Nothing Could Be Finer
Than us beating Carolina.
Nothing.
Nil. Nada. Zip.
There is simply nothing better than the Deacs beating dreaded rival UNC.
It’s better than blowing up the Death Star, chucking the One Ring into Mordor, or watching Michael Corleone outwit and outplay the Five Families in one fell swoop.
I have said it before and I will say it again, a win over UNC is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Always.
And I hatehatehate that 99% of our students were not in town to claim this win in person. This is the kind of game that fans will remember for ages. There really is nothing more exhilarating than a great college sports rivalry and a close win on your home court. And while a Wake-UNC game can’t claim the exact degree of bitterness of, say, Duke-UNC in basketball or the all-time rivalry of Auburn-Alabama football, it is still a huge rivalry.
Allow me to digress for a moment and take you back in time a generation or two of Wake alumni and our sports rivalry index. If you asked Wake alumni from maybe the early 90s on back (so the Gen X, Baby Boomer generations and earlier), they would almost certainly say Carolina is a more loathed team than Duke. These alumni remember the dread days of Dean Smith, the Four Corners play, and a lot more losses than we cared to admit. It’s not that Duke wasn’t good then – they were – but UNC seemed to be the team you loved to hate more. Especially before the Joel Coliseum was built and Wake played their basketball games in Greensboro, the UNC fans packed the games and turned the stands more blue than black and gold. Which should never happen. (Aside – whether we are winning or losing, your students should be packing the student section for every game. Without fail. Wake sports fans are not fair weather fans. We are hardcore, all-in.)
When Dean Smith retired in the late 90s, UNC had a string of less successful coaches. During this time while UNC struggled, Duke reigned as the ACC superpower and was close to invincible in the ACC. Because of their continual win streak, and perhaps also because of the perceived personality of Coach K given his sideline demeanor, our young graduates from the late 90s-2000s tend to view Duke as the team they love to hate. And that is what has led us to the young’uns tendency to dislike Duke more, the oldsters UNC.
Ok – back to present day. Had your students been on campus, they would have first stormed the court, then rushed back to the Quad en masse and there would have been jubilation as they rolled the Quad within an inch of its life. As it was, we had a contingent of the faithful come out into the foggy night and roll the Quad (and I had Wake friends in other places who were posting pics of their rolled Christmas tree or their own yard trees. Way to show your spirit, wherever you were, Deac alumni!)
What does rolling the Quad feel like in these moments, you ask? It would have been a huge, wonderful party, full of joy and excitement. While it would not have been summer clothes and Tuscan rolling hills, the spirit of rolling the Quad after a giant win feels like this kind of magic.
What a way to start the week, and the semester. BIG, GIANT congratulations to our team. They have not had an easy road of late, but hopefully this is the shot in the arm they need to keep going and prove that once again Little Old Wake Forest (LOWF) is not to be underestimated.
Tomorrow we’ll talk about sorority recruitment in the Daily Deac. Today is all about the thrill of victory though.
GO DEACS!