All of Gary Higgins’ memories of growing up in Paisley, Scotland, involve soccer. His mother had to literally drag him from practices when he started playing. His left foot could deliver such a smash when he was 10 years old, he got the nickname “Hammer” Higgins. That power took him to a career of playing at the professional youth level for Scotland’s St. Mirren Football Club, the country’s U18 team and eventually Lenoir-Rhyne University in Hickory, N.C., before pursuing coaching.
NC State magazine caught up with him to learn a little about his home country and how he sets goals when taking over a program.
NC State and your hometown share a connection — textiles. The paisley pattern is from the mills in Paisley. A lot of people were employed back in the day through those mills.
Was it a culture shock coming from Scotland to Hickory, N.C.? It was. The first restaurant they took me to was Bojangles. They’re like, “What do you want?” And I was looking at the menu and was like, “A chicken biscuit.” A biscuit back home is a chocolate biscuit. I was like, “Chicken and chocolate — what’s going on there?”
What qualities define you as a winner? Hard work. There’s just no two ways around it. I’m very passionate about the game. The game’s given me a lot, so I just want to pay it forward to my players. I’m a little bit old school with this mentality, but I think you can do a lot with hard work and passion.
What excited you about the opportunity at NC State? I love the fact that [Wolfpack teams and fans] have got a bit of a chip on their shoulder still. I’m from Scotland, we definitely have a chip on our shoulder. There’s no sense of entitlement at NC State.
How do you go about building the program to emulate your vision? Building relationships straight away with players on the team and our support staff, and really getting to see what type of people we have on our team right now and how we can help them improve and develop. Passing on the work ethic and passion every single day. Having people around you that enjoy that aspect and get after it every single day has to be the foundation of what we do.
Photography courtesy of NC State Athletics
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