Positive Exposure

Jim Grobe went to Bristol, Conn., yesterday in hopes of opening some eyes to the Wake Forest football program.

By the time that Grobe's day of "running the gauntlet" at ESPN concluded, Grobe was the one who was wide-eyed.

Grobe, the Wake Forest football coach, was prepared for all the questions thrown at him during a day-long series of radio and television interviews on ESPN's various networks, but he wasn't prepared for the enormity of ESPN's headquarters.

"You just don't realize how big an operation it is," Grobe said. "The facility itself, it's just mammoth. In scope, you just can't imagine how big of an operation this is. I'm not a very technical guy, but the technical aspect of what they're doing here is overwhelming. Even Stan Cotten was impressed with all the technology they've got here, and they're doing so many different mediums. So it was very, very impressive. I had no idea."

Cotten, the radio voice of the Deacons, and Steve Shutt, the school's assistant athletics director/media relations, were among those who accompanied Grobe on a private jet that left Winston-Salem yesterday morning and returned early last evening.

Various coaches and players go to ESPN from time to time to "run the gauntlet" -- the term for doing interviews on ESPN's various networks. Grobe's first appearance of the day was a segment on ESPN2's First Take program. Then he participated in a College Football Digital Media podcast. Then it was over to the ESPN Radio studios to tape a segment for the Scott Van Pelt Show. Then came 35 minutes in the Internet chatroom for a live Q&A chat on espn.com. Then it was back to television again, with a taping for ESPN's College Football Live to be aired Friday, and a live segment on ESPN News' Overdrive. ESPN estimates that it reaches about 392,000 homes, ESPN2 about 200,000 homes, ESPN News about 75,000 homes, and ESPN Radio is available to about 1.6 million listeners.

So it was a lot of air time in front of potentially a lot of people for Grobe and the program.

"There are a lot of good things that came out of this trip," Grobe said. "I think we've got a great school and I think any time you get to show more people about Wake Forest, it helps us. Obviously, it's hard to take a day during the season, but with the open date we were able to do it, and the coverage you get is just great exposure."

Shutt hailed the trip a promotional success that will pay dividends with ESPN in the future. It wasn't just what Grobe said and did on air and in the chats, it was how he mixed with ESPN executives at times when the red lights weren't on.

"I thought it went fantastic," Shutt said. "He hit a home run. Everyone likes Jim Grobe, but I think what happened is that now Jim Grobe is more than just a sound bite to the ESPN people. Now they know who he really is, and they know for a fact that he is as genuine as they thought he was."

In truth, the interviews weren't very revealing to Wake Forest fans who follow the team regularly. They were more geared to those who don't follow the program.

Grobe got to talk about the Deacons' 30-28 victory over Mississippi on Saturday, and Sam Swank's winning 41-yard field goal with two seconds left. He got to talk about quarterback Riley Skinner's cool in the two-minute drill and Skinner's knack for finding ways to win.

But he also found himself having to defend the ACC's lack of overall success two weeks into the season, and on several shows he was asked his thoughts on the finish of the Washington-Brigham Young game, when an unsportsmanlike conduct (excessive celebration) penalty played a key role in BYU's 1-point win.

"I thought each show was interesting," Grobe said. "I was talking with some of their guys before we did interviews, and what I think is really hard in a four- or five-minute interview is to get all the questions asked and answered. You would really like to get more time talking about different issues and make things more clear. But there were so many stories going on (in other sports), it was impossible to spend more time.

"But I thought all those guys were really professional, and they asked some timely questions. The BYU-Washington deal is front and center as far as topics go in college football right now. Some of the topics we discussed don't have easy answers. They don't have black and white answers. That's probably why they asked them."

Of course, Grobe knows that one victory on ESPN means more to the football program than a day's worth of interviews. The Deacons will get that chance in their next game; their game at Florida State on Sept. 20 will be telecast on ESPN2.

"There's no question about it, having your team on ESPN and winning is the key," Grobe said. "When we first got to Wake Forest, one of our concerns was we didn't get the opportunity to play on television very often. So now, we're getting opportunities. We have the last two years, and we hope we get more opportunities. And that gives the players more opportunities to show what your team's all about. So this was really good. But now we have to go out and win.

■ John Delong can be reached at jdelong@wsjournal.com.