It was 1970 when a short, small black child in the fourth grade darted around the cafeteria at Lud-Low Taylor Elementary School in Washington, D.C. and caught coach Fletcher Tinsley’s eye. Tinsley saw speed. He saw personality. He saw passion.So he bounced the boy a ticket.In one moment, he set the boy on a journey. He placed in the boy’s hands more than a 10-year-old can comprehend.With one pass to a little boy, he helped define a man’s life. Fletcher Tinsley gave Sidney Lowe basketball.And now, 36 years later and as the 18th head basketball coach at his alma mater, Lowe is done moving, but he keeps fighting and flying on his journey home.

DeMatha Catholic High to N.C. State…Lowe’s office is littered with memorabilia from his life in basketball. Autographed pictures of NBA greats sit on tables waiting to be framed. A poster hangs on the wall by his desk that commemorates N.C. State basketball. And right next to the door – the first thing a visitor sees when he enters Sidney Lowe’s office – is a large, wooden trophy case. In the case are two basketballs – and nothing else. Engraved on the first ball are the words, “1983 NCAA Champions.” Engraved on the second ball are the words, “1983 ACC Champions.” The balls celebrate the Wolfpack’s 1983 run to both conference and national championships, which Lowe helped engineer. But it took Sidney Lowe a long time to get to 1983.Lowe said it wasn’t until he played guard for legendary high school coach Morgan Wooten at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Md., that he thought basketball was going to take him somewhere in life. He admitted, back in 1979, that N.C. State could be where he played college basketball all throughout his high school career. That year, he arrived at N.C. State with high school teammate Derek Whittenburg, who is now the head basketball coach at Fordham. Within four years, Lowe and Whittenburg established themselves as the ACC’s top guard tandem and won the two championships in 1983.After the national championship win over Houston, Lowe left N.C. State, without graduating, for the NBA. He was the first pick in the second round of the draft. He played four seasons in the NBA for five different teams – namely Charlotte, Indiana, Atlanta, Detroit and Minnesota. He stuck around the league long enough to earn a head coaching job with Minnesota in 1992 – a job that lasted two years and produced only 23 wins. Six years later in 2000, he coached the then-Vancouver, now-Memphis Grizzlies to back-to-back 23-59 seasons. In 2002, an 0-8 start led to his resignation from the team, and ultimately, from being a head coach in the NBA. All-in-all, 1983 has been Lowe’s moment in the sun – his defining moment in basketball, perhaps. And it seems that underdog run has had an impact on the now 46-year-old.One of the first hangings to find a place on the wall of his new office is a cross-stitching of the famous 1983 newspaper clipping, “Trees will tap dance, elephants will drive at Indy and Orson Welles will skip breakfast, lunch and dinner before North Carolina State finds a way to beat Houston for the NCAA basketball championship.”He couldn’t help but smile when looking at it.”Yea, I like that one,” he grinned.

“I just think we are all responsible for each other…”Through it all, family has been a pillar for Sidney Lowe. But when he talks about family he’s talking about much, much more than blood. His players are his family.His teammates are his family.His coaches and his fans are his family. And Lowe believes he’s personally responsible – tied – to each and every member of his family.”Whether it’s friends – that I call part of my family – teammates or coaches, I just think we are all responsible for each other,” he said.He continued that his belief in family as a focal point of life has always been his thinking. It’s nothing new. He doesn’t, however, know where he gets the values from.”I’m not sure where I got that from, I just think that when you have people who care about you and support you – even when you’re bad,” he said. “Even when things don’t go well, and you’re not on top of the world, they still believe in you and still support you.”Lowe and his wife Melonie, who graduated from N.C. State, have three children Sidney Jr., 20, and 7-year-old twins Lindsay and Lantzen. The family lives in a nearly-10,000 square foot house in Raleigh worth close to $1 million. The Lowes moved into the house in July 2005 – while Sidney was still in the NBA.”I guarantee that house was not built with funds from North Carolina State University,” Lowe said with a smile.Nevertheless, basketball is omnipresent in Lowe’s life. The coach admits he doesn’t escape his profession like other people escape theirs.”You don’t really have a lot of time to [get away], and when you do find time, you don’t really get away from it,” he said. “Something always comes up or you always end up talking about it or thinking about it.”However, Lowe is unapologetic for his always-on-the-job lifestyle. “You’re always trying to gain that edge. The great coaches are all that way,” he said. “They’re always going and going. If the great ones do that, why can’t I do that?”

