Gold Rush: Prosser Stays
4/16/2003 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
April 16, 2003
By Jay Reddick
Skip Prosser has found a home in Winston-Salem.
That was the message April 11, when it was announced that Prosser had signed a contract extension to remain as Wake Forest's men's basketball coach through 2014.
The announcement came after nearly a week of speculation that Prosser would leave to take the head coaching job at the University of Pittsburgh in the town of his birth.
"Wake Forest is an environment in which I feel very comfortable," Prosser said in a prepared statement. "It's an environment in which the academic success of the student-athletes is always paramount. We feel that we have some outstanding young men and young players on our team that came here to do some very special things, if not unprecedented things, at Wake Forest. While we feel that over the last two years we have had some wonderful moments, we feel that there are a lot of wonderful moments yet to come."
Prosser met with officials from Pittsburgh at the Final Four in New Orleans over the first weekend in April, and reportedly received a contract offer from the school later in the week. Officials at Pittsburgh and Wake Forest awaited his decision for two or three days, until finally, he agreed to the contract extension that athletics director Ron Wellman offered on April 9.
News of Prosser's possible departure provoked an outpouring of emotion from the Wake Forest community, including several impromptu petitions imploring Prosser to stay posted on the front door of the men's basketball office and elsewhere on campus, some 500 emails sent to the office, and a pep rally involving about 40 students on April 10 on the front lawn of the Manchester Athletic Center.
"It makes me truly appreciate what a special place Wake Forest is -- especially the kids on the team and the students," Prosser told the Winston-Salem Journal the day before his decision. "They've been truly remarkable. Also with the fans, and the e-mails and things like that, I'm stunned."
Prosser's two-year stint at Wake Forest has been one of the most successful debuts in school and ACC history. He has compiled a 46-19 record, is the reigning ACC Coach of the Year, and led the team to its first outright first-place finish in the regular-season league standings since 1962.
All of the scholarship players on the 2003-04 Deacons will be Prosser recruits, including a group of four freshmen that is highly regarded in national publications.
The loyalty he felt to those players was one reason he decided to stay at Wake Forest.
"It has been a difficult couple of days, but I'm thrilled with the outcome, and again, really, really excited about the commitment on the part of the university, the commitment by our players, and I'm real anxious to get started on next season," Prosser said.