— When it comes to proving whether or not NC State Stuff is real, you have to start in the most ridiculous place.

That’s how I ended up at Oakwood Cemetery.

In August 2015, it was announced that there were some unmarked graves in front of Gate 6 at Carter-Finley Stadium that would need to be relocated to Oakwood. The jokes immediately started flying about NC State’s football and basketball arenas essentially being built on top of a burial ground of some sort, maybe a cursed one. Perhaps there were some restless spirits tired of being trod upon.

Robin Simonton, executive director at Oakwood Cemetery, treated those “move-ins” from NC State just as kindly as she has treated all the others. She does a ritual of sorts in her head to welcome them to Oakwood when they arrive, she said, and she promises them that this will be their final resting place.

There’s still a lot unknown about the bodies found at Gate 6. NC State has known about the existence of that cemetery for at least a century, and it had not been marked off as a cemetery to avoid potential grave-robbing, according to Simonton. Another point scored for NC State in terms of respecting the dead. NC State didn’t want to move the graves unless they had to. But, as Simonton said, “progress happens”.

Once it was decided that the bodies would be relocated, Simonton said, an archeological inspection was done. Glass was found among the remains, which seemed to indicate a style of burial that could pre-date the Civil War.

That’s all we know. Relocations like this are pretty common, and it’s not like curses linger over whatever shopping center or subdivision that prompts a grave or cemetery relocation. Considering the care NC State took, not to mention their new location being quite an upgrade, these deceased spirits should be sending good vibes NC State’s way if nothing else.

“When someone’s buried, they think it means forever," Simonton said. "Even in the 1800s, they thought it meant forever. They never thought that they would be disinterred.

“When you’re dealing with these old cemeteries that maybe everyone kind of joined in and maintained for a generation, once five generations pass, no one knows anything about these little rural cemeteries," Simonton continued. "They get lost to history. The fact that State did the right thing and knew that that belonged, that that was a cemetery, it looks like they had known for a long time that that was a cemetery, they did the respectful thing by keeping it stable in there and then when they needed to move it for more access. They did the right thing by moving them.”

Visiting Valvano in March

Simonton does, though, have one anecdote to add related to NC State that has nothing to do with any of those relocated bodies.

“During March Madness, you do see a lot of visitors coming to Jimmy V - Jim Valvano’s grave," Simonton said. "Especially two years ago, but every year really in March Madness, making sure that he will reverse the curse and help NC State win the national championship.”

Former NC State head coach Jim Valvano is buried at Oakwood. If there are believers in any sort of a curse, it’s usually related to Valvano himself.

An email from a podcast listener just last week said of Valvano: “If you look close enough you can see his specter atop one of NC State's goals swatting away shots in some kind of sick way of punishing the administration.”

So it’s a thing ... at least, among some.

“They’ll come in with their sweatbands and their headbands and their NC State clothing, and you can’t help but say, ‘Oh, what are you visiting for?’" Simonton said. "A lot of times, people will say they’re here to reverse the curse. It’s not a hidden secret - it’s just people coming here to get some good vibes from him. (They) just ask him to do whatever needs to be done to help NC State basketball.”

How Do You Validate a Curse?

Most NC State fans will and do acknowledge that there’s no actual “curse” in the voodoo sense of the word. That’s not a real part of NC State Stuff.

But why would thinking there’s a curse on any level beyond mere humor make NC State fans crazier than a fan of another team who has, say, a favorite t-shirt they wear on game day? A curse would actually make MORE sense than thinking you can impact the outcome of a game by wearing a certain article of clothing.

Former NC State basketball sports information director Josh Rattray counts himself among the semi-believers in NC State Stuff - 'there’s something to it,' he’ll say, but how much is explainable and how much isn’t is debatable.

The example that stood out the most to Rattray while he was at NC State was a loss to Virginia on Feb. 11, 2015. Virginia was No. 2 in the country. NC State would go on to make the NCAA Tournament. But not before suffering a brutal loss at home to the Cavaliers.

“We lost to Virginia on the worst call I’ve ever seen at any sport, any level, any time," Rattray recalled. "Caleb Martin gets a bucket and he’s running back and he bumped - I think it was Mike Tobey, I can’t remember. But he kind of lowered his shoulder, kind of moved his shoulder to get out of the way and avoid - like when you’re walking down a narrow path, you kind of turn your shoulder to try to get away from someone, and they called a (flagrant) foul.”

“We ended up losing the game by like four at the end and it was at a very key time," Rattray continued. "We were in the locker room and it’s like ‘Maybe there is something to this. Maybe there is something to this stuff.’ It’s hard to go full-in believer, but I do think there is something to it.”

But if there is something to it, the opposite of it has to exist in the universe somewhere. Rattray thinks that it’s possible NC State is paying back some sort of Karmic debt to the universe based on its magical run to the title in 1983.

He knows, because before he got to NC State, he was a part of Butler’s magical runs in 2010 and 2011.

