Four Corners: How Unc, NC State, Duke, and Wake Forest Made North Carolina the Crossroads of the Basketball Universe [Hardcover]

Joe Menzer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 14, 1999

Deep in the heart of tobacco country, the Tar Heel State brings out the best of college basketball: Michael Jordan, James Worthy, and Dean Smith; Grant Hill, Christian Laettner, and Mike Krzyzewski; Billy Packer, Tim Duncan, and Bones McKinney; David Thompson, Lorenzo Charles, and Jim Valvano. What these men have in common -- besides being legends in the world of college hoops -- is that they are all part of Big Four basketball in the state of North Carolina. For the last fifty years the Big Four -- North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest, and North Carolina State -- have defined greatness on the hardwood courts.

Nowhere else in America are there four schools with such rich basketball history and tradition located so close to one another. The four grew up within a thirty -- four -- mile radius of one another, and to this day, North Carolina, N.C. State, and Duke are only a half hour's drive apart. (Wake Forest, which had been located nineteen miles west of Duke University and sixteen miles north of North Carolina State, received a hefty gift from the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in 1956 to move to Winston -- Salem, 110 miles due west.) In Four Corners, Winston-Salem Journal sportswriter Joe Menzer chronicles the storied histories, timeless traditions, and fierce rivalries that have placed these four basketball -- crazed schools among the best college programs in the nation.

In North Carolina, college basketball is not a matter of life and death; it's much more important than that. It isn't just that these teams are near one another geographically or that they're very good every year. It's the way the fans embrace their team and hate the other three schools that makes the rivalries so dynamic. Newcomers to the region find themselves forced to choose from among the four. You're either a Wolfpack fan, a Blue Devils fan, a Demon Deacons fan, or a Tar Heels fan -- and if you're not a Tar Heels fan, then you're an automatic member of one of the largest organizations in the state no matter what team you root for: the ABC gang -- Anybody But Carolina.

Menzer traces the history of the greatest concentration of talent, success, and venom in all of college sports, He tells the stories of how these four schools established themselves in an era dominated by big-city schools from New York or California, of the ebb and flow of success that each of these schools has experienced throughout the years, of the point-shaving scandals and recruiting violations that periodically rocked the rivalries between the schools, of the numerous ACC and national championships these teams have won, and of the unforgettable personalities who led the programs and dominated the sport.

From the early days of N.C. State's Everett Case and Wake Forest's Bones McKinney to the retirement of North Carolina's Dean Smith, from North Carolina's triple-overtime victory over Wilt Chamberlain's Kansas team in the 1957 NCAA Finals to Christian Laettner's miraculous buzzer beater against Kentucky in the 1992 Eastern Regional final, Menzer presents the sprawling story of the Big Four in an exciting and dramatic fashion. The first book to chronicle the entire history of life in that area of hoops heaven known as Tobacco Road, Four Corners brings back all the memories that have made basketball in the Tar Heel State the force it is today.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

If you want to major in Carolina basketball, this is certainly the primary text. Breezily written, well researched, and rich with anecdotes, Four Corners solidly surveys a remarkable sporting phenomenon: the concentrated quartet of hoop dreamers--UNC, NC State, Duke, and Wake Forest--that dominates the ACC, and, for that matter, the NCAA tournament. Menzer, a sportswriter for the Winston-Salem Journal, tips off in the pre-ACC era of Coach Everett Case at State, and then looks at the teams and programs molded over time by such outsized presences as Frank McGuire, Dean Smith, Jim Valvano, Bones McKinney, and Mike Krzyzewski. "People can talk all they want about the Big Ten," says Duke's charismatic Coach K. "About Michigan and Ohio State and Indiana and Kentucky or whatever, but there's no way that compares. They're in different states. Here, we share the same dry cleaners." Four Corners carefully examines what comes out in the wash and, in the process, airs some pretty good dirty laundry. --Jeff Silverman

