GOLD RUSH: Keeping the Dream Alive
11/3/2015 12:00:00 AM | Football
This article was originally published in the October edition of Gold Rush.
By Sam Walker
Sometimes life throws up roadblocks, forces detours, and they can often feel like dead ends. When does a person decide life has thrown enough at them to sufficiently convince them to take another route, go another way or find an open road?
Devin Gaulden couldn't tell you. The graduate student cornerback who came to Wake Forest from Wisconsin for his final season of eligibility never gave up on his dream despite enduring years of setbacks and encountering roadblock after roadblock.
Gaulden chronicles his early career starting with a fracture to his tibia his freshman year. He tore the ACL in his right knee as a sophomore against UTEP in the fourth game of the 2012 season and contracted a staph infection following that ACL injury. Then Gaulden fractured the patella in the same spot on same knee not just once, but three times.
The first patella injury happened when he was working out doing squats in the weight room. The patella injury happened twice more, most recently prior to the start of preseason camp at Wisconsin in 2014.
He had two surgeries but declined to have any more, wanting his body to heal naturally. The injuries restricted him to just 24 games of action during his four years as a Badger. He sat out the 2013 season, his junior campaign, because of the knee injury. The constant injury, surgery/treatment, rehabilitation cycle would have been enough for many to think it just wasn't meant to be, but that wasn't the case for Gaulden.
He was down, but never out. Days were dark, but he always saw a light ahead. The light perhaps was the lights at BB&T Field on Sept. 3 as he started his first game as a Demon Deacon at cornerback against Elon.
"Perseverance is big for me, and I'm a man of faith," Gaulden said. "That faith helped me get through a lot of dark days with the many surgeries I went through. But it makes it all feel so good going out with this team and doing what I've prepared for. This is what I expected to do when I came to college, and there were roadblocks along the way, but now I want to take advantage of the opportunity.
"People would ask me if I wanted to stop playing, and that never really crossed my mind. I couldn't look at myself in the mirror if I quit. Now when I go through things in life, it's easy. I'm getting an education, I get to play football, (in comparison) this is the easy part. I'm having the time of my life. I'm closer to home, so my parents came down, I'm loving every practice, everything about it. Last year, I just got my feet wet, and now I look around and think this was a perfect fit."
Wake Forest has three graduate students playing on the 2015 squad. Defensive back Zach Dancel from Maryland and K.J. Brent, a wide receiver from South Carolina, in addition to Gaulden are helping bolster the Demon Deacon lineup for a season as head coach Dave Clawson tries to get Wake Forest rebuilt for consistent success. Solid veterans help.
"Devin is a bigger corner, so he did a great job of block destruction (in the first game against Elon), and it's great to get a guy like that," Clawson said. "It's his fifth year, he played a lot of football at Wisconsin, and we run a similar defense to what he initially learned at Wisconsin, so he's picked up things quickly. Devin is a high-character guy with a great work ethic who loves football, and he's just been a great addition along with Zach Dancel and K.J. Brent.
"I'm proud of our football team who have adopted those guys. Our guys want to win football games, and they know those guys make us better, so there's been no resistance to them and part of it is their personalities, and they are professional in how they have adapted and how serious they are about football. Obviously those guys can play."
Entering the 2015 season, the most Gaulden had played in a single season was 14 games with nine tackles (seven were solo) during the 2014 season at Wisconsin. Although Gaulden was not often able to participate for much of his career as a Badger, he was around some of college football's biggest stages. The Badgers twice went to the Rose Bowl and won the Outback Bowl a season ago with a 34-31 overtime victory over Auburn while he was on the team.
ACC rival Miami was a strong choice for Gaulden to play out his college football career as it was close to home (Miramar, Fla.). But being able to come in and immediately contribute, earn the chance to play with his knowledge, size, and skill was more likely at Wake Forest. Gaulden was heavily recruited by former head coach Jim Grobe's staff in 2010; so he was familiar with the university and even some of the players still on this team. On Clawson's team, he was guaranteed nothing but promised a fair chance to prove himself at a position lacking depth and experience.
"Out of high school, before I had been a member of the staff, Devin had committed to Wake Forest but ended up at Wisconsin, had some unfortunate injuries," said cornerbacks coach Derrick Jackson. "He reached out to us and wanted to know if we were interested, and once we got the waiver release, we communicated with him, got him down for a visit over the summer. I think at the time Zach Dancel had committed to us, and they had played against each other last year. He felt this was a place he could have some success. He came in with the right mindset and attitude and was able to prove he could be a starter for us.
"We weren't really looking for anybody because usually there aren't any guys in the summer. It's all done by the end of spring. But it was a blessing for us because he showed us he could come in and help us immediately from a depth standpoint. After we worked with him, we realized he has the potential to add competition, had experience at the highest level and gave some credibility in our room because he has a championship pedigree.
"He can talk intelligently to the young guys about what you have to do to reach those goals every game. He fractured his thumb the first scrimmage, and it just so happens that he was able to have a cast on it, and it's healed up. But I think once he went out on the field and showed he deserved to be starting for us, you immediately command respect from your teammates. I laugh because he really had a one-week audition to pick up everything, and now he is doing a good job of asking questions when he doesn't understand things. But I think he has been waiting for this opportunity his whole life, and he maximized his chances."
Gauldin wanted to come in and be a leader, but he knew he would have to tread lightly at first and slowly gain respect of his teammates through hard work and play. Sharing his story was certainly a tribute to his mental toughness, and he quickly assimilated into the defense as a solid corner.
"Out of three graduate students, Devin came just a day before camp, so he came in at a disadvantage with every DB in that room, and his play (against Elon) even playing with a broken thumb in a cast he was exceptional," said senior linebacker Brandon Chubb. "We embraced him like family, and the moment I heard he was coming, I was excited. After seeing him play, I was even more excited to have him playing on my side."
Gaulden never took a detour, except maybe to play his final season at Wake Forest. He never gave up when injury after injury could have shaken his confidence, never gave up on his dream to play college football.
"The lows were very low, but I tell a lot of people I wouldn't change any of it because I think it made me a better person off the field, a stronger person, and helped me get through adversity," Gaulden said with the infectious smile for which he is known. "Now I can look at anything and take it head on."
