Chuck Amato, former NC State coach, dies at 80

Brett McMurphy broke the news Monday morning, and the first thing he listed was where Amato's career started: as a linebacker at NC State.

Brett McMurphy

@Brett_McMurphy

Former NC State coach & long-time Florida State assistant Chuck Amato has died. He was 80. Amato played linebacker at NC State & was on staff for 15 years, including head coach from 2000-06. He also was on Bobby Bowden's FSU staff from 1982-99 & 2007-09. RIP 🙏🏻

Amato's career was really 2 careers that kept crossing over. He played linebacker for the Wolfpack in the late 1960s and coached on their staff through the '70s. In 1982 he went to Tallahassee and spent 18 seasons beside Bowden, coaching the defensive line and then the linebackers, often with the assistant head coach title too. That stretch covers basically the whole Florida State dynasty: 2 national championships and a record 14 straight AP top-4 finishes. Plenty of the NFL draft picks who came through those defenses were guys he recruited and developed.

Coming off the 1999 national title, he went home. NC State made him head coach for 2000, and he went 49-37 across 7 seasons. The high point was 2002: 11-3, a win over Florida State, and a Gator Bowl win over Notre Dame with Philip Rivers at quarterback. Pack fans already know the hard part. That's still NC State's last 10-win season, its last top-15 AP finish and its last New Year's Day bowl win, more than 2 decades later.

NC State fired him after 2006, and in classic Amato fashion he went right back to Tallahassee for the last 3 seasons of the Bowden era, 2007-09. That's the run McMurphy's post points to, with Amato on Bowden's staff from 1982-99 and again from 2007-09.

It wasn't an easy last stretch. He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2009 and still came back to the sideline in 2012 as Terry Bowden's defensive coordinator at Akron, staying there until he retired after the 2017 season. The cancer came out of remission in recent years.

So remember the sunglasses, the swagger and the leather jackets on the Raleigh sideline if you want. The bigger picture is a guy who spent almost his entire adult life at 2 ACC schools, built a big piece of one dynasty, and gave his alma mater the best season it has had in a generation. RIP, Chuck.