Ejected ex-NC State stars return to RBC Center

After former North Carolina State basketball players Chris Corchiani and Tom Gugliotta were ejected from the RBC Center during N.C. State's loss to Florida State, the entire University was up in arms demanding fair treatment and respect.

Three days after they were ejected from the stands by an official during Saturday’s game, Gugliotta and Corchiani returned to the RBC Center to cheers from a passionate fan base that has insisted the players' treatment was unjust.

Both were part of the 1989 N.C. State team that was honored during a ceremony before the Wolfpack's game Tuesday night against No. 7 North Carolina.

"The last thing we ever thought we'd do is get embarrassed or embarrass this program that we love so dearly, and in our minds, we didn't," Gugliotta said roughly an hour before the game.

News & Observer sports columnist Caulton Tudor is no stranger to ACC games, but he says he was left “stunned” when official Karl Hess approached the table with 6:40 remaining and gestured for their removal.

“I think [Hess] handled it poorly,” Tudor said. “I think this is a way of saying, 'Look, we're not just going to lie down and be rolled over. We're going to stand here and make a stand, particularly in our own building.’”

Wolfpack fan Bob Guy agreed, saying, “I think it's an awesome move by Debbie Yow to rub it in the ACC office."

Yow sounded eager to put the episode in the past, saying: "we're moving forward."

The fans, however, didn't seem quite as ready to let go. Among the dozens of signs fans brought to the arena were cutouts of Gugliotta's and Corchiani's faces made from photographs taken when the players were escorted from their seats in Saturday's game.

For Pack fans, there's more to the situation than just the ejections. They say they feel slighted at times, and as Rodney Dangerfield aptly put it, N.C. State “gets no respect.”

"They don't get the respect -- treated like crap and treated like animals,” junior Fahim Lodhi said “But we go as a pack, we leave as a pack and we lead as a pack."

According to Corchiani, the man at the center of the storm, that Wolfpack mentality was never more evident than before tonight’s game.

"I think it's great that the Athletic Department and Debbie Yow would stand up and do something like this,” Corchiani said. “To me it shows a lot of moxie, and [it] is really special that our university is looking out for us. I feel they have our backs and I really appreciate that."

While Gugliotta admitted the ejection still leaves "a bad taste in my mouth," the two players seem to be able to laugh about it now. Roughly an hour before the North Carolina game, Gugliotta and Corchiani smiled when posing for a photograph with the Raleigh Police Department officer who escorted them from their seats.

Less than 24 hours after the ejections — and not coincidentally — the school announced plans for the ceremony to honor the 1989 team, the Wolfpack's last to win an ACC regular-season championship.

The league reviewed the incident and publicly reprimanded Hess on Monday, saying game officials have the authority to ask the home team's management — and not arena security — to remove fans when, in the official's judgment, their behavior is extreme or excessive.

Hess told ACC officials that they weren't ejected for anything they said, but for "excessive demonstration on several calls as they came right up to the scorer's table," according to an email sent Monday night by ACC associate commissioner for men's basketball Karl Hicks to N.C. State executive senior associate athletic director Chris Kingston.

Gugliotta scored 1,536 points while playing for N.C. State from 1988-92, before beginning a 13-year NBA career that included an All-Star selection in 1997.

Corchiani, who spent three seasons in the NBA, played for the Wolfpack from 1987-91 and is second on the NCAA Division I career assists list with 1,038. Both Gugliotta's and Corchiani's jersey numbers hang from the RBC Center rafters.