Wake Forest Athletics News
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100% Cotten
Nov. 3, 2003
by Stan Cotten I celebrated a birthday recently, and the strange thing is that it seemed like it was only yesterday that my family celebrated my birthday - last year. My parents always told me that before I knew it, my life would begin racing by. Like they have been on most issues - my parents were right. And right before us, even though Skip Prosser's Deacons don't have one scholarship senior on the roster, Wake Forest is getting older. Wasn't it just yesterday that Vytas Danelius, Jamaal Levy and Taron Downey arrived on campus? They're - what - sophomores now? Don't we wish. Danelius, Levy and Downey are the old heads now - all juniors as the basketball season tips off. They are the veterans - the ones to whom Prosser will turn when the ACC heat gets turned up. And it will. It always does. And time is flying. "That is true," admits Danelius. "When I was a freshman, the seniors told me that my first year would be the hardest and the longest. You have to learn so much. But the further you go, the quicker the seasons go by." "The time has gone by fast," agrees Downey. "I'm a junior already. I still remember my first time practicing as a freshman. It's all gone so quickly." But there's not much time to look back. Basketball is here, and Levy says the juniors are ready to assume ownership of this team. "Vytas, Taron and I are going to try to step up and be leaders. We have to believe in ourselves and stay together. We have to be consistent and improve from now through the NCAA Tournament." "I like having a leadership role," adds Downey. "I get to share my knowledge from my first two years in the league with the freshman." The Deacons will be tested early with games against Memphis, Richmond and Indiana all before the early ACC opener in Chapel Hill against North Carolina Dec. 20. Will We Remember? Coach Jim Grobe wants November to be a month that Deacon football fans will remember fondly when sitting around the fire this winter. "Teams that end up in bowl games play well in November," says Grobe. "No matter what you've done in September and October, you can make up for a lot of lost ground or you can make an average season a great one by playing well in November." "They Remember November" is a slogan that Grobe credits to Tommy Groom with whom Grobe coached at Marshall. Groom was also an assistant at Maryland under former Terrapin head coach Jerry Claiborne. Deacs Going Global Don't be surprised if head men's soccer coach Jay Vidovich has a little money in his budget for interpreters. His roster is dotted with players whose families' homes are all over the world: Chris and Vicente Bastidas (Ecuador), Scott Sealy, recent ACC Player of the Week, (Trinidad), Ryan Caugherty and Matt Koh (Korea), Tomy Szczypiorski (Poland) and Gideon Coronel (The Netherlands). |