Reflections on a National Champion
It was almost three full months ago now that I began to write this blog, and to be honest I never thought I’d devote too much space to the soccer team. I knew I would fully cover football and basketball and that I will probably cover baseball reasonably well in the spring, but anything other than that seemed like a long shot to get any significant coverage.
Three weeks ago that all changed when I realized that the NCAA tournament was happening in our own backyard and that it would be foolish of me to avoid such a cool event. I admittedly know very little about the sport; most of my knowledge comes from FIFA video games and the World Cup two summers ago. Furthermore I had only seen two Wake games all season long and knew very little about our team. However, when I realized that the only coverage being provided for these tournament games was in the form of the CSTV Gametracker, I knew there was probably a service I could provide.
As it turned out, I ended up having more fun covering the three games at Spry Stadium than I have at any other Wake sporting event this fall. As a lover of sports in general I tried to take full advantage of the opportunity to learn more about the game while providing the best coverage I could to readers of the blog. Your response was great, with over 700 of you visiting the Old Gold & Blog on the night of the Elite 8 Notre Dame game to follow the play by play and several hundred more visiting to read about it the next day. I loved being able to share with you all the highs and lows of those games from my vantage point, even if I had no clue what I was talking about most of the time.
I couldn’t help but fall in love with the team over the course of the tournament, and it started of course with Coach Jay Vidovich. First and foremost he loves his team, loves the sport, and is proud of all they’ve accomplished. He was more than happy to talk about the games, but he loved talking about the guys on his team even more. Austin da Luz, Corben Bone, Jules Valentin, and the other players I had the chance to interact with were all passionate about the team and their performance and loved to brag about their fellow teammates more than themselves. After the West Virginia game Bone jokingly suggested that da Luz should be called “Hollywood,” and one week later Austin proved to be deserving of the nickname, scoring a beautiful overtime goal against Notre Dame and following it up with a celebration reminiscent of Brandi Chastain’s celebration in the World Cup. Moments like that made this team a joy to follow.
Heading into the Final Four nothing could have frustrated me more than knowing I was going to have to miss the second half of Friday night’s match against Virginia Tech because of an accounting exam. When the proctor informed us of the 2-0 victory I was greatly relieved, and the stage was set for Sunday’s championship match against Ohio State.
What a game it turned out to be. Certainly the most poorly officiated game I saw throughout the tournament, but an incredibly exciting game nonetheless. Like all of you, I had a huge pit in my stomach when OSU scored their goal, but watching our guys gut it out and find a way to put two in the net was incredible. I brought my whole family running to the TV when I exploded with Tracy’s goal to tie the game, and as the seconds ticked off the clock and the game ended I was as happy as I’ve ever been as a Demon Deacon. Wake Forest - 2007 National Champions.
The rest of the world calls it a beautiful game. For at least this one weekend I was in full agreement.
