Monday, January 1

Orange Bowl banner on a bridge

GOOD KARMA

Jason, at the concierge’s desk, has an interesting Wake Forest connection: he’s friends with a guy in a band who plays at Ziggy’s, just down the street from Groves Stadium, and he’s been to Winston-Salem numerous times, but never to campus. He also offered this tidbit: the Westin has hosted Orange Bowl teams the last four or five years, and the team that’s stayed here has always won. The Westin will serve as the media hotel for this year’s Super Bowl, to be played in Dolphin Stadium.

Posted by Kerry at 8:44 p.m.


Will Wingfield ('03) and his dad, Terry

26 YEARS OF REGRET

While at the Hard Rock I met up with Will Wingfield (’03) and his dad, Terry. When Wake Forest played Maryland, Will and his dad were in the stands. At that game, Terry told Will if Wake Forest won the ACC Championship they were buying tickets and going to the Orange Bowl. Terry, a graduate of the University of Georgia, still regrets the decision he made 26 years ago not to attend the Sugar Bowl in January of 1981. He did not want Will to have the same regret. So here they are, ready to cheer the Deacs on the victory tomorrow night.

Posted by Matt at 8:33 p.m.


Seminole Hard Rock sign

ADDING TO THE COLLECTION

Tonight I headed over to the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino to meet some friends who arrived this afternoon. It ends up that this place is a relatively popular destination for Wake Forest students and alumni. It is also a popular destination for Louisville fans. This is the largest concentration of Louisville fans I have seen since I arrived in town.

One friend, Trey Davis (DIV ’05), whose sister Chrissy (’03) was in my class at Wake Forest, is here to purchase a Hard Rock souvenir pin. Over the years, Trey has amassed a collection of roughly 500 souvenir pins from 50 countries on 5 continents. He has collected about 50 different Hard Rock pins.

Posted by Matt at 7:56 p.m.


Palm trees in the lobby of the Westin Diplomat

DEACON NATION

The lobby of the Westin is packed with Deacon fans, many meeting, I’m assuming, to go to dinner. The change between tonight and last Wednesday night, my first night here, is amazing. I thought there were a lot of fans here late last week, but they have really poured in yesterday and today. It was more of a Deacon community last week; it’s a Deacon nation now. It’s hard to get on an elevator without seeing a familiar face: President Hatch, Ron Wellman, Holly Grobe, Coach Billings. And I’ve been here so long that I’m seeing the same people over and over—people I had never met before—and feel like they’re old friends. My new neighbors across the hall have a sign on their door: “WF fans Betty and Barney say reduce the Cardinals to rubble.”

Posted by Kerry at 7:53 p.m.


Players put food on their plates

CHOW TIME

We get off the bus from the visit to Dolphin Stadium, and I see the players running up the escalator into the hotel. So I follow them, and find a huge buffet dinner waiting for the team in one of the convention center rooms. No, I didn’t try to swipe any food—I want every player fueled up for tomorrow’s game. But it was fun to watch a hundred football players load up their plates with pasta, chicken, mashed potatoes, fresh rolls, and cookies.

Posted by Ken at 5:35 p.m.


Jim Grobe addresses the team.

DOLPHIN STADIUM

Dolphin Stadium is big, and it’s very, very orange. The players put on black jerseys for a team photo, and then walk out through the tunnel and onto the field during a short visit Monday afternoon. Alex Gort, Sr., the Orange Bowl photographer, is first up the ladder as he makes the official team photo of the Demon Deacons. Athletics freelancer Brian Westerholt is next, then it’s my turn. Then the official part of the visit is over, and the players are free to wander around on the grass, taking pictures of each other and the stadium while they laugh and joke. After twenty or so minutes, Coach Grobe calls everyone together for a short talk, then releases the players back to the bus, and the visit is over.

Posted by Ken at 4:11 p.m.


Quarterback Riley Skinner signs autographs

HERE’S RILEY!

Riley Skinner is mobbed as he walks through the lobby on his way to the team bus. He’s surrounded on all sides. He poses for photos, and patiently signs hats, programs and shirts, until he has to move on. The team is scheduled for a walk-through at Dolphin Stadium at 4 p.m.

Posted by Kerry at 3:09 p.m.


Fullback Rich Belton signs autographs

HOW SWEET IT IS!

