RALEIGH, N.C. — Ruffin McNeill steels himself before walking through the door to see his father. He has no idea whether it’s a good day or a bad day for “Pops,” but he will know soon enough.
McNeill enters the nursing care facility in Lumberton, North Carolina, about an hour and a half south of NC State, where he works as a special assistant to football coach Dave Doeren. He takes a left, passing a plaque that reads:
In dedication to Ruffin Sr. and Bonnie McNeill by Ruffin Jr. and Erlene McNeill.
When McNeill and his wife, Erlene, made the donation to build this specific wing nearly a decade ago, they had no idea one day Ruffin Sr. would live there.
McNeill continues toward his dad’s room. He knows just about everybody he sees along the way. It is hard not to know the McNeill’s because they are a large part of the fabric of this town, and Ruffin McNeill Jr. is one of its biggest success stories.
He was the first Black athlete from Lumberton High School to get a Division I scholarship to play football, starring at East Carolina in the late 1970s. He then returned to coach at his high school before embarking on his 37-year collegiate coaching career — including a return to his alma mater as the first Black head football coach in East Carolina history.
Finally, he gets to his dad’s room and walks in. “Hi, Pops!”
Ruffin Sr. looks up. His eyes brighten with recognition.
“Tuffie!” Ruffin Sr. says, using the nickname for his son.
Today is a good day.
They are not always good days. Ruffin McNeill Sr., 88, has dementia and has lived in this nursing care facility since 2016. His health has slowly deteriorated since then. In January 2020, his son made the decision to leave his job as Oklahoma assistant head coach under Lincoln Riley to return home to North Carolina and help his younger brother, Reginald, care for their father.
“I knew for him to be thinking about stepping away, that it was the right thing, and that he was going to be at peace,” Riley, now entering his first season at USC, said.
That is why McNeill is here in North Carolina with his Pops, and will be here again next week and the week after that. But life is funny sometimes, too. Because in making the decision to return home and subsequently take a job at NC State, he must prepare for a homecoming that was never in his plans.
The No. 13 Wolfpack open their season at East Carolina (Noon ET Saturday, ESPN/ESPN App) — the school that made his dreams come true, and crushed them, too.
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