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Carl Tacy Passes Away At 87

Pilchard said:
Among other big-time wins, Tacy's Deacs beat the 1982 National Champion Tarheels in Carmichael that season. UNC went 32-2 that year with a ridiculously loaded roster (Jordan, Worthy Perkins among others). The year before, WF absolutely rolled UNC (that UNC team lost in the Championship game) at Charmicheal 84-68, which may have been the worst beat-down UNC ever took in Carmichael under Dean Smith. UNC lost 3 home games over those two seasons, and 2 were to the Deacs (Sampson and UVA was the only other team to beat UNC at home, and they did it once). WF was relevant.
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I remember Mike Helms couldn't miss that game!
 
sportsmed86 said:
i would have to differ with that. DY a class guy and was gone in 84, KG overlapped some and drove the team leaders crazy. Ernie did have to put his job on the line for Coach to sign DY in 1980 but there was always respect. 10yr NBA player so i guess Ernie saw something.
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I think he was thinking of Frank Johnson, not Danny.
 
According to this timeline:

https://basketball.realgm.com/player/Todd-May/Summary/50755

Todd played for UK and left during the 82-83 season.
83-84 at Wake Forest (elite 8) would be the transfer sit out year
84-85 injured in pre-season at WFU, transfer to Pikesville

The like above is wrong where it says "ineligible" for the 84-85 season. He was definitely eligible (before injury).

Here's an interesting article I found where we're not the only ones saying "what if...?" for Todd May. UK did too, their stakes are higher than ours of course, they're lamenting the loss of an NCAA title or two.

https://www.kentucky.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/mark-story/article44120244.html
 
tagsfan said:
And "Valleydale Bacon, Valleydale Sausage …"
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B-u-n-n-y, bunny/bunny/bunny/bunny bunny bread
B-u-n-n-y, bunny rolls, bunny bread and bunny rye
Bunny bread is fresh, delivered to your store at the break of day
B-U!!...N-Y!!!, No that's b-u-n-n-y-eye-eye!!!!!
 
Todd May was from Pikesville, KY, and at 6-8, you couldn't miss him on WF's ultra-preppy campus in his blue jean overalls as if he was type-cast in a movie to the play the country-boy basketball savant.

He was Kentucky's Mr. Basketball, and ended up averaging over 40 points a game for Pikesville College. Here is a link to 1987 article about May when the NBA was looking at him: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1987-01-19-8701040745-story.html

Here is excerpt of the article about his stay at WF:

That Kentucky's student population (approximately 23,000) is about four times larger than Pikeville's entire population didn't help matters. "I never did fit in, I guess," May said. "It was so big. I wasn't happy. I always felt a little lost and out of place."

May transferred to Wake Forest. He sat out the following season in compliance with NCAA rules. He broke his right foot while practicing that year and aggravated the injury during preseason the next autumn. Frustrated, he left Wake Forest and returned home, convinced he never again wanted to play organized basketball.
 
Complacent Deac said:
I just remember being a kid and liking the mystery of a team playing home games in Greensboro, as a home coliseum. And we had way more students attend, and sit right near the court, not behind the basket, if I recall. It was fun to watch and we had legit athletes.

Piedmont Airlines and I believe Food Town or Food Lion commercials.
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Weren’t we still sailing with the pilot then? I recall the player of the game on ACC telecasts got the Holly Farms chicken award.
 
Pilchard said:
Todd May was from Pikesville, KY, and at 6-8, you couldn't miss him on WF's ultra-preppy campus in his blue jean overalls as if he was type-cast in a movie to the play the country-boy basketball savant.

He was Kentucky's Mr. Basketball, and ended up averaging over 40 points a game for Pikesville College. Here is a link to 1987 article about May when the NBA was looking at him: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1987-01-19-8701040745-story.html

Here is excerpt of the article about his stay at WF:

That Kentucky's student population (approximately 23,000) is about four times larger than Pikeville's entire population didn't help matters. "I never did fit in, I guess," May said. "It was so big. I wasn't happy. I always felt a little lost and out of place."

May transferred to Wake Forest. He sat out the following season in compliance with NCAA rules. He broke his right foot while practicing that year and aggravated the injury during preseason the next autumn. Frustrated, he left Wake Forest and returned home, convinced he never again wanted to play organized basketball.
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That lanky ole white boy could play. Larry Birdish for sure. The fifth metatarsal has stymied many promising careers of bony guys.
 
One of my favorite stories from Coach Tacy was when he was coaching at Marshall. Mike D'antoni, now coach of the Houston Rockets was the point guard on Tacy's NCAA team at MU. He was from Mullens, WV. So, Carl, being from Huttonsville,WV, believed it was important to recruit the best players in the state. As I recall, he called and made an appointment to visit a kid down in the coal fields near Beckley. He made his way up a winding dirt road to the top of a large hill. There he found a single-wide mobile home with an old truck and an older car parked out front. The car, he said, had primer all over it and had obviously seen it's better days. But to his surprise, there was someone in the yard washing the car. As he pulled up to the house, he looked over and saw Lefty Driesell doing the washing. When Coach Tacy got out of his car, he said that Lefty said, "Hey Coach. They told me you were coming, so I told them I would just wash the car and speak with them after you left." Coach Tacy said that was when he knew the recruiting thing was going to be a bit more difficult than he had imagined.
 
