We talked to Pachauri in fall of 2007, just after the IPCC was awarded the prize. We asked him for advice he might give those interested in making a positive impact on the world. Here’s what he told us:
I’ve always felt a restlessness about doing things that will hopefully make a difference to society. I think that if you have that burning desire, you’ll always find a way of doing things that are of value. There are times when you are frustrated when things don’t work the way you want. But you have to keep at it. Perseverance is absolutely critical. You just can’t give up in the middle of a mission you’ve taken on. If you’re convinced of the value of the mission, you’ve just got to see it through—and you will be able to see it through.
You can read the full Q&A here. You can find out more about graduation here and here.
11.27.2009 | by Cherry Crayton | Filed under Sports | Comments: 2 responses |
Update at 8:10 p.m. Saturday: NC State got off to a slow start, missing its first 12 shots to fall behind 13-0 early, and No. 16-ranked Vanderbilt made 28 of 35 free throws to top the Wolfpack 77-71 in the finals of the Vanderbilt Thanksgiving Tournament Saturday night in Nashville, Tenn.
The Commodores (6-0) extended their lead to as many as 20 points in the second half. The Pack used a full-court pressure defense to cut the lead to single digits, but they missed timely free throws, making just 14 of 24 in the game.
Senior guard Nikitta Gartrell led NC State in scoring with 16 points. The Pack also got double-doubles from senior forward Lucy Ellison (14 points and 12 rebounds) and sophomore forward Bonae Holston (13 points, 12 rebounds).
Here’s what Coach Kellie Harper told Patrick Kinas of the Wolfpack Sports radio network after the game:
We did have a slow start. Offensively, we looked a little panicked out there with out shots and had too many turnovers early. . . . [And] we left their shooters free for open shots. At the same time, I tell you what, I want to win and I’ll never accept a loss, but those kids played their guts out tonight, and I’m proud of the effort. It challenged us physically and mentally, and we were able to see players step up and rise to the occasion. . . Obviously, we still have a long way to go, and it is a process when you have a new staff to learn and to grow as a team, and I wish we could do it quicker for our seniors. I don’t want to put them through this all season, but gosh, if we keep playing like this, we’ll get wins. If we can bottle this up and open it up in our next game and the game after and the game after that, we’re going to win.
On what she learned about her team from tonight’s game, Coach Harper said:
[They're resilient], and I learned they have a little more fight than they may have shown in the past. Also, the kids can make changes on the fly. We made some adjustments out there, and they handled them. . . . They’ve shown [those things] to us now, and we”ll expect it out of them.
NC State (5-2) returns home Thursday to meet Wisconsin at 7 p.m. in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. Also, be looking for an entry on this blog from Patrick Kinas in the coming days for his insights on the Thanksgiving tournament.
After the jump, we’ve got an extended interview with Coach Harper that focuses on her Tennessee roots and touches on her start at NC State. We also have exclusive photos of her in her new home.
11.25.2009 | by Cherry Crayton | Filed under Sports | Comments: No responses |
The Wolfpack women’s basketball team flew to Nashville Wednesday morning to play in the Vanderbilt Thanksgiving Tournament. But before they eat their Thanksgiving Day meal (prepared by senior Lucy Ellison’s mother) and face Northwestern State Friday at about 5 p.m., take a look back at their first away game of the season. That happened Monday night, when the Pack defeated Old Dominion 62-52 in Norfolk behind 12 points each from junior forward Tia Bell and freshman guard Marissa Kastanek.
As part of our ongoing series “A Coach’s First Season,” NC State magazine joined the Wolfpack for their bus ride up to Norfolk and back. The latest installment includes
a complete, almost hour-by-hour breakdown of the trip here with several photos above and a few highlights (with one item in particular that will stir up the Wolfpack faithful);
notes and highlights from the game against ODU interspersed with quotes;
a short interview with Bonae Holston, who talks about playing before a hometown crowd;
an interview with junior forward Tia Bell, who has come off the bench in the past two games to score in double figures and power crucial runs;
an interview with freshman guard Marissa Kastanek, who has scored in double digits in four of the Wolfpack’s five games this season and who talks about her first away game; and
an interview with Coach Harper, who talks about the ODU game and what she’s taking away from her first road game.
Find the notes and interviews after the jump, and be sure to check back with us Friday morning, when we’ll post an extended interview with Coach Harper in which she talks about her childhood in Tennessee, playing for Pat Summitt, coming to NC State and this documentary:
But what I do know is that we’ve done a 100-year experiment in doing things the traditional way that’s been an utter failure and so. I have some ideas that some might think are fairly radical but, it may be time for some radical thinking.
11.21.2009 | by Cherry Crayton | Filed under Sports | Comments: No responses |
Sophomore forward Bonae Holston had a double-double with 21 points and 10 rebounds and three other NC State players scored in double figures as the Wolfpack women’s basketball team beat Davidson 79-54 Friday night at Reynolds, giving Coach Kellie Harper her 100th career win as a head coach.
“One-hundred wins is a milestone,” said Harper, who compiled a 97-65 record in five seasons at Western Carolina and is 3-1 at NC State. “I’m not sitting in my office calculating my wins; I’m worried about these girls getting wins for the season. But I’m proud of that. You can really put things in perspective very quickly, though, when you can look around at other coaches [across] the country and realize that it took me, . . . in my sixth year, to get a hundreds wins.
“So to get a thousand,” she added, referring to her former coach, Tennessee’s Pat Summitt, who is the all-time winningest coach with 1,005 career wins, “I’ve got to coach 60 more years. That put things in perspective very quickly.”
