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Deacon Club Receptions: We Need Good ?s

Do we seriously think we are going to pull off a successful capital campaign to raise money for the Joel? GTFO.
 
I wasn't at the NYC meeting, so I'm just speculating here. If Wellman had shown up with a brand new coach, particularly one who had some success in the tourney, the Joel money would have come pouring in. Instead the Joel is a metaphor for the basketball inside it.
 
Wellman just needs a few larger donors and one that really wants his/her name on a building... FU Ron.
 
Sad but true. Ron and MSD just need the rest of us for pocket change and money for bait at events like this to hook the big fish.
 
Do we hold our coaches accountable for poor performance or are we content to collect our participation award and cash in ACC money?
 
I attended the Charlotte reception last night. Nothing ground-breaking, and not important enough for a new thread, so I'll just bump this one.

Five-second synopsis for those who don't want to read further: Bzdoofus does not need to make the NCAAT next year to keep his job.

Long version: No [Redacted] last night, but Grobe, Wellman, and Phonze were all there and spoke. I was a bit late getting up there, so didn't get any extended one-on-one time with any of them, but Wellman did briefly stop by our table. I'll echo Irish's comments about him being able to work a room; he's clearly very good at that, and it's no accident that he rose to where he is now. On the plus side, they had these little roast beef sandwiches at the reception that were quite good, but left a foul smell on my fingers. Wellman shook hands with me not once, but twice, so I managed to smear quite a bit of nasty-smelling roast-beef-sandwich grease on him. Small victories.

Phonze spoke first, and overcame some early nerves to do a good job. Most of the talk was about how immature he was when he first came on campus ("Grobe started that redshirt program because of guys like me"), but that during his sophomore year Coach Hood had a sit-down with him and told Phonze that the most important thing to Hood and the rest of the coaches was what their players would be like as husbands, fathers, and men 15 years down the road. That had a big impact on Phonze, and he points to that as exemplifying Wake Forest. Phonze's talk was the shortest.

Grobe went next (and was the only one who didn't stand up from his bar stool to speak). He's good and entertaining, but didn't have a whole lot of note to say. Blamed the injuries and lack of depth, plus some academic/character issues, for the finish last year. Said he thought we were a bowl team (and still thinks that), that we were good at the beginning of the year, pretty good in the middle, and not good at the end of the year. Going to focus a lot more on running the ball this year; for the past few years, we've been trying to plug Tanner into Riley's system, but now we're going to focus on the things that Tanner does well, throwing the ball downfield and running with it, as opposed to Riley's short precision passes.

We weren't planning on having a spring game at all, and when ESPN told us they wanted to televise it, Grobe said we couldn't have a true scrimmage because we only had 7 available offensive linemen. The TV folks said ACC access would cover it instead, but, since our second game is against BC, Grobe didn't want to tip his hand and spent a few frantic days installing the old offense and getting rid of the defensive wrinkles we've added so we could put that on. The players weren't happy, and neither was I, but the old blue-hairs thought it was high-larious. Plenty of stuff we've heard before about how the ACC is a tough conference, and Wake has an Ivy League education, but you don't go out and play Harvard and Yale on Saturdays. Takes a special kind of kid, makes it tough to recruit because he has to start with how tough it will be to play football and do the academic work (would be easy to do both), etc.

Wellman went last, and gave a fine speech. Gave all the talking points we've all seen on here about the Joel ("I go into games just hoping the power and plumbing will work") and how it needs renovations, we need to Deaconize it, etc. Thinks conference expansion is done due to the grant of rights from all major conferences. I didn't glean a whole lot from him, except one little anecdote. Remember the story about Galloway and how he allegedly couldn't get into Deacon Tower with a recruit? Change "Galloway" to "[Redacted]" and "Deacon Tower" to "the Joel," and Wellman told that exact story word-for-word. It was almost eerie. Ron has a personal relationship with almost every athlete at WF, Phonze and CP3 are great and talk up Wake Forest all the time, CP3, when he played in Oklahoma for "whoever it was. It might have been the Clippers," would go to all the Sooner basketball and baseball games, and the AD loved him.

