretty full, but when you walk out on Carter-Finley … you’re out on the field and you’re one little person and it’s filled with thousands,” she said. “It’s exciting.”
But for Justice, dance was more than just a simple hobby – it was a part of her life that eventually led her to a future.
Although she had some experience teaching summer camps and classes for children in the past, as a junior, Justice began teaching 3- and 4-year-olds at the studio on a regular basis. After combining her love of children with her study of communication, she decided she wanted to become a pediatric speech pathologist.
But teaching young children elements of dance isn’t always easy, especially with her current class, which just began in the fall.
“Right now they run in about 30 directions,” she said.
The end result however, turns out quite different.
“It was just really fun to watch them. When they first came in they couldn’t even stand the right way, and when they get on stage they do all these steps that they actually know,” she said. “At three years old, that’s just phenomenal.”
Justice said that although balancing the dance classes, office work in the studio, Dance Team practice and class isn’t always easy, it’s something she said she would never trade.
“There are times when I’m like, ‘I cannot do this anymore. I’m at my end. I don’t have time for anything,'” she said. “But I just love learning new things about dance. I love practicing it, I love performing.”
And that spirit is not lost on the games.
“I like entertaining the crowd to feel like I’m making their experience fun,” she said.
“There’s so many things that people forget or they come to expect it,” Justice added. “If those people didn’t do those things, it would just be people playing football. It’s all about the atmosphere.”
Vigilance
If there’s one thing Diana Hoffert knows, it’s how to be one of the guys.
Growing up in the towns of Apex and New Hill, the junior in paper science and engineering learned to cope with difficulties of having four brothers – ages 27, 25, 23 and 11.
For around two years – before her older siblings started leaving for college – Hoffert said the family was often rotating between sports. The atmosphere led her to be a pretty avid sports fan.
“It basically got to be where my parents leave the house and Diana got to be the tackling dummy, wrestling dummy, outfielder – whatever it is that they needed,” she said. “I got shoved.”
As Hoffert admits, the experience definitely taught her a thing or two.
“Watching boys run around the house in their underwear does not faze me,” she said.
Maybe that’s why she doesn’t really have a problem being one of the 12 undergraduate student aids to the football team’s sports medicine department, a position she continued doing after work with her high school program.
From taping sprains, to distributing Gatorade bottles, to using “any sort of Band-Aid you could ever imagine,” Hoffert’s responsibilities stretch far and wide, although the aids are mostly in place to help the graduate assistants and the full-time sports medicine staff.
The student assistants work whenever the team works – that means practice Monday through Thursday as well as game day itself. That equates to a pretty big time commitment, especially with a full course load.
“Pretty much in the fall, you have no life,” she said. “Your life is football.”
But Hoffert said it’s a fact she doesn’t really mind. Aside from the perks like a scholarship, free tickets and free equipment, she said one of the things she loves the most is knowing all the players.
“They’re normal people – no different from anybody else. They have their good days, they have their bad days, but it’s fun to get emotionally involved in the game,” Hoffert said. “It makes it that much more exciting.”
Sometimes though, it’s important that the trainers as well as the assistants know the players even better than they know themselves.
“A lot of them don’t want to let you know they are hurt. They just want to get back out on the field. You have to be watching sometimes to see if someone’s limping or bleeding where they’re not supposed to be,” Hoffert said. “It’s about asking them the right questions and getting them in the right spot.”
Keeping players hydrated, she said, is one of the most important parts of the job. It’s a task that requires constant vigilance, especially since, as Hoffert pointed out, players can lose 10 pounds or more in water weight after just a two-hour practice. Hoffert said although the job does require a great degree of professionalism, especially while on the field, sometimes it’s hard to keep quiet, especially for a fan like Hoffert.
“When we went up to Virginia Tech and got that touchdown at the last second, I was jumping up and down spilling Gatorade everywhere,” she said. “Every once in a while, you just let it go and have a good time.”