Carl Tacy Passes Away At 87

LilburnDeac said:

Imagine how good that 1984 team would have been if Todd May hadn't gotten injured and was even half as good as he was supposed to be. That team may have been one of Tacy's best coaching. None of the players were really stars (except maybe for Kenny Green) but all were really good and knew their roles. Anthony Teachey is one of my all time favorite Wake players.

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Teachey was the best! :thumbsup:

Teachey was one of my favorite Deac players. He was a beast.

godeacsplate said:

My information came from a former Wake player who played for Tacy and later became a D-1 coach.

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His memory is faulty. Kenny was a problem child at Wake, and in the NBA.

Kenny Green was a good player who flamed out early in the NBA. He was drafted (1985 - 12th pick) just ahead of Karl Malone. KG played 60 NBA games over 2 years - Washington traded him to Philly halfway through his first season. He was considered one of the biggest busts in NBA history.

Here is an Orlando Sentinel article about his attempt to return to basketball via a minor league team.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1990-10-21-9010200498-story.html

From an article [FONT=&quot]BY TONI GINNETTI[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]suntimes.com [/FONT]about his son, Wesley Green:

[FONT=&quot]"But Kenny Green spent only two seasons in the NBA, with the Bullets and the Philadelphia 76ers, before injuries ended his career. He played at times in Europe, but bad times overtook the good. Kenny Green went to prison in 2003 on federal drug charges, his 18-year sentence including 10 mandatory years."

Found here:http://www.apbr.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1152

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Carl's first season was '72-73. That's the year that we took out the Heels in the first round of the ACC tournament. In those days you had to win the tournament to get intp the NCAA tournament. I will never forget watching George Karl cry on the evening news. We were down 2 with one second left in regulation. We through a length of the court pass to Lee Foy who shot and tied the game. In overtime, Flip Perry drove in for a lay up as time ran out, Deacs 54 Heels 52, as I recall. There was a raucous celebration in front of Wait Chapel, complete with a mud slide! There was a huge crowd at the gym when the team bus got back that evening. Coach Tacy spoke, and it was awesome. It is one of my fondest memories of my years at Wake. RIP, Coach.

Hard choice for all time favorite player Skip or Teachey. Have to go with Skip with the “Bottoms” call by Gene Overby.

BirdinBama said:

Carl's first season was '72-73. That's the year that we took out the Heels in the first round of the ACC tournament. In those days you had to win the tournament to get intp the NCAA tournament. I will never forget watching George Karl cry on the evening news. We were down 2 with one second left in regulation. We through a length of the court pass to Lee Foy who shot and tied the game. In overtime, Flip Perry drove in for a lay up as time ran out, Deacs 54 Heels 52, as I recall. There was a raucous celebration in front of Wait Chapel, complete with a mud slide! There was a huge crowd at the gym when the team bus got back that evening. Coach Tacy spoke, and it was awesome. It is one of my fondest memories of my years at Wake. RIP, Coach.

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To follow up on the above, Wake was very competitive with Maryland in the next game, losing by eight. A win would have put Wake in the NCAA tournament because the ACC's best team, undefeated in the regular season and winner of the ACC tournament, was on probation and ineligible.

I sill have a scar on my thumb from that game. We were listening to the game in my room in New Dorm. When Foye hit that shot, I threw my hands up in the air and caught my thumb on the corner of the big square light that was on the ceiling.

We had been partying, jumping around and hugging each other. All of a sudden one of the girls screamed. We thought she was happy, but she was pointing to the floor and my bed. There was blood splatter. I was truly feeling no pain when I saw skin flapping off my thumb.

I got a towel and a couple of Band-Aids and listened to the rest of the game. We wiped up the blood after we won.

My current login password for the office contains "Tacy" in it. I'll have to change it soon as we have to change it every 3 months, but that's how much I thought of the man. Underrated and great coach, even better person and representative of Wake Forest.

Loved me some Anthony Teachey. Initially, he appeared to be a borderline ACC level recruit, by his senior year, he led the ACC in rebounding, and was a force to be reckoned with.