“Who better to tell our players how important a degree is…”After his team won the national championship, Lowe left college without a degree – instead, he elected to pursue a career in the NBA. In six years as a player, he bounced around five NBA and three CBA teams. But in 1990, when his playing days were over, he still didn’t have a college degree, so he pursued coaching in the NBA ranks – where such a credential isn’t required.Lowe said it was at that point in his life where he had the chance to go back to college.”Once I left to go to the NBA and had a family, it was tough to go to school. I would play and then work and play during the summer to try and earn money to take care of my family,” he said. “It wasn’t until I had established myself and been a head coach that I had time to go do it.”Lowe earned his degree in business administration from St. Paul’s College this year. In fact, he graduated after he was announced as head coach at State. Effectively, Athletics Director Lee Fowler and Chancellor James Oblinger took a gamble that Lowe would graduate, seeing as Lowe’s position requires a college degree. Nevertheless, when Oblinger opened the press conference announcing the Lowe hire, he claimed how pleased he was that his new coach – a man who had not yet graduated college – was committed to academics.Lowe said his commitment to academics is evident, in part, by how long he’s worked to get his degree.”I had no idea if I was going to even be in a position to get this job, but I had been working on getting my degree before this ever came up,” he said. “I had been taking classes for a while. And I think what they [Oblinger and Fowler] saw there was someone who knew it was important to get a degree.”And now, Lowe added, he can prove to his players how important a degree really is.”Who better to tell our players how important a degree is than someone who got his degree later down the road,” he said. “That’s what I can tell our players. If they have any aspirations to get anything done outside of basketball, you need to get your degree now or as soon as possible.” “[My players] understand perfectly clearly how I feel about education. They know I don’t want them to have an opportunity and then they can’t take it because they don’t have their degree. And I’m going to do my best not to let that happen.”It took Lowe 27 years from the day he first step foot on a college campus to when he earned a diploma, but he said his outlook on education hasn’t changed much.”And I’m smarter now, time management wise, than when I was as a player,” he said “But I’ve always valued education – but I just couldn’t do it when I was younger, but as time has gone by, I’ve chipped away at it and chipped away at it.”

“Always give faith and never question…”Sidney Lowe is a devout Christian. When speaking about his faith he is a humble, soft-spoken man who credits his God for every achievement in his life. He is not the fiery, focused coach storming the court side with his eyebrows furrowed. Instead, his eyes shift downward. His eyebrows lift. He smiles.”I just believe. I can say for a fact that there’s no way I’d be in this position without Him. This is not really my job – this is His job. I’m on borrowed time,” Lowe said. “Everything I have is on borrowed time, and I always keep that in mind. Everyday when I wake up, I keep that in mind.” He credits his mother for instilling his faith.”Always give thanks and never question,” he said, summarizing her teachings. When looking back on his NBA career, Lowe said his God was looking out for him.”I’ve been blessed. Fifteen years first playing and then coaching in the NBA, and I never sat out one year,” he said. “And that’s changing jobs, I never sat out a year. If something happened in one place, I’d get picked up somewhere else.”He added it’s continuing today, and he joked perhaps his God blesses him only to indirectly bless someone else.”And then to be here – everything I have – is like a storybook deal, and I know He’s doing it,” he said “I don’t know if it is me or if it’s someone around me that I take care of and He’s giving it to me because He knows I’m going to take care of them. I don’t know. I just know I’m being blessed.”Lowe said he and his family are searching for a new church now that they are back in Raleigh, but in the meantime he “gets down and prays with his Bible at night and gets down and prays with his Bible in the morning.”

50 years, 2 coachesIt took N.C. State 49 years after admitting its first black student to hire a black head coach, when in February Athletics Director Lee Fowler hired volleyball coach Charita Stubbs. Forty-nine years.Since the school started admitting black students 50 years ago, the men’s basketball has seen 225 total players pass through the program, but never had there been black head coach.Not, that is, until Fowler brought Lowe from the NBA back to college this summer.Lowe said he is proud of the fact he’s the school’s first black head basketball coach, but he clarifies he doesn’t think the color of his skin was the reason he was hired.”I’m very proud of that. It’s hard to explain. I’m very proud of the fact that I’ve been given this opportunity. N.C. State just wants the best person for the position,” he said. “But I’m proud to be the second [black coach at N.C. State].”Lowe added he doesn’t consider it an issue that it took State so long to hire a black coach. “I’m not going to say it’s a problem. Times have changed and times are changing,” he said. “When you’re living in a certain period – right or wrong – it’s just the way it is. But I think times are different now. I think people are more open to look at situations differently now.”When he talked about progress, Lowe said he hopes for a time when black coaches are distinguished only for their work on a court, not the color of their skin.”When you’re looked at as a coach and not concerned about race, then you’re there,” he said. “There are opportunities – we are getting opportunities. I think when you look around and see black coaches looked at only as coaches and not as black coaches, then you’re there.”

The 18th head basketball coach at N.C. State…Sidney Lowe sat with his wife Melonie on his right and Chancellor Oblinger on the left as Athletics Director Lee Fowler stood at the podium, announcing the new men’s basketball coach.At that moment in time, Lowe’s life was a rat race. It was chaotic. His Detroit Pistons, for which he was an assistant coach, were in the middle of the NBA playoffs. He was in the final stage of securing the college degree that had escaped him for so long. And there he sat in the Dail Basketball Complex with his family, former teammates and new players down to his right and the Board of Trustees and N.C. State administration to his left.Fowler concluded his remarks.”It’s with great pleasure that I introduce the 18th men’s basketball coach at N.C. State,” he said. “Mr. Sidney Lowe.”As the center erupted, Lowe took a breath and walked to the podium. He looked out over those in attendance, went to the microphone to say something, but backed away. All he could do was smile.The cheers intensified.Sidney Lowe made it home.