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From the Quad
11/28/2023 12:23:00 PM | General
Presented by Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist
Welcome to the Holiday Season Demon Deacon Nation!
While it has been a few weeks since I last wrote to you From the Quad, I trust you were able to enjoy a safe Thanksgiving holiday and weekend!
And, thanks to Wake Forest women's golf and the Winston-Salem City Council, the final week of November got off to a fun start last night when our City Council presented Head Coach Kim Lewellen and Lyons Family Associate Head Coach Ryan Potter with a unanimous resolution honoring the 2023 NCAA Women's Golf National Champions!
More big stuff is happening in our city over the next two nights as Winston-Salem and Joel Coliseum host the ACC-SEC Challenge tomorrow at 7:15 p.m. (ESPNU) and Thursday at 9 p.m. (ACC Network) with our men battling the Florida Gators and women hosting the Texas A&M Aggies, respectively! This is the inaugural year of this annual event and we are excited to welcome our friends from Gainesville and College Station to our neighborhood. I'm sure our passionate fans are prepared to welcome them with a great Tobacco Road environment inside Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
With that, Tie Dye Nation is back tomorrow night! Fans are encouraged to break out their favorite tie-dye gear to cheer on the Deacs. Plus, the first 1,000 students and 1,000 fans (2,000 total!) will get a limited edition tie dye rally towel to commemorate the occasion!
Resurgent fan support has fueled our programs to many victories in recent years, as Coach Steve Forbes' squad is 33-5 at home since the beginning of the 2021-22 season! Meanwhile, Coach Megan Gebbia's squad captured 12 victories a year ago inside Joel Coliseum, which was the fourth-highest total in program history.
Both of our teams are working hard to build momentum for the ACC season as they blend newly arrived players with Deacon veterans, while several more student-athletes are rehabilitating injuries and hope to return to the court soon. And, for the men's program, we are actively engaged in pursuit of an immediate eligibility waiver for transfer center Efton Reid. For his part, Efton has been both an excellent student in the classroom, a great teammate, and community member since his arrival in June from Gonzaga. We firmly believe his immediate eligibility is warranted and continue to work diligently to achieve this outcome and will comment further when appropriate.
Gridiron Demon Deacons Close Book on 2023 Season at Syracuse
While Saturday's game inside the JMA Dome in New York was a heart-breaking loss and the second longest bowl streak in the ACC sadly came to an end, I am so proud of the effort and fight our student-athletes and coaches displayed throughout the entire 2023 season. Saturday, the Deacs responded drive-after-drive and were led by a career performance from quarterback Michael Kern. Since his arrival in Winston in 2019 from Orlando, he has been one of the most selfless and dedicated members of the program. Despite multiple injuries and some tough luck, this group of Demon Deacons prepared to win every week and I know that those values and principles on which Coach Dave Clawson has built this program will sustain us through the offseason and result in more wins for the Demon Deacons in 2024.
While the totality of the football season did not lead to the win total we have become accustomed to under Coach Clawson's leadership, our Demon Deacons won three games at home inside Allegacy Stadium and are now 23-7 in Winston-Salem since the start of the 2019 season. Additionally, Wake Forest hosted four sellout crowds and a total of 181,074 fans across the Deacs six home contests and the average of 30,179 fans per game marks the highest home median since 2011. Also, our total student attendance for the season was above 21,000 and multiple games featured at least 80 percent of the student body in attendance.
As Coach Dave Clawson shared in his postgame press conference at Syracuse, starting a new bowl streak next fall will be one of our team goals and the process to getting there starts right now. I look forward to seeing our student-athletes finish the fall semester strong in the classroom and hit the ground running in January with their offseason workouts.
Fall Sports Wrapup
In addition to our gridiron Demon Deacons, volleyball's match against Boston College last Wednesday followed men's soccer and men's cross country in concluding the fall sports season.