After the speeches, they took questions for about half an hour. Most of them came from some hillbilly Texan who seemed to think that being called on for a question entitled him to a five-minute tete-a-tete with Grobe. Grobe talked about incoming recruits and who might help this year, but didn't give a lot of specifics. Maybe some linemen, maybe Looney, but not a whole lot of detail there. Defensive line has good depth; Nikita didn't play well last year; Thompson is underrated. Running backs, if we don't have Josh are DeAndre Martin, "a guy who linebackers don't like to see get the ball," Wilhite, and Dom Gibson. (That's the order he listed them in; no word on whether that's the actual order at this point.)

They don't have a real #2 guy at quarterback. Grobe was disappointed in Sousa running the ball, says he needs to be more decisive, but he has a big arm. Cameron didn't get talked about a whole lot, although I may have missed it. Thompson is kind of a mix between good runner and good passer--may not pass the eye test, but good things happen when he's in the huddle. They want to get all four QB's reps through the season. Mentioned that there may be a rule change allowing freshmen to play 3 or 4 games, which Grobe thinks would be a good thing, because sometimes a guy might help you at the end of the year, but you don't want to waste a whole season of eligibility for just a couple of games.

Ron says an ACC channel is in the works, and they have enough content to fill it up, but is still a ways away. Every AD wants it (duh), but it's taking the SEC and ESPN years, so similar timeframe, blah, blah, blah. WF football will be covered on 610 in Charlotte this year.

I asked Ron straight out, "Does [Redacted] need to make the NCAA Tournament next year to keep his job, and, if not, what's the timeframe?" No other [Redacted] questions were asked. Ron said that "we certainly don't have any mandates like that in place" before launching into what I assume is his standard "State of the Basketball program" speech. He "understand the angst" (enough so that he said that twice), but we're making great strides, and will continue to make significant progress next year. Sixty percent of the minutes played by freshmen; next highest in the conference was 40% from GT. (Grobe later proceeded to get in the act by saying that that would be the equivalent of him having 40 freshmen, and if that were the case, he'd be in a straitjacket. I cringed.)

People all the time come up to Ron and tell him that we're moving in the right direction, people like Bill Self and Rick Pitino. At first, he may have suspected they were lip service, but then they say things like "CMM/Devin/Moto is going to be a player" that indicates to him that they're paying attention and really do like what they see. We're moving in the right direction. He met with an official evaluator person guy who told him after their meeting to say hey to Jeff [Redacted] for him. "You know Jeff?" Ron asks, confused. Yes, Mr. Evaluator had been an official in the NBA for years, and said that Jeff [Redacted] was one of the best coaches in the league. We do have goals for the program (none of which were specified), but every decision [Redacted] has made (again, none specified) was in the long-term interest of the program and we now have the foundation in place for success. The 60-year-old lady sitting behind me gives a self-satisfied grunt. Strangely, there's no mention of culture, despite the fact that Ron rambled for a good 2-3 minutes.

That's all I have. I didn't take notes, so may have been off on a couple of things or overlooked something. Feel free to add/correct if you were there.
 
OldGoldBeard said:
I asked Ron straight out, "Does [Redacted] need to make the NCAA Tournament next year to keep his job, and, if not, what's the timeframe?" No other [Redacted] questions were asked. Ron said that "we certainly don't have any mandates like that in place" before launching into what I assume is his standard "State of the Basketball program" speech. He "understand the angst" (enough so that he said that twice), but we're making great strides, and will continue to make significant progress next year. Sixty percent of the minutes played by freshmen; next highest in the conference was 40% from GT. (Grobe later proceeded to get in the act by saying that that would be the equivalent of him having 40 freshmen, and if that were the case, he'd be in a straitjacket. I cringed.)

People all the time come up to Ron and tell him that we're moving in the right direction, people like Bill Self and Rick Pitino. At first, he may have suspected they were lip service, but then they say things like "CMM/Devin/Moto is going to be a player" that indicates to him that they're paying attention and really do like what they see. We're moving in the right direction. He met with an official evaluator person guy who told him after their meeting to say hey to Jeff [Redacted] for him. "You know Jeff?" Ron asks, confused. Yes, Mr. Evaluator had been an official in the NBA for years, and said that Jeff [Redacted] was one of the best coaches in the league. We do have goals for the program (none of which were specified), but every decision [Redacted] has made (again, none specified) was in the long-term interest of the program and we now have the foundation in place for success. The 60-year-old lady sitting behind me gives a self-satisfied grunt. Strangely, there's no mention of culture, despite the fact that Ron rambled for a good 2-3 minutes.
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I'm convinced Ron is just straight up making this stuff up now. Confirmed again this weekend, from a guy who would know, that Ron almost always has the largest ego in the room (unless a certain other AD employee is there). At this point, I think he's just telling lies to make himself look better.
 
