Wake Forest Athletics
Josh Gattis' Preseason Postcard
8/5/2005 12:00:00 AM | Football
Editor's Note:
Throughout the preseason, junior free safety Josh Gattis will be giving Deacon fans a glimpse of life inside preseason camp in the series, "Josh Gattis' Preseason Postcards."
About Gattis:
Gattis started at free safety in all 11 games in 2004. He was the team's second-leading tackler with 71 stops and one of four defensive players to start every game. Defensive coordinator Dean Hood says having Gattis in the secondary is like having a coach on the field.
August 4, 2005 -- First Day of Camp:
The 2005 season is officially underway. The most anticipated day of the year has just come upon us. Not only were we excited to start football up again officially, but this is also the first day we began team meals. That really made every excited because we are tired of eating on our own low budget meals. It's always good to get a free meal during camp.
Today started off with a nice breakfast bright and early. Then for the first time in my camp experiences, we actually had to go to class on a camp day. Normally, summer school is over when we start camp. After class, we had a nice team lunch followed by an afternoon meeting. The meeting in the afternoon was all business as we met for about an hour doing compliance work. This made everyone more aware that the season was officially here.
After dinner, we met again as a team before we went out to practice. This was a great meeting for the team, as we all have good news for the 2005 Demon Deacon season. Everyone was able to report to camp on time without any holdups. It was even more exciting for Wake Forest fans because out two most questionable players -- Damon McWhite "Berg" and James Adams "Gomez" -- returned from their holdout in the spring season as they have finally renegotiated their contracts to add one more year onto their current contract because of more money and injury. But those two along with the return of Big Brodie Overstreet will give this team the pieces we were missing last year.
Practice was a blast. Everyone was flying around and having fun. The season is full of high expectations as there were many cameras out covering today's practice. They were mainly there to make sure we had no holdouts because rumors flew around that the notorious Drew Rosenhaus was stirring up trouble around Wake. lol. But practice went as smooth as ever, it was a nice long two-hour practice under the lights that lasted until about 10:45.
We had about a good 15 minutes of pass skell against each other and you could tell no one has taken the summer off. This team is poised for a great season. It was a real late practice and I think Coach Grobe knew that as he finished practice with a speech wearing his reading glasses. I guess he wears those before he goes to bed. This season is officially here, and as the season quote says "The Rush Is On." Everyone look out because we're not stopping now. Off and to the races to the ACC Championship....
