Who’s Tuffy? When did the Wufs wed? What’s a Cardiac Pack? Your guide to NC State fandom

Crazy as it sounds, Raleigh is full of newcomers who don’t know the Wolfpack, never heard of Jim Valvano and think the Cardiac Pack is a new kind of defibrillator.

Thousands too young or too geographically distant don’t understand all the red flags, can’t identify the black-and-white portraits inside Player’s Retreat and might feel left out of the crowds rushing Hillsborough Street chanting “Feels like ‘83.”

With that in mind, we offer this guide to NC State basketball fandom.

Someone had to tell you. Why not us?

Why the big deal?

N.C. State’s men’s team has not made the Final Four since 1983 — a four-decade run of near-total futility. To be a Wolfpack fan for that span of history is to endure near-constant disappointment.

In that same stretch, UNC-Chapel Hill has sent 12 teams to the Final Four. Duke, 13 teams. That’s a lot of dust to choke down in your own backyard.

Wolfpack fans, who rank among the world’s most ravenous, have been scratching their men’s tournament itch raw for the past 41 years.

The Wolfpack women have been to the Final Four a little more recently, in 1998. That was their only Final Four appearance before this year, and they’ve never won a national championship.

Why is the mascot a wolf?

In 1921, the school’s boosters explain, a fan took offense at the football team’s rowdy behavior on the field, calling them “as unruly as a pack of wolves.”

The name stuck, almost immediately adopted by both the N.C. State alumni news and The Technician student newspaper.

Who are Mr. and Mrs. Wuf?

The Wolfpack have boasted a hyped-up cheerleader in wolf costume since the 1950s, but in the early years, it looked less like the cuddly superfan in a sailor hat than a crudely designed “bad cosplay of the Fantastic Mr. Fox,” as The Technician described it.

Mrs. Wuf and her trademark red-and-white checkered bow appeared 20 years later with the advent of women’s basketball. But neither of them got their official names until ...

Did Mr. and Mrs. Wuf really get married?

These canid cheerleaders became Mr. and Mrs. Wuf when they officially tied the knot in 1982, leaving their prior relationship and domestic situation unexplained.

During a game with Wake Forest University, the Wufs growled “I do” at center court while more than 11,000 fans witnessed Wake Forest’s Demon Deacon mascot officiate their nuptials. The Technician explains that “Wuf,” unlike “Wolf,” would fit on the back of a jersey.

Two wolf children also attended the on-court wedding, according to N.C. State’s account, though their status was also left mysteriously unspoken.

Then, wait. Who’s Tuffy?

Tuffy is an entirely different character, an older logo and a registered trademark showing a strutting wolf.

These days, NC State’s live mascot is also known as Tuffy. The current member of the Tuffy dynasty is Tuffy III, a Tamaskan dog.

Old Tuffy also has a beer, of course.

Who are the Cardiac Pack?

The 1983 men’s team played its way into history by entering the NCAA tournament as an underdog No. 6 seed that finished the regular season behind both UNC and Virginia. But they won the whole thing in a string of nail-biter games, hence their heart-attack nickname.

In the final game against Houston, N.C. State overcame future NBA stars Clyde Drexler and Hakeem Olajuwon, scoring the final basket on a Lorenzo Charles dunk with two seconds on the clock. Their unlikely run to the championship immortalized Coach Jim Valvano, who sprinted wildly around the court, and made “Survive and Advance” into a tournament mantra.

How did NC State celebrate?

Fans exploded onto Hillsborough Street following the ‘83 championship, torching sofas, flipping cars upside-down and tearing across campus with numbers topping 15,000.

Despite the mayhem, police reported relatively little property damage and a handful of arrests. “Yeah, it’s theirs,” said a Raleigh police officer at the time, ceding Hillsborough Street to the crowds.

UNC fans had stormed Chapel Hill’s Franklin Street the year before, when longtime Tar Heel Coach Dean Smith won his first national championship thanks in large part to a freshman named Michael Jordan.

Why should we ‘Never Give Up?’

Valvano left N.C. State under an ethical cloud, though he was cleared of any major NCAA violations. He then got diagnosed with cancer in 1992.

He coined his famous phrase in a speech at Reynolds Coliseum — “Don’t give up, don’t ever give up” — then repeated it during his announcement for the Jimmy V Foundation for cancer research at the ESPY Awards at Madison Square Garden.

“I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have,” Valvano said. “To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get your emotions going, to be enthusiastic everyday ... to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems, whatever you have, the ability to work hard for your dreams to come true.”

He died less than two months later.

Photos: NC State basketball teams depart for men’s and women’s Final Fours

Hold on. What about David Thompson?

Before the 1983 squad, Raleigh swooned to the 1974 men’s team, which won N.C. State’s first-ever national championship. That team was led by star forward David Thompson, who helped invent the above-the-rim style with his 44-inch vertical leap, but who was held back in his NCAA days because dunking wasn’t yet allowed.

Last year, NC State unveiled Thompson’s statue outside Reynolds Coliseum.

Where did ‘Why Not Us?’ come from?

The Wolfpack rallying cry for this year came in a post-game interview with point guard D.J. Horne.

The only way N.C. State could even make the NCAA Tournament, given its regular season record, was to win five straight games in the ACC Tournament and gain an automatic bid.

Horne started this mantra early on, and as the Pack kept winning, they kept saying it louder.

Uniquely NC is a News & Observer subscriber collection of moments, landmarks and personalities that define the uniqueness (and pride) of why we live in the Triangle and North Carolina.