Cozell McQueen stood on the rim in Albuquerque, arms raised with a red-and-white “Pack Power” sign, after NC State won the 1983 national championship. McQueen, the Wolfpack center whose rebounding and defense steadied that famous run, died in 2026 at 64, according to the News & Observer.

The photograph captured the height of the celebration, but McQueen's path to that rim ran through the less glamorous work beneath it. Raised in Bennettsville, South Carolina, the 6-foot-11 center supplied size, positioning, and second chances for Jim Valvano's team. In the 1982-83 season, he gathered 200 rebounds and blocked 32 shots across 36 games, according to NC State Athletics. His 125 points mattered, but his value most often appeared when a shot missed or an opponent tried to reach the basket.

That work rescued NC State before the run had become legend. In the NCAA tournament opener against Pepperdine, the Wolfpack trailed late in overtime when Dereck Whittenburg missed a free throw. McQueen secured the rebound and, off balance, put in an eight-foot shot that forced a second overtime. NC State won 69-67. The basket gave the team another game, and the team kept converting those chances into a championship path.

McQueen's largest statistical performance came on the sport's largest stage to that point. In the national semifinal against Georgia, he produced 13 rebounds, eight points, and four blocked shots in a 67-60 victory. A contemporary Washington Post account described how his interior play prevented Georgia from concentrating its defense on Thurl Bailey and Lorenzo Charles. The numbers turned a supporting assignment into a decisive advantage.

Two nights later, against Houston, McQueen worked in the middle against Hakeem Olajuwon and helped limit the Cougars in a 54-52 title game. With the score tied and 1:05 remaining, Houston missed the front end of a one-and-one. McQueen reached for the long rebound near the baseline and kept it in play, preserving the possession that preceded the final sequence. Whittenburg's last shot fell short, Charles converted it at the rim, and NC State became the national champion. McQueen then climbed above the basket with Ernie Myers, turning the center who had done his work in traffic into one of the clearest images of the celebration.

His four college seasons added up to 800 rebounds and 121 blocked shots in 134 games. The NBA recorded him as the 91st selection in the fourth round of the 1985 draft and as a Detroit Pistons player with one season of league experience. His professional career continued overseas. In 1992, FIBA recorded him with CAI Zaragoza in the European Cup Radivoj Korac, where he averaged 9.9 rebounds over nine games. The same skill that defined his college role carried across leagues and countries.

The championship team continued to gather around the story it had made. McQueen joined his teammates for their long-delayed White House visit with President Barack Obama in 2016. Three years later, the entire 1983 squad entered the NC State Athletic Hall of Fame, recognition that treated the title not as one famous dunk but as the work of a complete team. McQueen's rebound and put-back against Pepperdine held its own place in that collective achievement.

McQueen's place in Wolfpack history lives in a sequence of possessions: the eight-foot equalizer in Oregon, 13 rebounds against Georgia, the baseline save against Houston, and finally No. 45 rising above the rim with “Pack Power” in his hands. Those moments still show what his game supplied to the Cardiac Pack: another rebound, another chance, and the sturdy interior presence that helped an improbable run reach the top of the basket.