A second-straight 17-win campaign for Coach Randi Smart's squad marked the first time Wake Forest has posted back-to-back seasons of 17 or more wins since 2000-01. Additionally, the Deacs won eight ACC matches for the second-straight season, which had not happened since the 2009-10 campaigns. Congratulations are in order to rookie Ava Carney for earning a spot on the ACC's All-Freshman team. I know her and her teammates will be ready to build off the success of the last two years and strive for more next fall.
Meanwhile on the pitch just over a week ago, Coach Bobby Muuss' team played an extremely talented Indiana squad in what felt like a College Cup match. While it was not the result we wanted, it was still a successful fall season for our men's soccer program as they earned a 13th-straight NCAA Tournament appearance, which is the second-longest streak nationally and eight years more than any ACC program. And, they won Wake Forest's fifth ACC Atlantic Division title in nine seasons – the most of any conference program since the current format was unveiled prior to the 2014 season.
Finally, Coach John Hayes' men's cross country team qualified for their fourth-straight NCAA Championship appearance and the 13th in program history in Charlottesville, Va. a few weeks ago. The Deacs scored 536 points at the national meet and placed 24th as a team. Individually, the Deacs were led by sophomore Joe O'Brien as he clocked 30:23.5 to finish 81st overall.
Six Demon Deacon Student-Athletes Inducted into Prestigious Omicron Delta Kappa
On that note of standout student-athletes, Michael Massey (baseball), Laine DeNatale (women's soccer), Dylan Hazen (football), Brooke Killingsworth (women's tennis), Addison Berry (track & field/cross country) and Ashley Slater (volleyball) were recently inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Honor Society. These six individuals represent Wake Forest University and their sport-specific programs with excellence in all facets of their lives. Additionally, I am grateful to the ODK leadership for their recognition of these six student-athletes.
And, even more leadership is being exuded by the four Demon Deacons who were recently named to the ACC Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Executive Board!
Packed Brendle Recital Hall Inspired By President Wente's Annual Address
Following a beautiful rendition of the Wake Forest Alma Mater by student musicians and singers, President Susan R. Wente, Ph.D took the podium for her third annual presidential address just about 10 days ago. You can watch it here and learn more about the ongoing Strategic Framework and other forward initiatives. As a reminder, our Framework outlines three goals intended to be evergreen and they are continually renewed. These goals also represent hallmarks of our identity as Wake Forest will always be: A lifelong learning community; A community of inquiry; and A community dedicated to building meaningful, mutual partnerships.
Thank You, Emily Neese - Welcome to Wake Forest Senior VP Brandon Gilliland!
Wake Forest Vice-President for Finance Emily Neese recently announced her retirement after 17 years of dedicated service to her alma mater, including playing a key role in shepherding the University through the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic. Athletics Executive Associate AD Randy Casstevens and I also appreciate Emily's role in making various capital projects reality, including most recently, the McCreary Football Complex!
With that, we are excited to welcome Brandon Gilliland as Wake Forest's senior vice president for finance and administration. Congratulations to Executive Vice President Jackie Travisano for hitting the transfer portal to bring Brandon's ACC experience from his current post at Miami. This is a homecoming of sorts as Brandon served in the Wake finance department from 2007-17.
Thank You, Deacon Club Members!
The Deacon Club is grateful to report that total giving to Wake Forest Athletics continues to drive us forward and provide a World Class Student-Athlete Experience for our 400-plus Demon Deacon student-athletes. A recent example of the impact of gifts helping provide special opportunities is when our women's basketball team traveled to Hawaii for a pair of non-conference contests. With just a month left in the calendar year, consider giving to the Deacon Club Annual Fund or any of the myriad of initiatives that can help Wake Forest student-athletes! I am inspired to see so many donors making strategic investments to create competitive advantages for Wake Forest student-athletes and coaches. There is a spot for every Deacon fan on the "team behind our teams." For more information, visit the Deacon Club website today!
