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A New Look: Gold jerseys pan out for Deacons
Journal Photo by Lauren Carroll
WFU wore gold jerseys last Saturday for the first time since 1956.
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Published: November 10, 2008
On a golden day in the golden age of Wake Forest football, the Deacons wore gold.
The chief alchemist most responsible for turning Wake Forest football from lead to gold had next-to-nothing to do with the fashion statement that the Deacons made during Saturday's 28-17 victory against Virginia at BB&T Field.
Coach Jim Grobe said he didn't learn that the Deacons would wear gold jerseys for the first time since 1956 -- the year that the campus moved from Wake County to Winston-Salem -- until Saturday when he showed up for work.
"In fact Ron Wellman cornered me out there and said ‘What's the deal with the gold jerseys?' " Grobe said, referring to his boss, the Deacons' director of athletics. "I said ‘I'm not real sure. I'll have to ask the seniors.'"
One of the seniors, safety Chip Vaughn, explained.
"All of the seniors actually got with Coach Grobe this summer and said ‘We want to wear gold jerseys next year,'" Vaughn said. "He said ‘All right, that's cool.'
"It was really because we tried to copy all these other schools out there that have two, three, four different colors of jerseys. We said ‘How come we've only got a white one and a black one?'
"We'd actually planned on coming out for the Clemson game in gold jerseys, but they had it marketed as a Black Out. Next time we might wear gold on gold."
For the record, equipment manager Demetrius Gibson said that gold jerseys with gold pants is not on the list of options.
"That will not happen," Gibson said Saturday night.
Some schools struggle for a season, others for a decade. Wake Forest struggled for a century, winning 39 percent of its games (340-528) from 1900 through 1999.
That's why all the alumni who showed up for homecoming have to be so gratified by the new age that Grobe and his staff have ushered in since arriving in 2001.
Two years ago the Deacons stunned the college-football world by winning the ACC championship and playing in the Orange Bowl.
Last year they won nine games by beating Connecticut in the Meineke Car Care Bowl.
This season, for all that has gone wrong -- the pulled quadriceps that has sidelined star kicker Sam Swank for five games, the shaky early play by an injury-riddled offensive line, the need to dramatically retool the offense to incorporate the I-formation with the spread -- the Deacons barged their way right back into contention for an Atlantic Division title with Saturday's long-awaited victory against Virginia.
At 4-2, they're tied atop the division with Florida State, a team they beat way back on Sept. 20. Maryland is 3-2, with a victory against the Deacons in hand, but has a brutal stretch run against North Carolina, Florida State and Boston College remaining.
Grobe was informed that all that the Deacons had to do was beat N.C. State and Boston College, and have Florida State beat Maryland, and they're back in the ACC championship game for the second time in three seasons.
"That sounds easy," Grobe said, tongue-in-cheek. "That's like no big deal.
"We've played enough ACC games now to know that everybody is pretty good in the league. I know going to N.C. State next week is going to be really, really tough. Tom (O'Brien) and his staff do a great job and they've got a lot of talent. I think they've gotten a lot of kids healthy lately, so we know that's going to be a battle.
"And that's probably the one we need to focus on. We can't do anything about how Maryland plays, but we can take care of how we play."
And as for how Wake Forest looks while it plays, Grobe will leave that up to his players. He was asked if the Deacons will wear gold jerseys again this season.
"We're not afraid to wear them, that's for sure," Grobe said. "It turned out pretty good."
■ Dan Collins can be reached at 727-7323 or at dcollins@wsjournal.com.
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