North Carolina State Basketball Legend Immortalized With Statue
From the time I could dribble a ball through the end of high school, I was obsessed with the game of basketball. As the son of two native North Carolinians, I was educated early on that the only basketball that mattered was in the ACC. Although we were a Tar Heel house, one name that was always spoken in reverent tones was David Thompson.
Before there was “Air Jordan,” there was “The Skywalker.”
My first memory of Thompson was watching him play with the Denver Nuggets one night as he was destroying my Houston Rockets. I asked Dad who this guy was, and that’s when the legendary tales of Thompson’s prowess began to flow. There are some words in sports that are way overused. One of them is legend. In truth you run across very few athletes who are truly legendary. David Thompson is the real thing. He starred for the Wolfpack from 1972-1975 and is one of only a handful of players two be named National Player of the Year, twice.
This week, North Carolina State honored and immortalized this living legend with a statue of him flying through the air in front of Reynolds Coliseum where he starred. Of the statue, Thompson tells WITN, “It turned out real good. Except they could have had Walton (UCLA’s Bill) up under me. Ally ooping over him but you get the gist of the picture. I think they did a great job. I think what is really good is showing the 44-inch vertical. Levitating in the air. That’s what I did back in the day and that was our signature play.”
North Carolina One of the Top 5 States Producing the Most Pro Basketball Players
