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In two seasons of loss for Wolfpack coach Elliott Avent, trip to Omaha is finally a win

Elliott Avent admits he’s probably never going to get through the 800-something text messages still left on his phone from last weekend after N.C. State clinched a trip to the College World Series. He thumbed through them, responded randomly to a couple that caught his eye, but there were just too many to fully absorb. Not then. Maybe not ever.

And still, the Wolfpack baseball coach could sense without even looking the ones that weren’t there that should have been. The texts that never arrived. The calls that never came. The hugs that went unembraced.

Here he was, in a moment of triumph as great as any in his career — a season headed for disaster only to be turned around on the fly, an upset of the No. 1 team in the country to get back to Omaha for the second time in his tenure at N.C. State — and so many of the people who would have been happier for him than anyone else, maybe happier for him than even he was, were gone.

N.C. State coach Elliott Avent acknowledges the crowd after beating Arkansas 3-2 to advance to the College World Series during an NCAA college baseball super regional game Sunday, June 13, 2021, in Fayetteville, Ark.
N.C. State coach Elliott Avent acknowledges the crowd after beating Arkansas 3-2 to advance to the College World Series during an NCAA college baseball super regional game Sunday, June 13, 2021, in Fayetteville, Ark.

What do you do with overflowing, overwhelming joy when the people you really want to share it with are no longer around?

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“These are people that have always been with me,” Avent said this week, “through thick and thin.”

And then, they weren’t.

The deaths came in a wave in the space of 22 months. His longtime sports-information director. His longtime coaching buddy. The one player, of all he coached, who represented N.C. State baseball to him above all others. And finally, in March, on the eve of the season, his father.

After all that loss, all that grief, Avent suddenly has everything to celebrate while missing so many of the people he’d normally celebrate with, ahead of Saturday’s CWS opener against Stanford.

After misses, a hit

Because the joy is flowing now, there’s no question about that: Of all the N.C. State teams that should have made it to Omaha and didn’t — and there have been a few — this improbable bunch actually pulled it off.

Avent cut through his own grief to rally his players on the fly after a dismal start, then helped them recover from their own heartbreak, — a 1-0 loss to Duke in Charlotte to deny the Wolfpack a long-sought ACC title and the 21-2 loss to Arkansas in the opener — to make it to the final eight.

Who would have enjoyed it more than Jack Avent, who followed his son’s career from rural Nash County all the way to N.C. State? He put in years working at his country store and tobacco farm in Aventon, a town so small they’d tell people they were from nearby Red Oak, so his son could follow his baseball dreams. He loved the Wolfpack and the Yankees, in that order, and his son always figured his father would die in the fall, after the season.

Longtime NC State sports information director for baseball Bruce Winkworth throws out a ceremonial first pitch before a Wolfpack game in 2012. Winkworth, 67, passed away on Friday afternoon.
Longtime NC State sports information director for baseball Bruce Winkworth throws out a ceremonial first pitch before a Wolfpack game in 2012. Winkworth, 67, passed away on Friday afternoon.

Who would have enjoyed it more than Bruce Winkworth, who was as much an assistant coach as an SID at N.C. State, someone who loved the university and baseball as much as Avent? Even after he retired, Winkworth still showed up for every game. Winkworth knew the game inside and out, and never hesitated to tell Avent when he was wrong (which was often).

Who would have enjoyed it more than former Wolfpack soccer coach George Tarantini, Avent’s coaching buddy of decades at N.C. State? The two of them have held thousands of postgame debriefings in a booth at Amedeo’s. When Tarantini died, Avent got in his car and drove around Raleigh for hours, just as he and Tarantini would do to blow off steam after a tough loss.

Chris Combs speaks to the crowd between games with players from Leesville Road and Broughton behind him during the Chris Combs ALS Classic at NCSU on Thursday, April 20, 2017.
Chris Combs speaks to the crowd between games with players from Leesville Road and Broughton behind him during the Chris Combs ALS Classic at NCSU on Thursday, April 20, 2017.

Who would have enjoyed it more than Chris Combs, the Wolfpack baseball star from Avent’s first N.C. State team? Combs raised millions to fight ALS while the disease withered his massive body from the inside, and Avent often sat by his bedside at the end, talking baseball and telling old stories. Combs loved N.C. State as much as Avent did. He embodied everything Avent wanted Wolfpack baseball to be.

Combs would have been on the flight to Omaha, right across from Avent, his long legs sticking out into the aisle. Even the trip itself left a void.

‘I went through a rough patch’

These are the people in Avent’s life who would have been calling, texting, stopping by the house in the days between the Wolfpack’s victory at Arkansas and departure for Omaha.

Alone, individually, they each would have left a massive void in Avent’s life. Together, the loss and grief is incalculable, and if the first three were bad enough, Jack Avent’s passing on the eve of this season was the crushing blow.

“I went through a rough patch,” Elliott Avent admits. “I was really bad off. My dad and I were so close. I’ve gotten better. Not to say I’m over it. My sister’s helping me through it. I’m better. It was tough. But this hurts a little bit. He would love to be watching this thing. Maybe, I keep thinking he’s watching it from a better seat.”

They went through all the ups and downs with Avent, through all the close calls over the years, and this is the team that goes back to Omaha? As soon as they’re all gone?

It doesn’t seem fair that the people who would love it most don’t get to see it.

Avent has carried all of them with him throughout the season, never far from his mind. They would have been right there with him in Omaha.

Maybe they still are.