Wake Forest Athletics
100% Cotten
8/30/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Aug. 30, 2007
Summer is slowly, but literally, melting its way toward fall. Toward better times. Cooler weather will be here soon - as will Saturdays dominated by Demon Deacon football. And if you ask me, autumn can't get here fast enough.
As I write it's been a month since Coach Prosser died. That saddest of days still feels like a bad dream - as if it couldn't have really happened. But it did, and it still hurts. A woman approached me at The Loop just before the start of the first "Jim Grobe Show" of the season recently. She spoke of my last column about Coach Prosser. She cried as she thought about him. Coach Grobe and I took a few minutes on the air to remember Skip. Jim was a little tentative - like the words almost wouldn't come. His eyes moistened as he remembered his dear friend.
But then we laughed, as you have to when thinking of Skip. Coach Prosser was at football practice quite often. He would tell the quarterbacks to throw deep. He'd "pull the coaches' chains" to use Coach Grobe's phrase. I recalled Prosser's bus ride with the team to its first game under Grobe at East Carolina. Talk about first impressions. Seems to me a long touchdown reception by Jax Landfried late in the game provided the winning points. Hmmmm.... I seem to recall Coach Prosser claiming to have called that play.
Yes, it hurts - but football is here to help us move forward. And just in time.
My random thoughts are now turning to the gridiron as I wonder what will become of the 2007 Deacons. During the first few days of fall camp I would catch myself staring at nothing, searching for an answer that would not come. Now I find myself actually focusing on how well Kenneth Moore concentrates and how much leaner and quicker De'Angelo Bryant is. If there's an NFL body on this team Aaron Curry has it, and when Alphonso Smith wears long sleeves he looks exactly like Deion Sanders. A couple of weeks ago I wouldn't have noticed. But as time passes, things are starting to find their rightful place. Focus is returning.
And smiles are returning to faces that cried the heavy tears just yesterday. Today I shared a moment with Harvey Hale as we passed on campus. He was wishing for the weeks to fly so basketball would start. I shouted at L.D. Williams as he turned the corner from the Manchester Athletic Center. Whatever he thought I said his response was a wide grin and a healthy wave. And the other day I noticed Ish Smith cutting up with some friends as they stood at "The Wall" following football practice.
It's starting to feel more like normal. And football is here to help. This is my twelfth fall in Winston-Salem, and enthusiasm has never been higher. Season tickets are sold out. Deacon Tower is taking shape, casting shadows, even, at the right time of day over a huge chunk of seats on the west side. Grobie's Army is poised for another run at the ACC, and the most talented Deacon team of the Grobe era is ready to etch its own mark - all the while trying to validate `06's run to a conference title and holiday at the Orange Bowl.
Welcome, football. Your timing couldn't be better.