Starting fullback Richard Belton shouts out hello to Ken and then walks over to talk with me. Belton played on a losing team in high school in Chapel Hill and didn’t get scholarship offers from any schools except Wake Forest, so this season has been especially sweet to him. What are his buddies back in Chapel Hill saying now? “As the season was going on, they said we were just getting lucky. Now they know we’re a really good program.” Belton has a couple of family member coming to the game, and said he appreciates all the support from fans. He’s enjoyed the week at the Westin hotel, “but we’ve been here a couple of days, and I’m anxious to play now.”

Posted by Kerry at 2:51 p.m.


The Millers

HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED

“We’ve been reading your blog all week and couldn’t wait to get down here,” Joby Miller says as she and her husband, Bill (’79) and their daughters, Katie, a Wake Forest freshman, and Emily, a high-school junior, walk by our computers in the lobby of the Westin. We wave them over and have a good chat. The Millers drove down from their home in Athens, Georgia, yesterday. They took in the Philadanco Dance Performance on Broadwalk after reading about it on the blog because Katie is a member of the Wake Forest dance company. Bill Miller, a professor of oceanography at Georgia, just barely missed out on another chapter in Deacon history, the 1979 Tangerine Bowl year; he had just graduated that previous spring. “How times have changed,” he says. “We won ten games in my four years. I told Katie she’s already seen more wins in one season than I saw in four.” Katie Miller has a lot of friends attending the University of Georgia and says they gave her a lot of grief for going to Wake Forest. “I think they’re jealous now,” she says.

Posted by Kerry at 2:36 p.m.


Julian Burroughs and his wife

BIG EVENT

Retired communication professor Julian Burroughs (’51) is stopped in the lobby of the Westin for an interview by a reporter for 88.5 WFDD. “I told him how big this was,” he says. “Outside the move to Winston-Salem, this is the biggest thing to happen at Wake Forest (in modern times), certainly in terms of our sports history and in bringing people together.” Burroughs and his wife, Jean, came over to the Westin this afternoon to see what was going on. They will be attending the game with their daughters, Lee Broadway (’83), her husband, Scott (’83), and their two sons; and Catherine Burroughs (’80) and her husband, Rick Bogel and their son.

Posted by Kerry at 2:15 p.m.


Sue Bray '83 (in yellow shirt) and Kim Powell '83 sell Demon Deacon bumper stickers

PROUD TO BE A DEACON

An old friend from college, Sue Bray (’83), drops by to see me with friends Kim Dennis Powell (’83) and Beth Jones Carpenter (’83) and assorted Powell and Carpenter children in tow. She’s also hawking some “Proud to be a Deacon” bumper stickers that she had printed, similar to those that were so popular in the early 1980s. The stickers are one for $3 or two for $5; that’s how she’s paying for her trip, Bray quips. Ted Best (’84) immediately takes two, goes out to the pool to get some money, and comes back in and buys two more. “I told someone in the bookstore awhile back they should bring these back,” he says.

Posted by Kerry at 2:09 p.m.


Deborah Williams

THE HAT IS BACK

Deborah Williams, mother of former basketball player Eric Williams (’06), is pulling out her signature hat and foam Number 1 finger, that became so familiar to Deacon fans during Eric’s four years, for tomorrow’s big game. She wanted it known that Eric “is paying for his mother to be here.” Eric can’t come to the game because he’s playing basketball in Cantu, Italy, and his mother had some other breaking news to report – he got engaged Christmas day to Serlethea Smith, sister of current Deacon basketball player Ish Smith. “Keeping it in the family,” she laughs. As she leaves she thanks me for talking with her: “no one wants to interview me anymore now that Eric’s gone.”

Posted by Kerry at 1:19 p.m.


Muggsy Bogues and Laura Crawford

CHECKING OUT THE BEACH

After posing for photographs with Muggsy Bogues, junior Laura Crawford and her parents, Beth and George Crawford check out the Westin’s impressive pools and the beautiful beach. Crawford says she knew Bogues had gone to Wake Forest, but she mostly knows about him from his long career with the Charlotte Hornets. Crawford and her parents drove down from Lancaster, S.C., on Saturday. She couldn’t go to the ACC Championship in Jacksonville because of exams the next week, but she was coming to Miami “no mater what.” “And we weren’t going to let her come to Miami by herself,” her mom says laughing.