"Santa's Helper" Embodies "Pro Humanitate" Spreading Holiday Cheer
Chip Rives, a former Wake Forest football player, founded Santa's Helper in 1986 to help provide holiday presents to children in Winston-Salem, and again this year, student-athletes, coaches, staff, Deacon Club members, and friends of Wake Forest will gather in a few weeks to wrap and deliver thousands of presents to underprivileged families. If you are able and would like to make a gift to this great initiative, click here!
City of Winston-Salem Highly Rated Following Latest Rankings Reveal
Thanks to the tremendous leadership in the city along with our colleagues at Visit Winston-Salem and Greater Winston-Salem, Inc., Livability has ranked Winston-Salem among the top 25 best places to live in the Southeast. Additionally, the Twin City was recognized for its quality of higher education — including top-ranking HBCU Winston-Salem State University, Salem College, Forsyth Tech, UNC School of the Arts and of course, Wake Forest.
Our friends at 6am City published an article with all these rankings, which also shared that Winston-Salem is the third-most diverse suburb in North Carolina, it is the 13th-best large city to start a business and 17th-best place in America to retire! Just like our fan base of more than 2.7 million fans across the country, Winston-Salem is young, diverse and affluent!
From the Quad Big 3
Before we close, here are today's Big 3 ways to help the Deacs:
I'll see you inside Joel Coliseum tomorrow night or at another Wake Forest event soon, and as always, please continue to send your thoughts to me at wfuad@wfu.edu.
Go Deacs!
John Currie
Director of Athletics
Welcome to the Holiday Season Demon Deacon Nation!
While it has been a few weeks since I last wrote to you From the Quad, I trust you were able to enjoy a safe Thanksgiving holiday and weekend!
And, thanks to Wake Forest women's golf and the Winston-Salem City Council, the final week of November got off to a fun start last night when our City Council presented Head Coach Kim Lewellen and Lyons Family Associate Head Coach Ryan Potter with a unanimous resolution honoring the 2023 NCAA Women's Golf National Champions!
More big stuff is happening in our city over the next two nights as Winston-Salem and Joel Coliseum host the ACC-SEC Challenge tomorrow at 7:15 p.m. (ESPNU) and Thursday at 9 p.m. (ACC Network) with our men battling the Florida Gators and women hosting the Texas A&M Aggies, respectively! This is the inaugural year of this annual event and we are excited to welcome our friends from Gainesville and College Station to our neighborhood. I'm sure our passionate fans are prepared to welcome them with a great Tobacco Road environment inside Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum.
With that, Tie Dye Nation is back tomorrow night! Fans are encouraged to break out their favorite tie-dye gear to cheer on the Deacs. Plus, the first 1,000 students and 1,000 fans (2,000 total!) will get a limited edition tie dye rally towel to commemorate the occasion!
Resurgent fan support has fueled our programs to many victories in recent years, as Coach Steve Forbes' squad is 33-5 at home since the beginning of the 2021-22 season! Meanwhile, Coach Megan Gebbia's squad captured 12 victories a year ago inside Joel Coliseum, which was the fourth-highest total in program history.
Both of our teams are working hard to build momentum for the ACC season as they blend newly arrived players with Deacon veterans, while several more student-athletes are rehabilitating injuries and hope to return to the court soon. And, for the men's program, we are actively engaged in pursuit of an immediate eligibility waiver for transfer center Efton Reid. For his part, Efton has been both an excellent student in the classroom, a great teammate, and community member since his arrival in June from Gonzaga. We firmly believe his immediate eligibility is warranted and continue to work diligently to achieve this outcome and will comment further when appropriate.
Gridiron Demon Deacons Close Book on 2023 Season at Syracuse
While Saturday's game inside the JMA Dome in New York was a heart-breaking loss and the second longest bowl streak in the ACC sadly came to an end, I am so proud of the effort and fight our student-athletes and coaches displayed throughout the entire 2023 season. Saturday, the Deacs responded drive-after-drive and were led by a career performance from quarterback Michael Kern. Since his arrival in Winston in 2019 from Orlando, he has been one of the most selfless and dedicated members of the program. Despite multiple injuries and some tough luck, this group of Demon Deacons prepared to win every week and I know that those values and principles on which Coach Dave Clawson has built this program will sustain us through the offseason and result in more wins for the Demon Deacons in 2024.
