Daniel B.
Yelp
If it wasn't for Wake Forest, I probably wouldn't exist, so I give it five stars. :)
Seriously though, my parents met at Wake. My dad was a resident at Bowman Gray (now Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center) and my mom was an undergrad. They married and settled in nearby High Point. Naturally, I grew up a diehard Wake Forest fan. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Wake.
When it comes to my two favorite sports, basketball and golf, the Demon Deacons have a rich tradition.
Tim Duncan, who played all four years and graduated from Wake with a degree in psychology, led the men's basketball team to back-to-back ACC championships in 1995 and 1996. Muggsy Bogues, the shortest player to ever play in the NBA at 5-foot-3, played for Wake. These days, perennial NBA All-Star Chris Paul is the best known Wake basketball alumni.
We had season tickets to Wake men's basketball games at the Joel Coliseum. We'd drive from High Point to Winston to catch all the games. It was Tim Duncan and coach Dave Odom who drew me to the game of basketball and made me the fan of basketball that I am today. I love college basketball and the NBA, but I didn't really start following the NCAA and the NBA until I saw how the quiet and unassuming Tim Duncan dominated historical powerhouses like Duke and North Carolina on his way to becoming the No. 1 draft pick in 1997.
Wake is a small private school, one of the smallest in NCAA Division I, yet they compete with the big boys. Since I typically like rooting for underdogs, this aspect drew me to the Deacs.
I continued to cheer for the Deacs after Duncan's departure. I loved the 1999-2000 team, led by Robert O'Kelley, that won the 2000 NIT championship. I even went to the bookstore to buy an NIT champions T-shirt. I still have it among my stacks of Wake apparel, programs, and other merchandise. I also enjoyed listening on the radio to Stan Cotten and Mark Freidinger ("The Dinger").
The best golfer to play for Wake was none other than The King, Arnold Palmer. Other notable alumni include Curtis Strange, Darren Clarke, Lanny Wadkins, Jay and Bill Haas, Webb Simpson, Len Mattiace, and Billy Andrade. I saw a documentary about Arnold Palmer on Golf Channel. In it, they discussed his collegiate career at Wake and showed a clip from the unveiling of the Arnold Palmer statue at Wake's golf practice facility, now known as the Arnold Palmer Golf Complex. Arnie was there for the unveiling. When I saw the statue on TV, I just knew I had to visit it in person (and I did).
Throughout the years, I've been able to meet a lot of these guys including Tim, coach Odom, Stan, Mark, and Bill Haas.
In high school, I considered applying to Wake, but in the end, it wasn't an option since I wanted to go into engineering. It came down to Georgia Tech and NC State (I guess I couldn't leave the ACC). I chose Tech and the rest is history. It did take a good one to two years for me to convert from a Demon Deacons fan to a Yellow Jackets fan. While I bleed white and gold now, I'll always have fond memories of the old gold and black.