Posted by Kerry at 1:02 p.m.


AMAZING SEASON, AMAZING PLAYER

Famous basketball player Muggsy Bogues (’87) walks by holding a cigar, a “victory cigar for tomorrow night,” he says. Bogues, who lives in Charlotte, came down with his daughter, Brittany, a sophomore at Wake Forest. “This is a special time for the Wake Forest family,” he says. “I had to come down and show my support. Every alumnus who had an opportunity to come down should be here.” Bogues poses for photos with numerous fans, including some, like junior Laura Crawford, who wasn’t even born when he was wearing the black and gold.

Posted by Kerry at 12:57 p.m.


GOOD TO SEE YOU!

President Emeritus Thomas K. Hearn Jr. and his son Will walk by. His wife, Laura, had to stay back home in Winston-Salem; her daughter, Forrest Stephens Staton (’06), just had a baby, Dr. Hearn’s ninth grandchild. Dr. Hearn said it has been a story-book season. “For a small school to be involved in the Orange Bowl, it’s wonderful,” he said. Will Hearn, who lives in Atlanta, came down with his father yesterday. “It means a lot to me to hang out with my dad,” he said.

Posted by Kerry at 12:46 p.m.


Car with Wake Forest writing on its windows

SERIOUS FANS

I’ve seen more and more cars with North Carolina license plates and Wake Forest decals around town, but the Toyota SUV was the best so far. It was parked in the garage at the team hotel Monday morning.

Posted by Ken at 12:40 p.m.


Cars wait for the bridge

WAITING FOR THE BRIDGE

The team hotel is across the Intracoastal Waterway from the mainland, and every bridge seems to be a drawbridge. We waited once again coming back from lunch today for a sailboat to pass. It’s not really a problem, since we can turn off the car, open the windows, and get a nice ocean breeze while we wait.

Posted by Ken at 12:25 p.m.


A view of the beach and ocean

BEACH GIRLS

Senior Lolly Hemphill and recent graduate Annie Young (’06) are on their way to the beach. They arrived at the Westin yesterday with Annie’s dad, Jeff Young (’72). “It’s the biggest event in Wake Forest history,” Hemphill said. Both went to the Wake Forest New Year’s Eve party at Café Iguana Pines last night and said it was wonderful, with lots of people, televisions showing replays of Wake Forest games this year, and a huge balloon drop at midnight. They’re planning on staying at the beach this afternoon and going to the game early tomorrow to tailgate.

Posted by Kerry at 12:10 p.m.


Defensive lineman Mike Carter signs an autograph for Samuel Hartman, 10

LIVING LIKE ROYALTY

In addition to my duties in the Public Affairs Office, I’m also a freshman advisor and I have two football players in my freshman group this year: Teddy Tomlin, a defensive lineman from Lake City, Florida, and Michael Carter, a defensive lineman from Memphis, Tennessee; both are being red-shirted this year. I saw Ted at practice earlier in the week, but hadn’t seen him since, and I hadn’t seen Mike at all. But today I see both of them.

Ted’s a good-natured guy so when I saw him this morning I said, “Ted, I need to talk to you, we’ve got a problem.” After he assured me that he hadn’t done anything wrong, and I assured him that I was only messing with him and he wasn’t being sent back to Winston-Salem, he talked about what it’s meant to be a part of the team this year. “I feel fortunate to have come in just at the right time in Wake Forest history.”

With Ted is Lucas Caparelli, a red-shirt freshman running back from Fairfax, Virginia. He says it’s been a “heck of a week; since we’ve been here, we want to come back next year.” Both players said they had been treated like celebrities this week. Kids have been asking for their autograph, “even when I tell them I’m not playing,” Tomlin says. Caparelli says he had especially enjoyed the beach party earlier in the week, when security guards blocked off a section of the beach just for the team. “That’s NFL-type stuff,” Tomlin says. “You couldn’t be treated any better.”

Later, as I’m blogging in the lobby, I look up and see Mike Carter right across from me, surfing the Web on his computer. I say hello, but we’re soon interrupted by a kid wanting his autograph.

Posted by Kerry at 11:50 a.m.


Players on the way to the pool

WILD AND CRAZY!