While the totality of the football season did not lead to the win total we have become accustomed to under Coach Clawson's leadership, our Demon Deacons won three games at home inside Allegacy Stadium and are now 23-7 in Winston-Salem since the start of the 2019 season. Additionally, Wake Forest hosted four sellout crowds and a total of 181,074 fans across the Deacs six home contests and the average of 30,179 fans per game marks the highest home median since 2011. Also, our total student attendance for the season was above 21,000 and multiple games featured at least 80 percent of the student body in attendance.
As Coach Dave Clawson shared in his postgame press conference at Syracuse, starting a new bowl streak next fall will be one of our team goals and the process to getting there starts right now. I look forward to seeing our student-athletes finish the fall semester strong in the classroom and hit the ground running in January with their offseason workouts.
Fall Sports Wrapup
In addition to our gridiron Demon Deacons, volleyball's match against Boston College last Wednesday followed men's soccer and men's cross country in concluding the fall sports season.
A second-straight 17-win campaign for Coach Randi Smart's squad marked the first time Wake Forest has posted back-to-back seasons of 17 or more wins since 2000-01. Additionally, the Deacs won eight ACC matches for the second-straight season, which had not happened since the 2009-10 campaigns. Congratulations are in order to rookie Ava Carney for earning a spot on the ACC's All-Freshman team. I know her and her teammates will be ready to build off the success of the last two years and strive for more next fall.
Meanwhile on the pitch just over a week ago, Coach Bobby Muuss' team played an extremely talented Indiana squad in what felt like a College Cup match. While it was not the result we wanted, it was still a successful fall season for our men's soccer program as they earned a 13th-straight NCAA Tournament appearance, which is the second-longest streak nationally and eight years more than any ACC program. And, they won Wake Forest's fifth ACC Atlantic Division title in nine seasons – the most of any conference program since the current format was unveiled prior to the 2014 season.
Finally, Coach John Hayes' men's cross country team qualified for their fourth-straight NCAA Championship appearance and the 13th in program history in Charlottesville, Va. a few weeks ago. The Deacs scored 536 points at the national meet and placed 24th as a team. Individually, the Deacs were led by sophomore Joe O'Brien as he clocked 30:23.5 to finish 81st overall.
Six Demon Deacon Student-Athletes Inducted into Prestigious Omicron Delta Kappa
On that note of standout student-athletes, Michael Massey (baseball), Laine DeNatale (women's soccer), Dylan Hazen (football), Brooke Killingsworth (women's tennis), Addison Berry (track & field/cross country) and Ashley Slater (volleyball) were recently inducted into Omicron Delta Kappa National Leadership Honor Society. These six individuals represent Wake Forest University and their sport-specific programs with excellence in all facets of their lives. Additionally, I am grateful to the ODK leadership for their recognition of these six student-athletes.
And, even more leadership is being exuded by the four Demon Deacons who were recently named to the ACC Student-Athlete Advisory Committee Executive Board!
Packed Brendle Recital Hall Inspired By President Wente's Annual Address
Following a beautiful rendition of the Wake Forest Alma Mater by student musicians and singers, President Susan R. Wente, Ph.D took the podium for her third annual presidential address just about 10 days ago. You can watch it here and learn more about the ongoing Strategic Framework and other forward initiatives. As a reminder, our Framework outlines three goals intended to be evergreen and they are continually renewed. These goals also represent hallmarks of our identity as Wake Forest will always be: A lifelong learning community; A community of inquiry; and A community dedicated to building meaningful, mutual partnerships.
Thank You, Emily Neese - Welcome to Wake Forest Senior VP Brandon Gilliland!
