Wake Forest Demon Deacons | |
---|---|
University | Wake Forest University |
Conference | Atlantic Coast Conference |
NCAA | Division I |
Athletic director | Ron Wellman |
Location | Winston-Salem, North Carolina |
Varsity teams | 16 |
Football stadium | BB&T Field |
Basketball arena | Joel Coliseum |
Baseball stadium | Gene Hooks Stadium |
Soccer stadium | Spry Soccer Stadium |
Mascot | Demon Deacon |
Nickname | Demon Deacons |
Fight song | O Here's to Wake Forest |
Colors | Black and Old Gold |
Website | www |
The Wake Forest Demon Deacons are the various sports teams of Wake Forest University. Originally, Wake Forest's athletic teams were known as the Fighting Baptists, due to its association with the Baptist Convention (from which it later separated itself). However, in 1923, after a particularly impressive win against the Duke Blue Devils, a newspaper reporter wrote that the Deacons "fought like Demons", giving rise to the current team name, the "Demon Deacons".
Wake Forest has won a total of eight national championships in four different sports; four of these championships have come since 2002. Wake Forest is sometimes referred to as being a part of "Tobacco Road" or "The Big Four", terms that refer to the four North Carolina schools that compete heatedly against each other within the ACC; these include Duke University, North Carolina, and North Carolina State, as well as Wake Forest.
The Demon Deacons participate in the NCAA's Division I (in the Bowl Subdivision for football) and in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The Athletics Director is Ron Wellman, who won multiple Athletic Director of the Year Awards for his work during the 2007–2008 school year.
2006 Season Wake Forest's football team was ranked in the Top 25 in the nation by the AP Poll during most of the 2006 season. They won the 2006 ACC Atlantic Division Title and the 2006 ACC Conference Championship by defeating the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets 9–6 on December 2 in the ACC Championship Game in Jacksonville, Florida. The win sent Wake Forest to the Orange Bowl to play Big East champion Louisville, where they lost to the Cardinals. This made Wake Forest the smallest school to ever compete in the Bowl Championship Series. Of all schools that play Division I FBS football, only Rice and Tulsa have smaller undergraduate enrollments, and Wake has the smallest undergraduate enrollment of any school in the BCS conferences.