(Summitt, incidentally, picked up her 100th career victory on Jan. 13, 1979, in a 79-66 win over NC State in Reynolds.)
Coach Harper and junior forward Tia Bell, who had 15 points and 9 rebounds, talk about the win in the video below. Junior forward Brittany Strachan added 10 points and 8 rebounds, and freshman guard Marissa Kastanek scored 11.
For a full recap of the game and box score, visit GoPack.com.
11.20.2009 | by Cherry Crayton | Filed under Sports | Comments: One response |
Nikitta Gartrell, left, and Coach Kellie Harper, during a prayer before the Wolfpack women's basketball team's first game of the season on Nov. 13. (Photo by Peyton Williams)
Kellie Harper will go for her 100th career win as a coach Friday at 7 p.m. when the Wolfpack women’s basketball team faces Davidson in Reynolds. (Tonight’s promo: Bring two canned goods and get $3 off the ticket price.) As part of our continuing coverage of the team, we’ve got two features heading into tonight’s game: an interview with senior guard Nikitta Gartrell and the first entry from our guest blogger, Patrick Kinas. Patrick has been the play-by-play voice of the Wolfpack women’s basketball radio network for nearly a decade and has been around sports his entire life. He has a perspective and knowledge that very few people share. In his debut entry, he writes about what he’s learned about Coach Harper over the past several months:
Kellie Harper hates to lose. I’m convinced that her loathing-for-losing quotient is significantly higher than her affinity for winning. . . . Kellie doesn’t seem driven to win with the thought of growing her victory column. To me, Kellie seems driven to win simply to siphon the air out of the L column. But make no mistake. The wins will come. They’ll just come as a by-product of Kellie’s obsession to not to lose.
Read his entire, insightful debut entry after the jump, and look for weekly entries in the future.
First is our Q&A with Nikitta. The 5-foot-9 three-year starter averaged 10.9 points last year and is averaging 8.7 points during the first three games of this season. She talks with us about the season so far, her teammates, and her goals.
Q&A With Senior Guard Nikitta Gartrell
You’ve got three games under your belt, going 2-1. What’s your assessment of the season so far?
It seems like the season has jumped off fairly quick. I feel that things are going good. We’re still in the learning process, and we still have got a lot to learn, plays and stuff, that Coach Kellie has designed for us to use this season.
We’re redesigning www.alumni.ncsu.edu to give you a better way of keeping up with NC State and the people in your alumni community. But first we want to hear from you. What do you want from your NC State alumni site? What features or tools are you interested in? What do you think we should be working on? Share your thoughts here or e-mail them to alumniblog@gw.ncsu.edu.
We have added a new tab to the NC State Alumni Association’s Facebook page. “NC State on Facebook” has links that will help you connect to the Facebook pages of NC State colleges, alumni groups, organizations and other university entities. We have dozens of pages listed, but we know there are more out there. If you have suggestions for pages to add, leave them in the comments or send them in an e-mail to alumniblog@gw.ncsu.edu.
11.18.2009 | by Cherry Crayton | Filed under Sports | Comments: No responses |
Redshirt junior point guard Amber White had a career-high 25 points and freshman guard Marissa Kastanek added 20 points to lead the Wolfpack women’s basketball team past Florida Atlantic, 84-70, last night at Reynolds Coliseum. Get a full game recap and box score at GoPack. An after-the-game interview with Coach Kellie Harper is below. In it, Coach Harper, who is one game shy of 100 career victories, talks about how and why she can’t remember the first game she ever won as a head coach but why she remembers the first one she lost (it came against Clemson).
Update: Coach Harper will go for win No. 100 Friday night when the Wolfpack takes on Davidson at 7 p.m. in Reynolds. An interesting sidenote is that Coach Harper’s former coach at Tennessee, the legendary Pat Head Summitt, picked up her 100th career victory against . . . NC State. The Lady Vols beat the Wolfpack 79-66 in Reynolds on Jan. 13, 1979. It took Summitt about four years to hit the century mark.
WUNC, North Carolina’s public radio station, also aired a story this morning that gave a good overview of the team and looked into what it’s like for Coach Harper to work with her husband, assistant coach Jon Harper. Listen to the 5-minute broadcast here: Wolfpack WBB Team on WUNC
About working under his wife, Jon Harper told WUNC:
You probably know the name Doc Hendley ’04 by now, but just in case: He’s the founder of Wine to Water, a faith-based nonprofit that installs running water and sanitation systems in the neediest parts of the world, and he’s one of the 10 finalists you can vote for to be named CNN’s 2009 Hero of the Year. Voting for that ends Wednesday, and the winner will be announced Thanksgiving Day at 9 p.m. during a live telecast on CNN. So, vote! And, keep voting.
We first reported on the work that Doc is doing on our blog in May. We spoke with him by phone for a few minutes Monday; and after the jump is a Q&A with him about how his life and his organization have changed since he was named a finalist for CNN’s Hero of the Year.
How did you find out you were a finalist for CNN’s 2009 Hero of the Year?
I found out a couple of days before they announced it on Oct. 1. They called and told me. I ran off the road when I found out. I didn’t expect it at all.
Rajendra K. Pachauri ’72 MS, ’74 PHD, director-general of The Energy and Resources Institute and director of the Yale Climate and Energy Institute, will give the commencement address at NC State’s Dec. 19 graduation. Pachauri was chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) when it was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.
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