Wake Forest Vice-President for Finance Emily Neese recently announced her retirement after 17 years of dedicated service to her alma mater, including playing a key role in shepherding the University through the unprecedented challenges of the pandemic. Athletics Executive Associate AD Randy Casstevens and I also appreciate Emily's role in making various capital projects reality, including most recently, the McCreary Football Complex!
With that, we are excited to welcome Brandon Gilliland as Wake Forest's senior vice president for finance and administration. Congratulations to Executive Vice President Jackie Travisano for hitting the transfer portal to bring Brandon's ACC experience from his current post at Miami. This is a homecoming of sorts as Brandon served in the Wake finance department from 2007-17.
Thank You, Deacon Club Members!
The Deacon Club is grateful to report that total giving to Wake Forest Athletics continues to drive us forward and provide a World Class Student-Athlete Experience for our 400-plus Demon Deacon student-athletes. A recent example of the impact of gifts helping provide special opportunities is when our women's basketball team traveled to Hawaii for a pair of non-conference contests. With just a month left in the calendar year, consider giving to the Deacon Club Annual Fund or any of the myriad of initiatives that can help Wake Forest student-athletes! I am inspired to see so many donors making strategic investments to create competitive advantages for Wake Forest student-athletes and coaches. There is a spot for every Deacon fan on the "team behind our teams." For more information, visit the Deacon Club website today!
"Santa's Helper" Embodies "Pro Humanitate" Spreading Holiday Cheer
Chip Rives, a former Wake Forest football player, founded Santa's Helper in 1986 to help provide holiday presents to children in Winston-Salem, and again this year, student-athletes, coaches, staff, Deacon Club members, and friends of Wake Forest will gather in a few weeks to wrap and deliver thousands of presents to underprivileged families. If you are able and would like to make a gift to this great initiative, click here!
City of Winston-Salem Highly Rated Following Latest Rankings Reveal
Thanks to the tremendous leadership in the city along with our colleagues at Visit Winston-Salem and Greater Winston-Salem, Inc., Livability has ranked Winston-Salem among the top 25 best places to live in the Southeast. Additionally, the Twin City was recognized for its quality of higher education — including top-ranking HBCU Winston-Salem State University, Salem College, Forsyth Tech, UNC School of the Arts and of course, Wake Forest.
Our friends at 6am City published an article with all these rankings, which also shared that Winston-Salem is the third-most diverse suburb in North Carolina, it is the 13th-best large city to start a business and 17th-best place in America to retire! Just like our fan base of more than 2.7 million fans across the country, Winston-Salem is young, diverse and affluent!
From the Quad Big 3
Before we close, here are today's Big 3 ways to help the Deacs:
- Join us at Wait Chapel on Sunday at 7 p.m. for the annual Wake Forest Lovefeast which brings the entire community together and recognizes Winston-Salem's Moravian tradition. The event is first come, first seated, and once Wait Chapel reaches capacity, simulcast viewing will be available in Brendle Recital Hall in Scales Fine Arts Center.
- Each year, Wake Forest bestows its highest honor, the Medallion of Merit, on a deserving member of the Wake Forest community. The Medallion is awarded during the annual Founders Day ceremony. Wake Forest community members are welcome to nominate potential recipients of this distinguished honor. You can do so by submitting a nomination by this Friday!
- As we all begin our holiday shopping, remember that tickets to Wake Forest events make great stocking stuffers! Also, visit Wake Forest Athletics partner WakeForestShop.com for all the latest gear!
I'll see you inside Joel Coliseum tomorrow night or at another Wake Forest event soon, and as always, please continue to send your thoughts to me at wfuad@wfu.edu.
Go Deacs!
John Currie
Director of Athletics
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Football Media Availability (9/18/25)
Thursday, September 18
Matt Barrie SportsCenter at Wake Forest with Demond Claiborne
Wednesday, September 10
Matt Barrie SportsCenter on Wake Forest Campus (Arnold Palmer Complex)
Wednesday, September 10
Football Media Availability (9/9/25)
Wednesday, September 10