FWIW, in my 4 years at WF, Tacy was 8-1 against Duke. That was during K's early years when he had Dawkins, Amaker, Bilas et al. The one loss was in OT at Duke in 1984. Duke had something close to a 20 point lead in the 2nd half, and were about to run the Deacs out of Cameron. Rather than continue the beatdown, K panicked, and Duke stopped running, instead trying to milk the clock with about 10 minutes to go... Way too early to do that. Predictably, Duke choked away the lead, and WF forced OT. Duke escaped with a 79-77 OT win. Remember thinking at the time, what a huge advantage WF had on the sidelines with Tacy versus K. Seriously, it was.

RJKarl said:

Few people have ever had a more appropriate nickname that Gentleman Carl Tacy. He and I talked several times during our mutual time at Wake. He was always generous with his time and access.

As a coach, he was a bit ahead of his time in playing up tempo. He was a throwback in that he could beat you with his guys, but if he switched sides he could win with your guys.

The way he was pushed out was sad. What was sadder was how Wake didn't make him more of a part of our community. His knowledge and class were a great and wasted asset.

RIP Coach.

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To say he was pushed out is a huge stretch, based on what I was told years ago by a reliable source who was told by a source close to Coach Tacy. Sorry, I'm not going to say more.

Enjoyed reading this thread. So, let me add a few comments.

Tacy's teams were always well prepared and disciplined. He also knew how to develop players.

His recruiting was inconsistent at a time when the ACC was loaded up and down with the best talent in college basketball. Easily the best conference with just eight teams during Tacy's time.

He knew how to beat Carolina, and had a pretty good record against Dean Smith, despite usually having players that Smith did not think were good enough for Carolina. And yes, I was at that awesome game in Carmichael in Chapel Hill (my best Charmichael memory along with a terrific Janis Joplin concert from some years earlier), when we ran the eventual national champion, absolutely talent-laden, Carolina off the court. On a funny side note, when we were waiting in line to have our tickets checked so we could get in there were several Carolina fans in front of us, and one of them in typical haughty Carolina fashion observed loudly, "It will be over by halftime!" And it certainly was but not the way he imagined it. Basically, for the first thirty or so minutes of the game, we couldn't miss and they couldn't hit. The silence in Carmichael was indeed memorably enjoyable.

On Tacy's resignation: I have heard that he was really upset by our failure to get Tom Hammonds, who at the last minute signed with GT and Bobby Cremins. Wake was facing a major rebuild in the next season. Officially, he resigned during the summer and said that he felt "burnt out." That was later held against Tacy when he tried to get another coaching job at Old Dominion.

BTW, Tacy's assistants at WF in the early 80s were Nestor and Dinger. Both great guys and great coaches.

I was not close to this event, but my recall was that Tacy wanted something, or I am thinking to resign in essence. The DA surprisingly just said 'ok', and he was gone. Most couldn't believe it.

Deaconblue said:

His memory is faulty. Kenny was a problem child at Wake, and in the NBA.

Kenny Green was a good player who flamed out early in the NBA. He was drafted (1985 - 12th pick) just ahead of Karl Malone. KG played 60 NBA games over 2 years - Washington traded him to Philly halfway through his first season. He was considered one of the biggest busts in NBA history.

Here is an Orlando Sentinel article about his attempt to return to basketball via a minor league team.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1990-10-21-9010200498-story.html

From an article [FONT=&quot]BY TONI GINNETTI[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]suntimes.com [/FONT]about his son, Wesley Green:

[FONT=&quot]"But Kenny Green spent only two seasons in the NBA, with the Bullets and the Philadelphia 76ers, before injuries ended his career. He played at times in Europe, but bad times overtook the good. Kenny Green went to prison in 2003 on federal drug charges, his 18-year sentence including 10 mandatory years."

Found here:http://www.apbr.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1152

[/FONT]

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This is really not that difficult. A friend of mine who played for Tacy told me shortly after Carl left that Danny Young led a player rebellion against the coach. His quote was "Danny Young blew the team up". I never said anything about Kenny "The Blade" Green.

godeacsplate said:

This is really not that difficult. A friend of mine who played for Tacy told me shortly after Carl left that Danny Young led a player rebellion against the coach. His quote was "Danny Young blew the team up". I never said anything about Kenny "The Blade" Green.

