Basketball Alumni Involvement

We've all heard the stories about Duncan not being happy with Wake sports marketing, etc. It was no big deal when we were a decent program, but the last eight years have me wondering about basketball alumni involvement at Wake.

When do our basketball alumni start speaking up or demanding something be done to resurrect the program? I know that other alumni in other sports have been heavily involved with coaching decisions, building of facilities, fund raising, etc. Tennis, Soccer, Football, etc are in great shape. Is it different in basketball because, for the most part, it's the team that shares the least culturally with most of the Wake Forest alumni base? Do basketball players not relate back to Wake post-graduation? Was it Skip's death? The rumor machine that attempted to drag down Dino after he was fired? The fact that our most well known basketball alum is a guy that prefers to keep to himself? The tendency of [Redacted] and Wellman to point fingers at players rather than themselves? All of the above?

Are there any basketball alumni that are passionate and involved in our program, besides Chill? Hard for me to believe that there wouldn't be some angry basketball alums at a place like UNC if this bullshit were allowed to go on for 2-3 years, much less 8+.

The only Wake basketball alum that I see consistently speak positively about the school is LD Williams. His Twitter presence is awesome. I have no idea what kind of pull he has with the school or pressure he can put on the athletic department to make to make cultural changes within the program though.

"I know he's hard-nosed. He preaches defense, which I think with any team, is going to be the biggest key to success, getting them to play defense. He's had success with the different schools he's been with. I hope he can bring that to Wake and get us back on the right track."
- Tim Duncan (Class of 1997), San Antonio Spurs

http://www.wakeforestsports.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/050510aae.html

PhDeac said:

"I know he's hard-nosed. He preaches defense, which I think with any team, is going to be the biggest key to success, getting them to play defense. He's had success with the different schools he's been with. I hope he can bring that to Wake and get us back on the right track."
- Tim Duncan (Class of 1997), San Antonio Spurs

http://www.wakeforestsports.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/050510aae.html

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There's no telling what Wellman paid a consulting firm to go get all of those quotes to prop up his hire. Is there any other hire you can recall where a school had to go out and find a bunch of fluff quotes in order to help justify their decision?

Gotta love JHo's absolutely non-committal answer:

"I have complete confidence in the leadership at Wake Forest University. I know decisions made are done so to support the best interest of the students, athletic department and University."
- Josh Howard (Class of 2003), Washington Wizards

Would any of them like to be the head coach?

Ambassador Kyle Visser.

Total speculation, but my guess would be that several of them tried to bend Wellman's ear when things got bad under [Redacted] but naturally he tuned them out.

I doubt any of our bball alumni are going to go out of their way to publicly criticize Manning given his rep as a former player and his connections in the business.

inspectah said:

Total speculation, but my guess would be that several of them tried to bend Wellman's ear when things got bad under [Redacted] but naturally he tuned them out.

I doubt any of our bball alumni are going to go out of their way to publicly criticize Manning given his rep as a former player and his connections in the business.

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Much simpler explanation - most of the players don't feel nearly as big of a connection to Wake as many here seem to think they do.

Umm, Wellman shit all over Jeff Teague and James Johnson. Mr band camp blowjob and Mr NBA Major are exactly who Wellman was referring to with his Culture war. Why the fuck would those guys do anything for Wake until Ron is gone?

pinochadeac said:

Umm, Wellman shit all over Jeff Teague and James Johnson. Mr band camp blowjob and Mr NBA Major are exactly who Wellman was referring to with his Culture war. Why the fuck would those guys do anything for Wake until Ron is gone?

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I've met Ron Wellman. He is simply not a nice person. I can understand why alums/former athletes are simply neutral on Wake athletics at this point. It would be extremely difficult to rally around any Ron Wellman initiative. He's an asshole and not a very inspiring person.

Ayo said:

Much simpler explanation - most of the players don't feel nearly as big of a connection to Wake as many here seem to think they do.

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That goes for plenty of alums whether they played sports or not.

PhDeac said:

"I know he's hard-nosed. He preaches defense, which I think with any team, is going to be the biggest key to success, getting them to play defense. He's had success with the different schools he's been with. I hope he can bring that to Wake and get us back on the right track."
- Tim Duncan (Class of 1997), San Antonio Spurs

http://www.wakeforestsports.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/050510aae.html

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At the time, I thought that press release was very weird. Little did I know...

CP3 is always reppin the deacs

buckets said:

CP3 is always reppin the deacs

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Redacted is honestly a very good NBA assistant defensive coach so I see where Duncan would think that

PhDeac said:

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see he's not even looking Bz in the eye

PhDeac said:

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Classic awkward Bzzz move. Holding out a fist bump for an apparent hand slap.

He can't even win a simple game of rock-paper-scissors.

coredeac said:

I've met Ron Wellman. He is simply not a nice person. I can understand why alums/former athletes are simply neutral on Wake athletics at this point. It would be extremely difficult to rally around any Ron Wellman initiative. He's an asshole and not a very inspiring person.

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Plus he dumped on 2 of our best coaches of all time--Odom & Greer, who between them have 5 ACC titles. He did this just wanting to hire his own coaches. Let's just say he has not had much luck in hiring coaches here going back to his initial hire of Jim Caldwell, who while the world's nicest person, was totally out of his league at the time being an ACC head football coach at the time. I am not sure Timmy is quite over the fact that RW got rid of GDO in the way he did.