“I think back to my years at Butler when we - I - felt like we used all of our mojo to get to those final games. Like, every bit of juice we had,” Rattray said. “In the first year, we were playing Murray State and they should have beat us and they didn’t. Then the next game, we’re playing Syracuse. They’re the 1-seed. Our worst shooter makes like an NBA-range three at a key spot. (Against Michigan State), we fouled Draymond Green in the semifinals - fouled him, no call, we win the game.

“That stuff shouldn’t happen.”

Then, Butler reached the national title game in 2010, losing to Duke as a last-second shot just barely missed at the buzzer and then in 2011 to UConn in one of the ugliest games in college basketball history.

It was almost as if Cinderella lost her glass slipper, or the clock struck midnight, or whatever comparison you want to use. It ran out.

“I also think that there's a certain level of mojo and I think that NC State took out a large mortgage of mojo in 1983." Rattray said. "I believe in that kind of stuff. Maybe not so much in NC State stuff - I more so believe in the mojo. It’s like a battery, like a cellphone battery where it’s like, we used up all our battery in 1983.

“I feel like you use your mojo up. I believe in weird stuff like that," he continued. "But whenever something strange happens, when you’re that close to it, whenever something strange would happen I’d think about Pepperdine missing those foul shots in 1983. It’s not just the Lorenzo Charles dunk - it’s 100 things that happened before that, too.”

Could NC State Stuff be an Inside Job?

Now, you would certainly think that NC State would have found a way to pay back its debt to the universe in the last, say, 34 years. Especially considering the punishments that crippled the program back in the 1990s. It’s not like they didn’t potentially pay back the universe and then some.

So, it can’t be that.

No curse, and no mojo mortgage, then.

As I’m finalizing the third podcast episode last week, all of a sudden I get an email.

“Interesting article/series on NC State Stuff,” it reads, “but you don’t know the ultimate. The shocking, too incredible to be true story, yet 100 percent accurate, of exactly how NC State Basketball was, as a program, destroyed by NC State Stuff.

"Because, you see, I am the one who destroyed it.”

That’s a record-scratch moment right there.

The email went on to say that his name could be found in the back of the media guide as an NC State letterman, but the story of how he destroyed NC State basketball had not yet been told.

The sender’s name was Tor Ramsey.

A quick Google search tells you that Ramsey was a former manager under Valvano. He’s only listed officially as a manager in 1988, but he says he served as one from 1986-89.

Ramsey has gone on to become a writer/director/filmmaker, including partnering with former NC State point guard Chris Corchiani to make the 2012 documentary “Running with the Pack”, using all kinds of archival footage.

“I lived in Southern California for a number of years, and there were these forest fires there that destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres," Ramsey said, when I got in contact with him. "When they looked at what started it, what started it was somebody inadvertently throwing a cigarette butt. So with NC State, I’m the guy who threw the cigarette butt, although I did it accidentally.”

Ramsey grew up an NC State fan, and once he finally got into NC State, he immediately went to the basketball office to see if he’d be allowed to help in any way. They brought him on as a student manager. And he was the hardest-working student manager you’d ever see, he said. First one there, last one to leave. He even dove after loose balls.

That sort of dedication endeared him to Valvano and the coaching staff, who wanted to make him one of the traveling managers the following year, in 1986-87. But there was a problem. He had kept at his managerial duties so hard, in fact, that his grades had suffered. A lot.

He flunked out of school. But in summer school, he had a chance to redeem himself.

“This is where we get into NC State Stuff. I had to make a 76 on an algebra exam to pass that course, because I’d already failed it once in the regular school year," Ramsey said. "I’m terrible at math. All I had to do is make a 76. I made a 75. I flunked the course.”

“I didn’t know enough back then to go beg the teacher to curve it, so I flunked the course," he added. "That gave me a 1.23 GPA going into that year. To get back into school, you have to have a 1.25.”

Okay, so what does a student manager failing out of school have to do with anything?

That summer, as Ramsey was trying to fix his academic issues, Valvano’s basketball camp was going on and the campers were staying at Bowen Hall. There was an RA in that dorm that was organized and on top of things, and the NC State coaches liked him.

Ramsey didn’t tell the coaches that he had flunked out, but they figured it out on their own. They needed a last minute fill-in, and that RA from Bowen came to mind. He really wanted to be a part of things, and he seemed like he knew his stuff.

“That guy’s name,” Ramsey said, “was John Simonds.”

Simonds, as it turned out, was the impetus behind the downfall of Valvano. He would become a disgruntled former manager, and he shopped around his story to anyone who would listen to him. Eventually, Peter Golenbock penned “Personal Fouls”, and the rest - the subsequent sanctions, Valvano’s firing and everything else - was history.

Simonds would not only take Ramsey’s spot as a manager, but he also took his room at the College Inn, where he roomed with Walker Lambiotte. It was Simonds’ involvement with Lambiotte’s eventual transfer that was what got him dismissed as a manager, per Ramsey.

