WATCH: Chancellor Woodson & AD Boo Corrigan Introduce Will Wade as NC State’s Next Coach (with transcript)

Chancellor Randy Woodson and Athletic Director Boo Corrigan introduced Will Wade as NC State’s next Men’s Basketball Coach today. You can watch the video above, and read the transcript below.

Chancellor Randy Woodson

This is great day for NC State. I’m thrilled to be with you and thrilled to introduce a few folks that are with us today. The board of trustees are out in force today. I’m grateful for everything trustees do.

The next Chancellor of this great university is in attendance, ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Kevin Howell. We also have the Board of Directors of the Wolfpack Club, we’re so grateful for everything you do for NC State athletes and for this great university.

For everyone else that’s in attendance today, our donors, our friends and our band that gets us started in every event. It’s wonderful to have you all here today.

This is a historic place. When I think about Reynolds Coliseum, and I look at Valvano Arena and Kay Yow Court, and I think about those two coaches…they were critical to this university’s success in very transformative times in athletics.

Think about Kay Yow starting when women’s sports were just coming into their own, and what she did to build a legacy here, now Wes Moore has taken it to new heights.

Think about Jim Valvano coming in at a time when Tobacco Road basketball was the rage, but had a little bit of a challenge, and he brought back a tremendous winning spirit to this university. Such a time it is now in college athletics.

It’s without a doubt, a transformative time for what we do at universities. It’s changing rapidly, and I can’t think of a better person to come in here and lead this basketball team than Will Wade, and I am so proud of the McMurray Family Athletic Director, Boo Corrigan, and everything that he’s done to build this athletic program and the way that he conducted this search. So ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming McMurray Family Athletic Director, Boo Corrigan.

Boo Corrigan

Thanks, boss. It’s tough getting old. I’ve got to put on my glasses.

So many people to thank for today, but let me start with our staff and the people that put on the first and second round of the NCAA Tournament, both here in Reynolds, as well as the Lenovo Center, and just the amount of work that goes into that. And really, they freed me up to do my job as we went through all of this.

I also want to thank Michelle Lee, who’s our Chief of Staff, who’s been incredible. We can clap for her, too. She’s been an incredible teammate for me as went through this.

Obviously, it’s not easy as you’re going through this, but we were able to get through it, and I’m pretty doggone excited about where we ended up in this whole thing.

Lastly, Chancellor, thank you for everything. You’ve been awesome for this university. You’ve been awesome for this athletic department, and you’ve been awesome for me personally. So just know how much I appreciate you.

Lastly, how about it, Wolfpack Nation? This is pretty doggone exciting, isn’t it?

Thank you for all your support. Thank you for all your support and recognizing this is one of the greatest jobs in college basketball, and for being patient. For being patient as we went through this search. As we went through this search, we talked to multiple candidates the first couple of days after we made the change in leadership.

There was great interest from every person we talked to. Everyone knows that this is a great job. So we weren’t in a situation where we were calling and they were saying, ‘Who are you?’ It was ‘Thank God you called’ as we were going through this process.

We quickly narrowed down the pool. I thought it was really important that we get a current head coach as we go through this process. We also needed to be really respectful of our candidates, many of whom were still competing, to make sure that they were able to focus on their team.

The last thing we wanted as an athletic department, as a fan base, is someone who’s going to turn their attention away from their team onto a new job, and we found that as we narrowed our search, and were able to visit face-to-face with different candidates, Will Wade became the person I believe is the best person to lead this program. He understands the expectations of the program and he knows what it means to compete in the ACC.

NC State men’s basketball has the resources we need for the future.

We don’t just want to compete, we want to win, and we want to win consistently, and we want to win big.

It didn’t take me long to be convinced that Will Wade is the person to lead us there. I’m excited about the future of the program under Will’s leadership, and I want to welcome Lauren and Caroline to the Wolfpack family.

There is one oddity in this whole search process as we’re going through this. Everyone knows Coach Moore. Maybe everyone doesn’t know that his first name is actually Frank.

Frank Weston Moore. The oddity is that Will’s first name is Frank, and it’s Frank William Wade.

So we were able to figure out we’re the only school in the country, be proud of this, with two Franks.

It is my privilege and honor to introduce your new head basketball coach, Will Wade.