Wake Forest Traditions
 Can Kane Take Wake To A Bowl Game?The tailback, one of the 27 seniors, wants to be an integral part of the program's turnaround.
By Sam Walker When the 1999 football season ends with its annual pomp and pageantry of bowl games, it will be over for Morgan Kane. Five years of his life will have been spent in Winston-Salem as a student-athlete on the Wake Forest football team. His name will be added to the list of Wake Forest's all-time lettermen, and he will forever be listed among the school's top 10 rushers. His 80-yard run against Florida State in 1996 already ranks as the fifth longest run in school history, and there's no doubt his name will appear in several more statistical lists that the media often reference and hard-core football fans recall. But his name beside numbers on lists is not how Kane wants to be remembered. He is one of the often written about 27 seniors on this year's team who have labored under the guidance of Jim Caldwell in hopes of bringing a winning football program back to Wake Forest. That feat hasn't been reproduced since the 1992 team went 8-4 and defeated Oregon 39-35 in the Independence Bowl. "I guess I want to be known as one of the 27 seniors who turned the program around and took us to a bowl game," Kane said. "Everybody talks about that class of '92 who went to the Independence Bowl, and they have a legacy here. Our senior class is too talented not to leave something behind like that, and that's how I want to be remembered." The way Kane would like to be remembered is indicative of how he has played and the responsibilities he has willingly shouldered over the past four years. He has been a starter for most of the past three seasons but has been bounced around a bit because he may well be the most versatile player on the 1999 squad. Kane was moved from tailback to fullback in the offseason but was moved back to tailback before Wake's season opener because of injuries to other players. He responded with a 211-yard outing against Army to become the fifth back in Wake Forest history to rush for 200 or more yards in a single game. His total in that game was almost half of what he rushed for in all of the 1998 season (454 yards). Kane finished as the leading rusher on a team that finished with just 719 yards rushing. His knowledge and ability to play different positions is something of which he is proud. "I'm a real fan of the game, and I study the game a lot, so after being here four and one half years I know the offense almost as well as some of the quarterbacks here," Kane said. "When you know what other people are doing, it's really not that hard to set yourself in a different position. It just takes a couple of days of practice to get used to the feel. Other than that, it's not that big of an adjustment. As long as I'm on the field, I feel like I'm accomplishing something." What has been a big adjustment has been living in the South. Kane hails from Ottawa, Ontario. He is the first Wake player from Canada since Randy Halsall played as a senior in 1973. The differences in culture have been the toughest adjustment for Kane, but the warm weather was enough to attract him to a university of which he had never heard until it began recruiting him. "I wanted to get away from the cold, and this was one of two schools in the South that was recruiting me," Kane said. "I was getting recruited by a lot of Big 10 schools, and I didn't want to play in the snow anymore, so that was one deciding factor me. I had no idea what Wake Forest was, but I started getting recruited by them and a guy named Tom Deacon (who lettered in football at Wake Forest in 1968) talked to me a couple of times and enlightened me to a couple of things about this place." Following Kane's football recruitment came a run through the NCAA Tournament by Wake's basketball team. Kane, who is a big fan of college basketball, watched a Rodney Rogers-led team advance to the round of 16 to get his first taste of Wake Forest athletics. After a redshirt season on 1995, Kane started seven games in 1997 and has been a mainstay in the backfield ever since. Kane almost didn't come back to Wake Forest after the 1999 spring semester. Some personal problems and a rough semester of classes had Kane considering a change of scenery. But he changed his major from business to sociology and is back on track to graduate this December. "I just felt like I had put too much time and effort into this, and to walk away without a degree and start over again somewhere else would have been a waste of time," Kane said. "A lot of my time and dedication went into this place, so I figured I might as well finish it off." Kane wants to finish it off with a winning season and bowl game appearance. He says he would feel like his football career would be unfulfilled if he weren't part of Wake's first winning season since 1992. "I felt when I came here that I could make an impact immediately. I had a lot of people pushing me toward some big-time football programs, but I didn't want to go to one of those places and be just another fish in the pond. And I also didn't want to be known as just a football player. There's a whole lot more that goes into a person than that. "Right now I don't have a lot of personal goals," Kane added. "I just want to do everything I can to help this team win. A lot of people say that, but I've been here four years without a winning record, and that's all I'm worried about. I want to go to a bowl game, and I feel like my college career doesn't live up to expectations if we don't go."
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