“And so the reason that I say in my email that I destroyed NC State basketball - and the athletic program to a certain degree - is that you have to work backwards. If John Simonds does not come on board as a manger for that team, Personal Fouls doesn’t get published,” Ramsey said. “It was not initiated by Peter Golenbock, Personal Fouls wasn’t. If you look at all the difficulties and all the issues with NC State and everything that’s happened since 1990, it all goes back to the publication of that book. That book doesn’t get published if John Simonds doesn’t become a manager for the NC State basketball team and he became a manager for the NC State basketball team because I flunked out of school.

“As I said before, it was like throwing a cigarette butt into a pine forest," Ramsey continued. "The cigarette butt didn’t burn down all those trees, but the cigarette butt started it. I didn’t mean to throw a cigarette butt, but I did. So that’s how it all went down.”

A pretty compelling case, of course. And Ramsey has confirmed multiple times over the years that Simonds would have never been brought on at all were it not for his failing out of school.

Ramsey is a believer. He rattled off numerous examples, as old as the 1956 team losing in four overtimes to Canisius to Hillary Clinton’s final campaign stop in 2016 being at Reynolds Coliseum.

He’s a spiritual person, but all of what happens to NC State is, in a sense, explainable. And yet he kept coming back to this.

“It’s not cosmic but it’s this consciousness. It’s the Charlie Brown mentality that no matter how many times you try to kick that football, Lucy’s going to pull it out. No matter what you say to her, Lucy’s going to pull the football out somehow. And NC State is the Charlie Brown,” Ramsey said. “We’re not the red-headed stepchild, as (CBSSports.com’s) Gary Parrish called us. We’re the Charlie Brown. It’s just like somehow or other, we’re just never going to get that date with the redheaded girl. It’s because we think - it’s just been ingrained in our consciousness for so long. I don’t know how you reverse it, because it’s a pretty big ship to turn.”

And that’s where you start to get into the teeth of it.

Always the Groomsman, Never the Groom

So there’s some notion of NC State “Stuff”. Some of it is even explainable. Every team has seen breaks go against it from time to time. Wrong coach, other good teams, etc. Rational explanations for all of it.

But other ACC programs have been able to do what NC State couldn’t.

The ACC expanded in 2004 and 2005 to add three teams - Boston College, Virginia Tech and Miami. It expanded again to add Notre Dame, Syracuse and Pittsburgh in 2013, and then to add Louisville in 2014.

Of the current ACC members - 15 - only five have failed to win an ACC football or basketball title since 1987. Four of those are expansion members - Boston College, Louisville, Pittsburgh and Syracuse. And all four of those have at least one Big East title since 1987.

NC State is the odd man out.

NC State has been the runner-up in basketball four times, and has yet to play in the ACC title game in football, which has been in existence since 2005. They’ve been close - but close doesn’t count, and they’ll tell you that.

Is NC State the worst program in the ACC in both football and basketball by virtue of being the only one without a league title since 1987? Obviously not. But the lack of moments like that, even if they are fleeting, is something that continues to magnify the very notion of NC State Stuff.

“I think it’s not one key thing that is unique, but the unique element maybe of it is not so much individual events - it’s the lack of success or titles that gives it the gravity,” former Riddick and Reynolds podcaster James Curle said.

Curle says he’s not a believer, but he often sounds like he’s trying to talk himself out of it more often than not. Frustration perverts his rational mind.

“I think that’s the element is that sense that it’s unique because there’s some sort of mystical force. I don’t think there is an actual mystical force, but it’s the moments when it feels that way,” Curle said.

“You can logically know that that’s not the case, that other schools experience the same thing, but in the moment when you’re on the precipice of breaking through or achieving something that you haven’t achieved in a long time and then it falls apart like it does, that’s when it hits the hardest," he said. "That's when I have the most doubts, I guess, that maybe there is something to this.”

And even nationally, NC State is a bit of rarity among the so-called Power 5.

Minnesota hasn’t won a Big 10 title since 1967, and did win the “regular season” in 1997 in basketball but had to vacate it due to academic fraud. So their drought is a little longer - 1982 was their last title.

South Carolina is the only other team that doesn’t have a championship in either, although they did win the SEC regular season in 2009 in basketball and have at least played for a league title in football, which obviously NC State has yet to do.

That’s it. That’s the list. Is it, the Stuff - if it’s a lack of titles, anyway - unique to NC State? No. But it’s close.

So when you couple that lack of success relatively speaking with those weird moments that happen to prevent said success, it starts to feel like...something.

BackingthePack.com’s editor Steven Muma is a math guy by nature. He’s logic-based. He doesn’t believe in it. He can’t.

But when Kyle Bambard was getting ready to kick a 35-yard field goal that would have won the game for NC State earlier this year, he had one thing going through his mind: “Sheer terror.”

“Preparing for the worst, hoping for the best but not being at all surprised when something goes wrong," Muma said. "I think that’s a lot of it. We can’t help but feel a little bit optimistic as fans in certain situations like that, but at the same time, there’s all this history of mishaps that feels like it’s somehow impacting what’s going to happen on the field.”

We’ve indulged the true believers in NC State Stuff. As an admitted skeptic, even I thought some good points were raised. But there’s a case against NC State Stuff, too.

A big one.