By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Will Wade is sticking it to North Carolina State and Thomas Wolfe, one of America’s greatest writers who hailed from Asheville, North Carolina, and wrote the revered novel, “You Can’t Go Home Again,” published in 1940 two years after he died at age 37.
Wade, who was fired as LSU’s basketball coach in 2022 at age 39, IS going home again, in his mind, because LSU just hired him back on Thursday away from his head coaching job at North Carolina State after just one season. Wade, 43, is actually from and grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and he graduated from Clemson in South Carolina.
But LSU, where he coached with great success and voluminous major NCAA recruiting violations from 2017-22, is where it’s at for him.
“This was not an easy decision because of how much respect and appreciation I have for this program and this university,” Wade said of spurned NC State in a prepared statement Thursday afternoon. “But the opportunity to return to Louisiana State is deeply personal. It’s a chance to go home – to a place that means a great deal to me and my family.”
— Will Wade (@CoachWadeNCSU) March 26, 2026
And LSU fans have long loved Wade back, going as far as making him a villainous hero during his suspension by LSU after his infamous “strong-ass offer” comment caught on tape by FBI wiretap and publicized by a Yahoo Sports bombshell story in 2019.
THE YAHOO SPORTS STORY BY PAT FORDE AND OTHERS THAT STARTED WILL WADE’S LSU DOWNFALL
Column: Will Wade and LSU. A strong-ass love story.https://t.co/PgrpNNBEE4
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) March 25, 2026
Like Raleigh, North Carolina, now with Wade, the town of Asheville, North Carolina, largely hated Wolfe, who earned a master’s degree from Harvard in 1922. Wolfe’s depiction of Asheville and its townspeople in his first novel, “Look, Homeward Angel” was anything but flattering as he went off to bigger and better things.
And the North Carolina State Nation may long hate Wade, who was an assistant at Harvard from 2007-09 and is dissing a higher level program that just went to the Final Four two years ago for a pedestrian LSU with no Final Four since 2006. NC State is a basketball school, while LSU for much of its history has not been. The Wolfpack does have two more national championships in men’s basketball (1974, 1983) than LSU and has won seven Atlantic Coast Conference titles amid the blue bloods next door at North Carolina and Duke.
Will Wade’s introductory press conference was about being a changed man, matured, how he and NC State would rise from the ashes together to relevance.
— WolfpackNation (@NCSUFans) March 26, 2026
It is the single greatest betrayal in modern college athletics history, worse than Roy at Kansas and Lane at Ole Miss.
Wade went 20-14 overall and 10-8 in the Atlantic Coast Conference for seventh place in the 2025-26 season and lost in the First Four preliminary round of the NCAA Tournament. He will replace LSU coach Matt McMahon, who had three losing seasons out of four after replacing McMahon.
McMahon did not return communication requests for comment on Thursday. Neither has LSU athletic director Verge Ausberry or anyone at LSU.
NC State fans will hate this man for years to come https://t.co/AH8FqVvSmr
— Grant Grubbs (@grant_grubbs_) March 26, 2026
Wade won LSU’s first Southeastern Conference championship in a decade in his second season with the Tigers in 2018-19 before being suspended by LSU for not cooperating with the NCAA’s and LSU’s investigation of his alleged recruiting violations. Wade’s 2020-21 and 2021-22 LSU teams also reached the NCAA Tournament, but he didn’t get to coach the 2021-22 team in the postseason because he was fired just before the postseason when the NCAA’s letter of allegations came out.
McNeese State hired him a year later, and he took the Cowboys to two NCAA Tournaments before taking the North Carolina State job last year.
“From day one, everything that was promised to me and my staff was delivered – and then some,” Wade said of his brief time at NC State. “From the operational support, to the quality of the people in the building, to the resources and facilities – we were given every tool needed to compete at the highest level. That kind of commitment is rare, and it speaks volumes about the leadership and vision here at NC State.”
Yet, he did not have the same commitment to North Carolina State – perhaps ever. There was talk of Wade possibly returning to LSU as early as last summer and throughout the 2025-26 season. And the wheels to get Wade back to LSU have been greased and turning for nearly a year.
“See you this spring,” Wade was telling friends and supporters from LSU during the past season at NC State, an LSU basketball source told Tiger Rag two weeks ago.
LSU or NC State for Will Wade after he loses to Texas’ Sean Miller in FBI/NCAA Corruption Bowl:https://t.co/Z4WMNBCZpv
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) March 18, 2026
The athletic director at McNeese State who hired Wade there – Heath Schroyer – was just hired as a deputy athletic director at LSU on Thursday, though LSU has not confirmed that. McNeese State did.
And the president at McNeese State in Wade’s last year there – Wade Rousse – was hired as LSU’s president last November.
And an LSU Board of Supervisors member from Lake Charles, Lee Mallett, who tried to hire Wade to LSU last year along with Governor Jeff Landry, just became the chairman of the LSU Board of Supervisors last month … with an appointment by Landry.
Welcome back to Louisiana, Will. Seems you may fit in nicely.
“I’ll always be grateful for my time here,” Wade continued in his statement about NC State. “The relationships we built, and the foundation we helped strengthen. NC State is positioned for continued success, and I’ll be cheering for them moving forward.”
Will Wade – duplicitous to the end.
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