Ken and I went to Coach Grobe’s press conference at the media hotel this morning, and when we return to the Westin, it’s absolutely wild, packed with Wake Forest fans. A number of them aren’t staying at the Westin, they just dropped by to see what was going on. The team didn’t practice this morning, so there are a lot of players milling about. One thing I’ve learned this week: the players are exceptionally polite, stopping to talk with anyone who asks, signing autographs, or posing for photographs.

Posted by Kerry at 10:49 a.m.


TV cameras

PRESS CONFERENCE

Coach Grobe met a lot more media this morning at the press hotel in Fort Lauderdale, and he patiently answered most of the same questions again, this time from different reporters. There were two or three times as many newspaper and television cameramen and women, too, all shooting pretty much the same thing.

Posted by Ken at 10:42 a.m.


Jim Grobe at the microphone

MEET THE PRESS, PART 2

Jim Grobe showed up 10 minutes early for his final Orange Bowl press conference, sending reporters scurrying to their seats. There were probably twice as many reporters present as there was for his first press conference last Thursday. Grobe seemed much more serious, too, wearing a nice suit instead of the wind suit and T-shirt he wore last week. And there were no photo ops with Obie the Orange. It’s crunch time now.

“Five days ago we were all laughing and giggling and enjoying the experience, but I think the players and the coaches are starting to sense that it’s time to play football. I think our guys have had a good time. I think our coaches and our families have had a nice time. But I know from a coaching standpoint, and I sense the same thing from the players, the guys are looking forward to playing a football game.”

Grobe talked again, as he often does, about finding the right player for Wake Forest. “Our goal is to find the right kid for Wake Forest. I think if you bring in the wrong kid, he’s miserable because if you don’t have a commitment to get a good education, Wake Forest is, quite frankly, not the right place for you. It’s a hard job for us to go find not only a kid that’s got good character and can do the work academically, but then you’ve got to find a kid that can win in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which is not easy. I have to give credit to my staff. It took us a couple years to really figure out what that meant, but I think right now we’ve got a pretty good beat on it. So our goal is to find a kid that wants to get a great education but lays awake at night dreaming about winning football games.”

And he talked about what a special place Wake Forest is: “Moms and dads like the idea that their kids’ class size will be an average of 10 or 11 to 1. Being a private school the kids get a lot of individual attention from an academic standpoint. They don’t get lost. You may walk on our campus and you may just as well see our players walking with the students they’ve gotten to know in their classes as well as you might see them walking with other football players. It’s a special place. On one hand, the size may hurt us a little bit on Saturday afternoon, but the benefits far outweigh that in that your kid—everybody is going to know who you are and you’re going to have friends that go beyond the football team. You’re not going to be in that little clique. You’re going to really develop some lifetime friends from the student body. That doesn’t always happen a lot of places.”

Posted by Kerry at 10:20 a.m.


Boomer Peterson goes over in his kayak.

KAYAK UPDATE

I ran into guard Boomer Peterson and his parents, Robert and Sally, in the lobby last night. You may remember that I posted a photo of Boomer tipping over in his kayak Friday at the Beach Blitz event. I asked if he’d seen the photo, and Boomer rolled his eyes. He told me that he received about twenty emails telling him to be more careful in his kayak, and he had no idea what they were talking about until someone sent him the link to the photo.

Posted by Ken at 9:05 a.m.


The sun rises over the ocean

DAWN OF THE NEW YEAR

It is New Year’s Day and I have come to the beach to watch the sunrise. I look back at the hotel where only a few rooms are lit. There is no sign of the revelers from last night. The clouds on the horizon obstruct my view. I take a few pictures but they are less than spectacular. My attention has shifted to the seagulls flying overhead when I notice a bright red sliver of light breaking through the clouds. I will get to see the sunrise after all.

Posted by Matt at 6:53 a.m.


HAPPY NEW YEAR!

From my ninth-floor hotel room in the Westin, I’m enjoying the fireworks shooting up across the horizon. Other than a couple of tall buildings, it’s an unobstructed view to the west of a large part of the city. We could hear the countdown to the new year from the Diplomat Landing party across the street, and precisely at midnight we heard ships’ horns sound in unison.

Posted by Kerry at 12:11 a.m.


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Live from Miami, it’s Window on Wake Forest’s crack team of Deacon fans:

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Kerry King (’85)
Writer


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Ken Bennett
Photographer


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Matt Nelkin (’03)
Web Guru


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