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The timeline doesn't matchup with that allegation. Young played at WF 1980-84 (Young's senior year; WF went to the Elite 8, losing to an absolutely loaded Houston team - one of the most talented teams in NCAA history), and then played almost 10 years in the NBA. That 1984 team got along really well. Tacy coached WF through the 1985 season, a year after Danny Young left. I was pretty close to the team during that time, and Carl Tacy loved Danny Young. Tacy rarely showed any temper, but Tacy had be restrained by his assistants, when a MD player cheap-shotted Danny Young. Only time that I ever saw Tacy lose it during a game.

Pilchard said:

BTW, Tacy's assistants at WF in the early 80s were Nestor and Dinger. Both great guys and great coaches.

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And he had GDO in the mid to late 70’s. IIRC, Dinger came from Stetson and recruited Kenny Green out of Fla. There was just one signing date in April back then, and Dinger had us leading for Hammonds until Cremins flew from the final 4 to watch him play the next night. That won Hammonds over and led to Dinger’s firing right after signing day and Tacy’s resignation that summer.

godeacsplate said:

This is really not that difficult. A friend of mine who played for Tacy told me shortly after Carl left that Danny Young led a player rebellion against the coach. His quote was "Danny Young blew the team up". I never said anything about Kenny "The Blade" Green.

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Young went to the final 8 his senior year. He must have blown the team up in a good way.

This is the first that I have heard of any tension between Tacy and Danny Young, and I followed Wake very closely during those years and saw an awful lot of games live back then.

A little background. Tacy won a state championship at Pulaski HS in Virginia. Then he was at Ferrum Jr. Col. In 1970 he joined Coach Stewart Way as an asst. at Marshall University. After the 70-71 season, Coach Way went to the AD and told him that Coach Tacy needed to be the head coach and that he (Way) would be his asst. And that is what happened. I still find that to be an amazing fact. In his one year at Marshall as head coach, he took them to the NCAA Tournament (23-4). That was back when the field was only 22 or 24 teams. Quite an accomplishment. It was then that Dr. Hooks lured him to WFU.

No real inside info here, but he loved coaching and getting his teams ready to play a whole lot more than he did recruiting. He let the assistants hit the road, but he did what he had to do. Just look at some of the guys he signed and coached.

He resigned at the age of 53, having had a sub-par season after three or four top flight teams. It seems that the culture of the 70s (weed), players who did not like to be held accountable and his lack of love for recruiting all conspired around the loss of Hammond and the carping from fans to where he simply was done. All you need to read are the words of Muggsey Bogues about him on Twitter this morning. He loved and respected Coach Tacy. He was certainly a Wake Forest treasure. He needs a banner in the rafters!

AWSDeac said:

Kenny Green, not Danny Young, had the drug issue. I know that because Kenny's roommate, my senior year, was John Toms; and JT and I were good friends. I would go to the new athletic dorm to get JT to play tennis (we were sometimes joined by his friend from WS State, Tyrone) and then grab dinner somewhere afterwards. I often found Kenny smoking in the room. He also had a Penthouse centerfold on the wall beside his bed with a toll number below. I jokingly asked him who the girl was, and he would reply, "that's my girlfriend." I would respond, 'yeah right Kenny," and he would insist she was his girlfriend. His evidence? "I talk to her every night." I've always wondered out of what line item in the basketball program's budget Kenny's calls to his "girlfriend," came...

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Great story. I bumped into Kenny Green a time or two at the Kappa Sig house. Super stoned (him not me). Once right before a Saturday or Sunday nationally televised afternoon game against UNC in Greensboro. it was like 9 or 10 in the morning I think. Anyway, it was an hour or two before he would have had to leave to get to pre-game. He shot something like 9-13 and scored 23 to 25 points against Brad Daugherty, Kenny Smith, Dave Popson I think. Should have shot more but he was just gliding around. Seemed to remember at least that game most of his shots being turnaround jumpers on the baseline - a tough shot.