- Title
- Our state
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-
- Date
- December 1999
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-
- Place
- ["North Carolina, United States"]
-
Our state
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tar heel sports
by Jim Sumner
A Holiday Classic
“The Dixie Classic made Raleigh the mecca of college basketball. It had a tremendous
aura, maybe bigger than the ACC tourney. It was the best Christmas present you could get.”
— Frank Weedon, N.C State University sports information director
Under the leadership of UNC head coach Frank McGuire and assistant coach Dean Smith,
Carolina dominated the Dixie Classic in 1 957 and completed the season 32-0.
illy years ago, all Raleigh teenager
Jack Murdock wanted for
Christmas was tickets to a basket¬
ball game in his hometown. But not just
any basketball game. In December 1949.
newly opened Reynolds Coliseum hosted
the first Dixie Classic, a three-day, eight-
team college tournament. Murdock was-
n't disappointed. Me got his tickets and
sat with his father near die scoreboard.
“It was great,” remembers Murdock,
“and it became the biggest social event of
the season.”
Five years later, Murdock was playing
in die same tournament, as a guard for
die Wake Forest Demon Deacons. And
die Dixie Classic was even more exciting
from that vantage point. “It was a
tremendous deal," he says. “If you could
win the Dixie Classic, the rest of die year
was gravy.”
A Case for the Classic
The Dixie Classic was die product of
visionary N.C. Suite University basketball
coach C. Everett Case. An Indiana high-
school coaching legend. Case came to
Raleigh in the fall of 1946 and quickly
made N.C. State a national powerhouse.
A great recruiter and coach, he was also
an innovative and tireless promoter of
his sport. The Dixie Classic was his finest
creadon.
Case stalled with the brand-new
Reynolds Coliseum, a state-of-the-art
facility that seated 12,400 at a time when
many lop colleges played in gyms half or
even one-third that size. Add to N.C.
State local rivals Wake Forest, Duke, and
UNC. die so-called “Big Four”; then
invite four top outside opponents. Hold
the tournament die week between
Christmas and New Year's Day, throw in
entertainment between games, and a
basketball legend is created.The tourna¬
ment was an immediate success. After
die first one in 1949, Raleigh
Л
few &
Observer sports editor Dick Herbert wrote
that “any doubts about the success of the
Dixie Classic ... were dispelled. ... The
classic helps put Raleigh on the map.”
Fifty years later, Frank Weedon. die
longtime sports information director at
N.C. State, agrees. “The Dixie Classic ...
26 Our State December 1999