On Thursday Street & Smith’s announced Ron Wellman as the A.D. of the Year. As previously mentioned, Wellman had been nominated along side Connecticut’s Jeff Hathaway, Kansas’ Lew Perkins, and Ohio State’s Gene Smith.

One of the cool things about an award like this is that it really is an award that says as much about our school and our entire athletic program as it does about Wellman. Obviously he’s been an incredible leader and has found the right people for the right jobs, emphasized the right things, and led the program to highs it hasn’t previously known. Still, he could make all the right decisions and not seen these kinds of results. Everyone in the program has done their part to make Wake the success it is.

All of us who are members of the Wake Forest family should take great pride in having Wellman leading the program. Anything is possible, but Wellman truly seems to be a “Wake Forest Guy,” who doesn’t seem to be the type that will leave. He has never given any hint that he would want to ride success like this to a job at a bigger school, but rather remains committed to this program. Whatever his reasons, the fact that he does this makes me like him that much more.

The 2007-2008 athletic season, for which Wellman won the award, has had both good and bad moments, yet Wellman’s leadership has been evident throughout. It started with Wellman’s excellent handling of Skip Prosser’s tragic death, and continued into a successful fall that included a 9-4 football campaign and a good run in field hockey. The month of December included the retention of football coach Jim Grobe, a National Championship in men’s soccer, and a Meineke Car Care Bowl victory. The spring has included the end of an exciting basketball season (which could have been more successful but was not a terrible disappointment all things considered) and some very good performances in golf and tennis.

I hope and expect Ron to stick around for the long haul. It’s an exciting time to be a Deacon fan, and he has a lot to do with that. Thanks for all your hard work, and keep it up.

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Hopefully you all had a great Memorial Day! I happened to notice, as I went to write this post, that it is the 300th post I've made to Old Gold & Blog. As fun as it has been to write, I don't think I would have been able to keep it up the way I have were it not for the support I've gotten from all of you, the readers. Big thanks to all of you!

This summer I'm working with middle schoolers in a church youth group. It's going to be a lot of fun, but we're going on several trips that will keep my away from a computer for several days at a time. I'm leaving tomorrow and won't return until Friday afternoon, so there won't be any updates until then.

With the baseball team having been knocked out of the ACC tournament their season is almost definitely done, leaving only a bit of golf and tennis left to be played for this year. We'll probably spend the rest of the summer talking about the upcoming football season. Either way, I'll be back this weekend to get back at it.

Enjoy your week!

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Golf is actually a sport I love, however following college golf to the extent that I can write regularly about it just isn't practical. It's one thing to go cover a football or basketball game, but a golf tournament is something else entirely.

Nonetheless, with both the men's and women's golf teams playing for national championships, now seems as good a time as any to talk a little golf.

As of right now the Women's championship is finishing up (Wake is one of 14 teams still out on the course) and Wake is looking to capitalize on today's solid round to make a top 10 team finish. You can see the full team leaderboard here. Nannette Hill is the top individual for Wake, currently tied for tenth herself. That leaderboard is here.

Having won the central regional, the Men's team will kick off national championship play next week. Golfweek has put Wake as a "leading challenger," one tier below the "best bets."

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The voice of the Demon Deacons, Stan Cotten, has suggested giving a name to the Demon Deacon mascot. You can read the full article here, but basically he thinks the Deacon needs a name other than just "the Demon Deacon."

I hadn't ever thought about it or really even noticed it, but Wake does seem somewhat unique in not having a name for the mascot. Just about every other mascot that I can recall off the top of my head does have a name.

I know that a change like this would be somewhat unpopular to our school's community, who seems to balk at just about any change, but I think I would actually support a name for the Demon Deacon.

The options presented by Stan are: Deac, Preacher, Bones, Peahead, Pic (for Brian Piccolo), Arnie, Skip.

I'm running a poll over in the right column (those of you who read the site via RSS or Email are encouraged to come visit the site and vote) to see what everyone thinks about this.

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or a name that isn't one of the given options please leave them in the comments section below! If any additional option gains any steam I'll try to add it to the poll.

Final Results (171 votes):

Deac - 7 (4%)

Preacher - 5 (2%)

Bones - 67 (39%)

Peahead - 2 (1%)

Pic - 3 (1%)

Arnie - 2 (1%)

Skip - 33 (19%)

Shouldn't be named - 52 (30%)

Some of those percentage calculations seem a bit fishy to me, but those are the final results.

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In it's ACC tournament opener Wake fell to Florida State 8-3. An early Wake lead provided by a Dykstra homer was not enough. Apparently this Buster Posey guy for FSU is pretty dang good.

I didn't catch any of the game (no TV options that I could find) so the best thing I can do is provide links to any news reports I can find.

Official Site Report
W-SJ (includes coverage of all NC schools)
CSTV
Pensacola News Journal
Florida Today

That's all I've got tonight, but I'll update this tomorrow with anything relevant

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I know my baseball coverage has been spotty (at best) but with the ACC Tournament now upon us, and Wake having manged to make it in, we'd better start talking about it a little bit more.

