WINSTON-SALEM N.C.
Saws buzzed and drills rattled at Wake Forest on Tuesday as work continued on the glitzy new Deacon Tower at Groves Stadium.
On the field, work continued on building the Demon Deacons into something more than a one-year wonder, a surprise team that somehow claimed the Atlantic Coast Conference title and sneaked into the Orange Bowl.
“It kind of happened at the same time, with last season and our program really coming on the rise,” quarterback Riley Skinner said during the team’s annual media day. “I guess it is kind of a metaphor and a coincidence that it all came together at the same time.”
Skinner and Wake Forest can only hope the seven-story, 123,000-square-foot tower of luxury boxes, club seats and a new press box rises as impressively as the Demon Deacons’ fortunes did during their charmed 2006 season, in which the preseason last-place pick in the ACC’s Atlantic Division wound up winning the league and reaching a Bowl Championship Series game.
The improbable championship helped legitimize the program-building philosophy coach Jim Grobe emphasized when he came to Winston-Salem in 2001 redshirting freshmen, developing them into solid players and patiently building a foundation for steady success.
