Coronavirus NC: N.C. State's Boo Corrigan deals with new reality of running athletic department remotely

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- It was just a few days ago that Kevin Keatts was bragging about his top-secret lasagna recipe. It turns out his boss has some culinary chops as well.

"I have not had Coach Keatts' lasagna to this point. I did make a Mexican lasagna the other night that was quite good" his boss, N.C. State's Director of Athletics, Boo Corrigan said.

Like most everyone else, Corrigan is cooped up at home running an entire athletics department by laptop. He said these are the times your integrity must show up.

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"A lot of this goes back to your core values," Corrigan said. "What do you believe in? We believe in trust, accountability, passion and empathy and those are things that we talk about on a regular basis and that's really from my standpoint how I'm looking at everything. I think the ability to feel for people and understand what they're going through."

Along those lines, he's been very purposeful about being on top of the mental well-being of his employees.

"We are in the people business," Corrigan said. "I mean, at the end of the day it's great to have facilities and buildings and all those things but you need people to fill it in. Our priority now and always will be the people, and that's 550-plus student-athletes and all the employees that we have."

One weird situation right now - how to handle tournament bonuses. Like say, does men's basketball coach Keatts get one? That's a tricky thing as it turns out.

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"A series of conversations with our coaches, understanding what happened, vs. how the contract reads vs, quite frankly what our financial reality is," Corrigan said.

Along those lines, any substantial facilities improvements will have to wait until the financial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic becomes realized. Safe to say Doak Field is pretty high up the list.

Those concerns will be dealt with in time. Right now, Corrigan has more pressing concerns. He did enjoy a bit of recent reminiscing when I asked him about the Wolfpack women's ACC Tournament championship.

"Being there with (head coach) Wes (Moore) and the women's basketball program at the Greensboro Coliseum and seeing that, and seeing people like, oh my lord, we finally did it, you know ... Go Pack! And just the pure emotion of that moment," Corrigan recalled.

More good times are surely ahead, but for now, Boo said to stay home.

"Take care of each other. If you do go out, thank the people that are out there working at the grocery store or the drugstore or the gas stations," Corrigan said. "I want to specifically thank all the healthcare workers and first responders who are performing so heroically right now."