As if Self or Pitino is paying enough attention to cellar dwelling program in another conference to talk up particular players. Bullshit, as usual.
 
I'm just glad they reused their best talking point re: the recruits staring at a Joel they're not allowed to enter! You're welcome, athletic department. You're welcome.
 
One question about [Redacted]? Good grief.
 
TBR said:
As if Self or Pitino is paying enough attention to cellar dwelling program in another conference to talk up particular players. Bullshit, as usual.
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How many common opponents did we have with Louisville and Kansas?
 
TBR said:
As if Self or Pitino is paying enough attention to cellar dwelling program in another conference to talk up particular players. Bullshit, as usual.
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Exactly. That's the part that pissed me off the most.

We suck right now and until we remove [Redacted] we won't have the opportunity to potentially not suck anymore. If anything Self and Petino want Bzloser at Wake forever because it's one less school to compete against for them.

I hate what Ron Wellman is doing to our fanbase so much right now and I hate our Trustees and President for letting him get away with it.
 
Went to talk to Dr. Hearn's son after the event; after that, I "looked for the guy who asked the Bz question to thank him". Had I known it was you, I would have looked a little harder. Thought Wellman did a decent job of answering the question; his biggest point as mentioned by OGB was the main thing he asked Bz to do was to make every decision in the long-term best interest of the program. Have to give some credit to Wellman for not ducking the question, using "culture" or denigrating the Dino era last night.

Additions:
--They showed a 5 minute video to start the program about a day in the life of a Wake athlete. It was well done, but the video kept buffering and took about 8 minutes to play.

--Grobe uncomfortably put his hand of Alphonso's knee and rubbed a few times while saying good things about him. Harmless, but definitely something you would make fun of if Roy Williams did it to Tyler Zeller.

--Things I didn't know but I am sure many on the board do: Orville Reynolds played a lot in the spring in Camp's slot position and did well. Colin Summers is definitely out this year because he is on blood thinners to deal with blood clots. Looney will probably play defense initially. At the Atlantis tournament, we will probably open against Kansas.

--The [Redacted] story with the recruit was awful. Wellman talked about the recruit like he was one of the best players in the country. Either it is Shelton Mitchell or somebody we will definitely whiff on because Bz took the recruit to the Joel on a Saturday at 2pm and couldn't get in, so they walked the perimeter and Bz was telling the recruit "this is where you will enter the building", etc. Wellman made it sound like Wake had coordinated with the coliseum folks in advance, but there is no way you can let something that lame happen...well unless you are Bz.

--Wellman's lack of knowledge on CP3 playing for the Oklahoma City HORNETS post Katrina really took the shine off his point that he had a personal relationship with almost every athlete.

--Texan hillbilly was awful. Asked 3-4 questions and always rambled on in his question to show Grobe he knew the program, the players, the hometowns and had met their parents at the spring game. Got up to use the pisser during his final question.

--The emcee told a story about the ACC Championship game in Jacksonville and twice referenced sitting next to and speaking to "Dr. Hatch" at the game...with Dr. Hearn's son sitting directly in front of him.

--I asked a young AD employee about the Josh Harris rumors before the program. He said he had no knowledge of anything. I later asked a WF employee the same question, who definitely acknowledged the rumors and was hoping Grobe would talk about it. Grobe was asked and based on Grobe's dancing around the question but hinting at some things Josh needs to take care of, I think Harris will not be playing to start the season.

--We aren't getting lacrosse, unless someone wants to give $20 million to the Deacon Club.
 
qc, the long-term bit was ducking the question OGB asked.
.
 
since our second game is against BC, Grobe didn't want to tip his hand [/QUOTE] It's a good thing we didn't show BC that we could drive block.
 
PhDeac said:
qc, the long-term bit was ducking the question OGB asked.
.
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OGB asked if Bz needed to make the NCAAT to keep his job. Wellman said no and there were no mandates in place. It's not the answer we wanted to hear, but he didn't duck the question.


I hope Wellman is thinking "Bz needs to win XX games and make the NCAAT or he is fired", but he would be a fool to say that publicly. It just makes sense to publicly back the guy until the day he is canned. The question needed to be asked though to remind Wellman that we are not happy with our head coach and the state of our basketball program.
 
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