From Publishers Weekly

People in North Carolina have long been convinced that nothing else in sports even approaches the excitement of college hoops in their state. In this methodical account of the storied basketball history of the Big Four schools listed in the subtitle, Menzer, a sportswriter for the Winston-Salem Journal, details more than 50 years of coaches, competitors and roundball culture. He looks at modern legends such as recently retired UNC coach Dean Smith, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski and Michael Jordan, whose high school principal encouraged him to attend the Air Force Academy instead of North Carolina so he would have a job after college. But tales of the schools' early histories provide the greatest rewards. Everett Case, the innovative N.C. State coach of the 1950s, was nicknamed the Old Gray Fox and was the first to make a spectacle of pregame introductions and to install an applause meter at his home court. His rival was the dapper UNC coach Frank McGuire, whose "underground railroad" of top recruits from his hometown of New York culminated in an undefeated national championship season in 1957. But as the programs grew, so did the pressure. Bones McKinney, a lanky Wake Forest coach who brought his team to the NCAA Final Four in 1962, gulped a case of Pepsi and, eventually, a handful of barbiturates daily just to try to endure the pressure. For all Menzer's exhaustive reporting, however, the book lacks the powerful writing needed to let the reader feel what is being described. Much like the stalling offense devised by Dean Smith from which the book takes its name, Four Corners is effective but less than thrilling.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (January 14, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684846748
• ISBN-13: 978-0684846743
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,212,775 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful look at history of ACC basketball, June 7, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Four Corners: How Unc, NC State, Duke, and Wake Forest Made North Carolina the Crossroads of the Basketball Universe (Hardcover)

There is nothing like ACC basketball. For those of us who moved to Tobacco Rd and weren`t raised here, Joe Menzer`s book is a must. I hadn`t known much about the history of this, the premiere league in college hoops, and this well researched book with an abundance of anecdotes really helped me have an appreciation of it. As great as the players have been in the ACC, what struck me in reading Four Corners is how much the coaches have always played perhaps the dominant role in the conference. From the colorful characters like McGuire, Case, and McKinney to the intensity of Smith and Krzyzewski no other conference can match the ACC. If you are a fan of any or all of the Big Four schools you owe it to yourself to read Joe Menzer`s Four Corners.

4.0 out of 5 stars Welcome to North Carolina, April 22, 2002

By 

Benjamin Miraski "fxdirect" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Four Corners: How Unc, NC State, Duke, and Wake Forest Made North Carolina the Crossroads of the Basketball Universe (Hardcover)

To many fans of college basketball, the ACC can be defined most seasons by what happens within the confines of the state of North Carolina. With four teams growing up within 50 miles of each other, and each one featuring a host of truly unique and competitive individuals as their coaches, the North Carolina teams have continually dominated the scene in college basketball for the past 50 years.

The book follows the story of Duke, North Carolina, NC State, and Wake Forest from their days in the Southern Conference to the formation of the ACC, right up until today. Each era is defined by the men who coached and played for each of these teams throughout the years. The book provides an excellent history lesson on what has become the center of power in the most competitive conference in college basketball.

I have been a fan of ACC basketball for the last ten years and this book helped me to learn the history of the most storied teams within the league. If you are a fan of NCAA basketball, this is an excellent book and should be highly recommended.

3.0 out of 5 stars An Apt Title, March 3, 2002

By 

Z. Blume (St. Louis, MO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Four Corners: How Unc, NC State, Duke, and Wake Forest Made North Carolina the Crossroads of the Basketball Universe (Hardcover)

Four Corners is a thorough history of basketball in North Carolina--a very interesting subject for basketball fans everywhere (it is home to more dominant programs than any other state in the country)--but unfortunately Menzer's book is like the four corners defense in that it really slows things down. He is not a particularly good writer and his anecdotes often fall flat because he does a poor job of explaining the story. Another problem is that he relies on very few sources, so his book is terribly biased and its stories are limited. For instance, Menzer relies on Billy Packer to essentially tell Wake Forest's story. While Packer is amusing, he is arrogant and is only one person so Wake's history is not three dimensional at all and really doesn't seem particularly interesting. Despite these flaws, which would prevent me from recommending this book to anyone who doesn't love college basketball and particularly the Carolina schools, this book is a good companion for a fan and will give them some interesting historical context that will allow them to appreciate their team that much more. Also, it will provide some nice trivia for those who like to bring up obscure facts during arguments about who is the best player, team, coach, etc. in the history of these programs.