The things that happen in my life sometimes you just can't predict, and "Roll Pack" was again something that I look back on and, gosh,
one day my kids are going to YouTube me and they're going to see me pushing Will [Privette] across the court and probably think: Why was our father trying to push this kid to his death?
But it had a huge impact on my senior year, more importantly my second semester as student body president.
Roll Pack was the basketball game, the excitement about playing the number one team in the nation early on in the ACC season,
and we're a nationally ranked basketball team too, and it's one of your biggest rivals and it's at the PNC, and we hadn't beaten Duke for a couple of years at that point in time.
So there was a lot into that game, and there's just so much emotion, and the PNC was rocking.
So we're doing the security precautions, trying to do that, and at the same time I had known Will just a little bit,
not too well-he was somebody who always voiced his opinions about student government and other things-but he had a front spot right there, right in front of the court.
That's where he sat for every single game, so I always saw him going in and out of games and got to talk to him in that way
So I walked up to him, and there was already ten people deep behind him, so there was no really getting him out of that situation.
The clock is ticking down and I'm like, "So you want to rush the court?" and he was like, "Yeah, I've rushed the court before. I want to rush the court."
I was like, "Well, I think there's a lot of people behind us," you know, right behind us, Scotty McCreery's standing, ready to go, [Laughs] and I'm looking back and I'm like, "Yeah, dude, we're rushing the court. I mean if you want to do this, we're going."
We had great momentum, and I think we've clocked it. We've watched the video enough. I think I got there in like two seconds.
And I told him, we were going to be the first people to the Block S, center court. We touched that paint first. I think we were the first ones there. But when we got there,
there were students coming from the other side, and also students that had already kind of reached Rodney Purvis, who was on the basketball team,
and Rodney got knocked into Will from the side, literally got pushed into Will from the side, and I'm holding right here, and the chair goes. The wheelchair falls over to the side.
Then out of nowhere you see C. J. Leslie break the crowd apart, I'm looking up at him, he looks very tall from a very low position.
He looks like a mountain out there, breaking the group apart, and he picks up Will. I get up, Rodney gets up,
and we dishevel his wheelchair, which I think was definitely broken. There's no doubt about that. I did break his wheelchair, so, Will, I'm sorry about that.
And then C. J. picked him up and, I mean what a great moment. I think that was just such-. That moment, that year, I think just defined so much about the student body at State, how passionate they are,
and how much we care about our university and each other. I think that's something that's so great about the student body here, and I was lucky to be a part of it, in a weird way.