The tournament starts tomorrow, with Wake's first game against Florida State. Wake is in a pool of 4 teams which will play a round robin followed by a small tournament. Despite a difficult and trying season, Wake has the opportunity to finish on a real high note, and a good performance could allow them to sneak into the ACC tournament (however I believe this is extremely unlikely.

Wake's official Tournament preview is here, and the conference preview is here.

I'll post updates throughout the tournament (of which I will probably see very little due to lack of TV access here in Houston) as we hope for the best.

On another note, it has been brought to my attention that we are exactly 100 days away from kickoff in Waco. I certainly can't wait.

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As has been rumored for the last week or so, Wake Forest, Baylor, and Fox Sports Net have come to an agreement that will move the season opener from Saturday, August 30 to Thursday night, August 28.

It was possible (although I think unlikely) that the game would not have ended up on TV at all had it been played Saturday. The move to Thursday guarantees not only that the game will be televised but that it will be televised nationally. Since it's the first day of football for the year, I have to imagine our football-starved nation will be desperate to see any football at all and that our game will get pretty good ratings. Because they will play a game three days earlier than most schools, Wake will be allowed to start practicing three days earlier, and will have more time to rest up and prepare for the home opener (and long awaited Deacon Tower opening) against Ole' Miss the following weekend.

The move does have some downsides for Deacon fans, though. Although it would not have been a huge contingent even without the change, I imagine the number of Wake fans attending the game would have been larger on Saturday than it will end up being Thursday night. Traveling to the game isn't exactly easy when it's on a school/work night. It will also cause the athletes to miss at least two, but likely all three of the first days of school. It remains to be seen whether or not they will fly out Wednesday or Thursday, but from a football perspective Wednesday is definitely preferable.

In the end, I think the advantages of the national TV exposure far outweigh the potential downside for fans and players. It's a great opportunity to make inroads in Texas recruiting as well.

Had the game been on Saturday I was definitely going to be making the trip, however Thursday makes things a bit more difficult. I'm hoping to make it work and successfully attend every game this season. We'll see what happens.

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Pretty awesome, check it out.

This is certainly a great honor for Ron Wellman, the athletic department, and the school as a whole. I don't know a whole lot about the award, but given the type of year Wake athletics have had, and the general progress of Wake Forest in this realm, Wellman is certainly deserving.

The other finalists are Jeff Hathaway of Arkansas, Lew Perkins of Kansas and Gene Smith of Ohio State.

Let's see...Hathaway couldn't beat out Wellman for Jim Grobe, and Smith couldn't put a soccer team on the field that could beat Wellman's. Kansas has certainly had a good year - impressive success in both football and basketball (I don't know much about their other sports). In my mind it's got to be down to Perkins and Wellman, but then I again admit to knowing very little about the criteria for this award.

It would be great to see him win, but it's a great honor either way.

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It’s been 10 days since I’ve posted anything, and I suppose I apologize for that, but I kind of needed the break. I guess I’m not really that sorry. I didn’t miss that much.

The summer will definitely be somewhat inconsistent around here. There will be a couple of stretches of about a week or 10 days where I’ll have pretty much no internet access so obviously there won’t be anything posted then. I’ll let you know when those are coming.

But still, even when I am around, I don’t anticipate there being a whole lot to report on (in fact I kind of hope there isn’t, because if there is I feel like it’s likely to be something bad).

I’ll definitely start doing some previewing of football season, but I don’t know how I want to do that yet or when exactly it will happen.

Also, I was thinking it might be fun to do some “reader editorials.” Basically, if you have an idea for something Wake-related you might want to write and have published on the blog, shoot me an email (oldgoldblog@gmail.com) and we’ll work on getting it done. Then you can tell all your friends to go read the article you had published on the internet (Just don’t tell them it’s on a site some guy started in his dorm room without any prior experience or knowledge and that you would have been just as qualified to start the exact same site—it might not seem as cool to them if you tell them that part).

Having said all that, I’m guessing there’s only about a 10% chance someone actually contacts me about it. I hope you prove me wrong.

I’ve got a couple of other things tentatively up my sleeve, so we’ll see what happens. No matter what happens this summer, though, come mid-August we’ll get back into the swing of things and you can count on reading new content on a daily basis.

On to a couple of specific notes: I highly recommend going to the official soccer page and reading about the soccer team's trip to Brazil. Sounds like a pretty cool deal.

Also, I believe that Wake's 3 game sweep of Duke over the weekend to close out Hooks Stadium means that they will make the ACC tournament, leaving them in position to potentially still make the NCAA tournament (I think it's a bit of a long shot, but it's certainly not impossible).

Someone posted this on the DeaconSports message boards and I thought it might be worth sharing just to get excited about the other sport that’s pretty fun to keep track of in the fall:

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Quick update today on the NFL whereabouts of some of our favorite Deacs:

Kenny Moore, 5th round draft pick of the Detroit Lions, has been participating in rookie minicamp and was interviewed by a Michigan newspaper here. Looks like Kenny knows his place for now.

The W-SJ reports Kevin Marion has been signed as and undrafted free agent by the Pittsburgh Steelers and will be attending camp this weekend, hoping to latch on as a kick returner.

Finally, thejetsblog.com reports long snapper Nick Jarvis is one of two snappers who has been invited to New York Jets rookie camp, with one of them likely to be invited back for the summer.

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