The toilet appeared again prior to the North Carolina State University vs. East Carolina University football game. The historical significance of this game was not to be ignored and the toilet had to be invoked to celebrate the occasion.For those of you not from this area or just plain brain dead let me quickly explain why this game was important from both a historical and season perspective.
The ECU Pirates are located roughly 80 miles east of Raleigh, NC and the NCSU Wolfpack. In the over 100-year history of the two programs they have only met 22 times.
The games between the two schools are always heated and often resemble two animals fighting on the field and in the stands. While NCSU holds the edge in the series most ECU fans will tell you that their school has won the more recent and more important games including the 1991 Peach Bowl. The season of 2004 was not a pleasant one for either team. ECU was 2-8 coming into the final showdown having recently informed their coach that it was his last season. NCSU was 4-6 having lost their last 4 games.
Both teams were bowl ineligible and the trip to Charlotte left them with a lot to prove to their fans. Momentum was on the site of ECU with the Pirates having narrowly lost to Memphis at home a week earlier and showing a lot of improvement on the season. The fans on both sides were desperate to end their season on a high note.
The toilet had been sitting for a while and really needed a new look to emphasis the importance of the game. Being NCSU fans and our in-laws being ECU fans Cara and I decided that the toilet needed an ECU theme.
Painting the toilet purple and gold would be easy enough but we wanted to make a statement that was “g-vegas” worthy. To do this we glued beer caps to the toilet and used the NCSU term of endearment for the school “EZU”. We found an image of the Wolf kicking the Pirate and glued that to the inside of the toilet lid.
Next stop – Cara and Eric’s front door. We left the toilet on their doorstep while they were at work and emailed them (and several other friends) pictures of the toilet on the doorstep. In less than 15 minutes they called.
The outcome of the game was relatively unimportant in the grand scheme of the toilet. Was the toilet a lucky omen for the Wolfpack? There is no way to know for sure.
