TAMPA, Fla. – For Kay Barefoot, the first day of the ACC tournament is like Christmas morning. So, it seems fitting that the 1982 N.C. State English graduate and her husband, Philip Whitfield, have been coming to the conference playoff every year for over a decade.
“I grew up on Tobacco Road,” Barefoot said. “We would always have the radio and the black and white T.V. on during the ACC Tournament. It’s just always been a part of my family.”
And while Barefoot and Whitfield, who is a North Carolina fan, attend the tournament every year, this is the first for their three sons, Hunter, Noah and Elijah. The parents took their kids out of school for a week to travel to Tampa, Fla., from their home on the Outer Banks of North Carolina for the four-day tournament.
“We’re calling it an ‘educational experience,'” Whitfield said. “It’s college basketball in North Carolina – they understand it.”
The mother said she was glad the tournament wasn’t in North Carolina because it offered a chance for her family to take a vacation together.
“I really like it being in Tampa because it affords a place for the family to go and take a vacation,” she said. “It wouldn’t be like that if it were in Greensboro or Charlotte.”
But for Barefoot, the tournament is more than a vacation. It also sharpens her perspective about who the players are.
“When I see these players out there, it reminds me so much that they are still kids,” the mother of three said as she watched Boston College practice. “There is so much pressure on them to perform and to succeed. Watching them out there, it just shows that they are kids.”
And even though she believes fans and media place too much pressure on the players, she’ll still be cheering for her alma mater when the No. 10-seeded Wolfpack takes on the No. 7 Duke Blue Devils at 7 p.m. Admittedly biased toward the Pack, she thinks State can make a run in this tournament.
“I’m an optimist – you have to be as a State fan,” she said. “But I could really see us going far this weekend. I really believe that.”
Come back to technicianonline.com tonight after the N.C. State-Duke game for complete coverage from Tampa