rgbchen1979 said:
Yep, I saw that black gold game too. It was not Midnight Madness, and there was no way to pull the redshirt of a transfer like Reff said. But as for the shooting, I don't remember May missing a single shot!
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May broke his foot during the black and gold scrimmage :(
 
Pilchard said:
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.
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The "Teach" had the best demeanor of any College player i worked with in 14 years. Everyday was a good day for him. Believe he worked for some Triangle area Correctional facility later on. Fell on some financial hard times and reached out to some of us. I helped with what i could and last heard from him a few years ago. super good dude.
 
deacgolfer said:
The 1985-86 team was awful, but it was due to 3 bad breaks: Todd May getting hurt, Kenny Green leaving early & missing on Tom Hammonds. It still had 4 guys scoring in double figures (Rod Watson, Mark Cline, Muggsy Bogues & Charlie Thomas) with center Mike Scott just under double figures. If we could have added May, Green & Hammonds to those five guys...with, hopefully, Tacy deciding to stay as well...we would have been right back in the Top 10 again. Probably even with two of those three.
I think Mike Scott left to go back to Kentucky during the first semester. That’s when Staak got Allen Dickens to walk-on. We had no bigs, and Dickens was in medical school.
I realize that's a lot of ifs, but that 8-man rotation would have been better than the 1984 Elite Eight team.
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sportsmed86 said:
And let us share some love for his 84 team that beat #5 Kansas, #1 Depaul(Bye Ray Meyer), then only lost to #2 Phi Slamma Jamma by 5 in St Louis. That Final Four would have been Wake vs. UVA, UK losing to Georgetown and we had beaten UVA by 12 in the first round of the ACC and were 2-1 against in the year. Ah, what could have been.
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Beating Kansas and, especially, DePaul were great wins for us, but they were not ranked #5 & #1 in the nation. They were the #5 & #1 seeds in the Midwest region. (WF was the #4 seed) After beginning the season ranked #17 & losing its first game to #3 Houston, Kansas was not ranked for the rest of the year. They were only 9-5 in the conference (Oklahoma was 13-1), though they did win their conference tournament. With their 1st round NCAAT loss to us, Kansas ended its year with a 22-10 record. DePaul was ranked #4 when we beat them, though they were the #1 seed in the region.

And a note about Virginia. I believe that the 1984 Virginia team is the only team to have made the NCAAT after having a losing conference record AND losing its 1st round game in its conference tournament.
 
wfu22fan said:
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.
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Dinger came to us from Rollins. So glad he landed in the Final Four with Kansas the year after we threw him under the bus over Hammonds. He has been a long time scout for Spurs and is tight with Pop. So glad he stayed connected enough to the program to get the radio gig, even though it has to kill him watching now.
 
TheReff said:
"May transferred to Wake Forest. He sat out the following season in compliance with NCAA rules. He broke his right foot while practicing that year and aggravated the injury during preseason the next autumn. Frustrated, he left Wake Forest and returned home, convinced he never again wanted to play organized basketball."

I stand corrected. Maybe it was Tacy dreaming then of what could have been?
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I think I remember it was Todd's friendship with Mark Cline that got him to Wake. Both were "mountain boys" not far apart in WVa and Kentucky..
 
beachdeac said:
One of my favorite stories from Coach Tacy was when he was coaching at Marshall. Mike D'antoni, now coach of the Houston Rockets was the point guard on Tacy's NCAA team at MU. He was from Mullens, WV. So, Carl, being from Huttonsville,WV, believed it was important to recruit the best players in the state. As I recall, he called and made an appointment to visit a kid down in the coal fields near Beckley. He made his way up a winding dirt road to the top of a large hill. There he found a single-wide mobile home with an old truck and an older car parked out front. The car, he said, had primer all over it and had obviously seen it's better days. But to his surprise, there was someone in the yard washing the car. As he pulled up to the house, he looked over and saw Lefty Driesell doing the washing. When Coach Tacy got out of his car, he said that Lefty said, "Hey Coach. They told me you were coming, so I told them I would just wash the car and speak with them after you left." Coach Tacy said that was when he knew the recruiting thing was going to be a bit more difficult than he had imagined.
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The single-wide trailer part seems off. D'Antoni's dad, Lewis, was already a legendary coach at Mullens High by then.
 
deacgolfer said:
Beating Kansas and, especially, DePaul were great wins for us, but they were not ranked #5 & #1 in the nation. They were the #5 & #1 seeds in the Midwest region. (WF was the #4 seed) After beginning the season ranked #17 & losing its first game to #3 Houston, Kansas was not ranked for the rest of the year. They were only 9-5 in the conference (Oklahoma was 13-1), though they did win their conference tournament. With their 1st round NCAAT loss to us, Kansas ended its year with a 22-10 record. DePaul was ranked #4 when we beat them, though they were the #1 seed in the region.

And a note about Virginia. I believe that the 1984 Virginia team is the only team to have made the NCAAT after having a losing conference record AND losing its 1st round game in its conference tournament.
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My bad, it was a heady time to be "Under the Arch."
 
morrison2951 said:
I believe that we lost to Nebraska in the NIT Final 4 at Madison Square Garden. I was there in the pep band.

Wake and state both had the identical 17-11 records heading into that ACCT game that state won by 1 point when Wake turned the ball over late trying to run 4 corners. They ran off 9 consecutive wins to win the Natty.
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The "turnover" was a T called by i think Lennie Wirtz when Alvis hung on the rim to avoid landing on an opposing player for safety. They changed the rule the next year. The Cardiac Pack would have never been.
 
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