Chuck Amato, who played at N.C. State, later energized Wolfpack football as its passionate coach and won a school-record 11 games in 2002, has died. He was 80.
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Amato, the Pack’s head coach from 2000 to 2006, had suffered in recent years from a recurrence of throat cancer.
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At times, Amato could seem bigger than life. He had an outsized personality. He had an imposing physical presence – that big chest always protruding – and an Italian machismo about him. He never lacked for confidence, admitting to being, well, cocky.
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While Amato was a big part of some of college football’s greatest teams as an assistant coach at Florida State in the 1980’s and 90’s, he was an N.C. State graduate and remained a very proud, loyal one.
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Amato played at N.C. State in the 1960s for Earle Edwards. He was an assistant at N.C. State for Lou Holtz and Bo Rein. His only head coaching job was the one he wanted most: N.C. State.
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Amato’s Wolfpack teams had their share of memorable victories, including four over Florida State and his coaching mentor at FSU, the late Bobby Bowden. In 2001, the Pack became the first ACC team to hand FSU a conference loss at Doak Campbell Stadium.
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After each of those wins, Amato appeared to have tears in his eyes as he approached Bowden at midfield, ever thankful to the man who prepared him to be a head coach in the ACC.
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Amato, then 53, was hired away from FSU in 1999 when then-NCSU chancellor Marye Anne Fox decided to fire Mike O’Cain. Her mandate: make the Wolfpack program championship caliber.
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Amato was given the resources, his coaching staff the first to collectively be paid $1 million a year. They quickly tapped into Florida’s vast high school talent base as well as bringing in some of North Carolina’s best players.
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One of his initial hires was Manny Diaz, now Duke’s head coach. Diaz began as a graduate assistant at NCSU, then promoted to assistant coach.
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“I got to see how a program was built from day one, and got to see how hard it is to get a program through low-level atmosphere, up and into orbit,” Diaz recently said. “Chuck was highly intelligent but extraordinarily tough. I learned so much from him.”
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Amato’s first recruiting task was to keep one player already signed in the fold — quarterback Philip Rivers, a 17-year-old from Alabama signed by O’Cain’s staff. Rivers stayed, and won big before heading to the NFL as a first-round draft pick.
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In Amato’s first season, the Wolfpack beat North Carolina in Chapel Hill, ending a seven-game losing streak to its biggest rival that was a key factor in O’Cain’s dismissal. The next year, N.C. State won at Florida State, becoming the first ACC team to hand the Seminoles a conference loss at home.
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In 2002, Rivers’ junior season, the Wolfpack won the school-record 11 games, blasting Notre Dame in the Gator Bowl, in a stadium filled with red. Amato earned a lot of attention on the sidelines with his Oakley sunglasses and Wolfpack red patent leather sneakers.
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As a linebacker on the Wolfpack’s 1967 team, Amato helped N.C. State open the season 8-0, rising to No. 3 in the national polls before a close loss at Penn State. Thirty-five years later, the Pack won its first nine games to move to No. 10 in the AP poll as Amato drew attention both for his team’s play and for his sideline attire – the Oakley red-tinted sunglasses (he said they were lucky) and flashy red shoes (a tribute to the Pack’s basketball team, he said.)
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The 9-0 start would be the zenith of Amato’s tenure as head coach. There would be no ACC championship, no major bowls, even as the excitement level around the program led to a major renovation of Carter-Finley Stadium and impressive season-ticket sales.
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“His mix of intensity and discipline, along with a swagger and passion for the game, made him unique,” Rivers said in a 2018 statement when Amato retired.
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Once Rivers left NCSU, along with star receiver Jerricho Cotchery and others, Amato’s program began to slip. There was not enough consistency in the coaching staff. The wins did not come as often. Not often enough.
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The Pack lost at UNC in 2004 after a controversial call on a T.A. McLendon run, one official signaling a touchdown and another that McLendon’s knee was down before he crossed the goal line. McLendon fumbled on the next play and UNC won.
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Two years later, Amato was fired after a 3-9 season, the Pack losing its last seven games after beating Florida State at Carter-Finley. The season had an ugly ending, the Wolfpack losing the last two games to North Carolina and then East Carolina, just as O’Cain did in 1999.
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Amato’s overall record: 49-37. The Pack played in five bowl games in his seven seasons, winning four.
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Amato stayed in coaching, soon returning to Florida State to be the associate head coach and linebackers coach for Bowden again. He would be back in Carter-Finley Stadium in 2008, but on the opposing sideline.
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Then came a health scare. In December 2009 Amato was diagnosed with throat cancer. Chemotherapy and radiation treatments were successful, but Amato did not remain at FSU. Bowden retired after the 2009 season, Jimbo Fisher took over as head coach and Amato — who had 21 seasons overall on the FSU staff — was not retained
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Not that he stayed out of football. Amato joined Terry Bowden’s staff at Akron in 2012 and was associate head coach and defensive coordinator for the Zips until retiring in 2018 and returning to Raleigh.
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Born in Easton, Pennsylvania, Amato followed his older brother, Rosie, in coming to N.C. State to play for Edwards. The 1965 Pack team shared an ACC title and the ‘67 team gave the school its first bowl victory by topping Georgia in the Liberty Bowl for a 9-2 finish.
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As a senior, Amato and some of the defensive guys sold Edwards on the idea of allowing them to paint their football shoes white for games. Edwards agreed and the “White Shoes Defense” became a part of Wolfpack lore.
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Amato earned a B.S. in mathematics education from NCSU in 1969 and a master’s in education in 1973.
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Outside of football, Amato won ACC championships on the Pack’s wrestling team. That’s another reason he came to N.C. State – Duke, which recruited him in high school, wouldn’t allow him to compete in the two sports.
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“People come up to me and say, ‘Chuck, I just want to thank you for everything you did at my school.’ I say, ‘Guess what, buddy? It’s my school, too,’” Amato said in 2017. “I’m proud of what I did.”
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Amato is survived by his wife, Peggy and daughters LuGina and Selena.
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