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Why are Wake fans so angry?

Wakeforest22890

Wakeforest22890

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BSD writers have been fielding a series of questions from other media outlets, as well as people with close ties to the Wake Forest athletics program about why Wake fans are so angry. We talk about it a lot on here so I decided to take a stab at it and (somewhat) succinctly explain what I thought the anger really was all about. If it's more than this, what do you think is the root reason for all the "anger" from the Wake Forest community about the condition of the sports program? Is it primarily [Redacted] or does it go deeper than that?

Read the article if you want, but obviously you don't have to in order to contribute your two cents on why you're upset with the state of the program. I'm just curious to hear what others think about this.

http://www.bloggersodear.com/2013/10/15/4839356/couldnt-be-happier-bye-week
 
because we suck and there's no sign that we'll be better anytime soon?
 
Well written article. I used to be angry but now I am just apathetic.
 
Reading through the article:

"Whether or not this was ever sustainable is a debate for another time, but for Wake Forest to be playing in an Orange Bowl seemed to convert a good portion of the fan base from a LOWF mindset to a "Wake can do anything" mindset."

That's a major exaggeration. And even if you buy that, you're talking about an almost 7 year delayed reaction.

"Wellman still had a lot of good will built up with the fan base due to his long tenure and general success at hiring coaches at the school - Jim Grobe and Jay Vidovich typically being touted as the two big successes."

Wellman's success has been isolated to Prosser, Grobe, and Vidovich to the extent you can count him.

"Hell, on OGBoards a month ago half the respondents to the poll said they would move the football team to an FCS level if it meant the basketball team consistently made the NCAA tournament."

That makes us look pathetic. And if you're going to cite OGBoards polls (which you shouldn't), cite how OGBoards is almost 100% BuzzOUT yet a majority predicted we'd win more than 13 games last year. [Redacted] underachieves the expectations of his biggest detractors.

You bring up some decent points, but you're rambling. Tighten it up and stand by the points. You're presenting facts for the most part, not the opinions of the lunatic fringe.
 
The point of the article wasn't to articulate my own personal viewpoint on Ron Wellman, it was to convey the fact that I think most of the disdain for Ron Wellman stems from the fact that basketball is so important to Wake and he hired Jeff [Redacted]. I cited the boards because it had a readily available poll about how much [Redacted] is disliked as well as to show that basketball is in fact extremely important to Wake fans as compared to football. It's clearly not scientific, but it articulated the two points rather well I thought.
 
And sure, there was a delayed reaction after people started converting from LOWF to Wake can do anything, but there was no reason for fans to be mad at Wellman for a solid period of time after 2007 because the teams were for the most part doing really well. The delay was due in large part to how Wake was performing.
 
Props for the title. "Couldn't Be Happier: Bye Week" Well played.
 
1. Complete lack of accountability.

2. Dogmatic defense of #1.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
The point of the article wasn't to articulate my own personal viewpoint on Ron Wellman, it was to convey the fact that I think most of the disdain for Ron Wellman stems from the fact that basketball is so important to Wake and he hired Jeff [Redacted]. I cited the boards because it had a readily available poll about how much [Redacted] is disliked as well as to show that basketball is in fact extremely important to Wake fans as compared to football. It's clearly not scientific, but it articulated the two points rather well I thought.
Click to expand...

You may be right that basketball/[Redacted] was the catalyst for the anger towards Wellman, but I disagree with your conclusion that a firing of Buzz makes everything okay with Wellman. Negative. Since hiring Buzz -- a disaster from the word go -- Grobe hasn't had a winning season and is working on his fifth straight losing season with our recruiting going downhill from his typically weak effort. Wellman's policy, as demonstrated directly with the Dino ultimatum, that winning is at best a secondary aspect of Wake sports betrays an ingrained losing culture in the athletic department. And let's not mention that NO ONE wants to see Ron hire the next coach in football or basketball; he simply can no longer be trusted. This will not change with a [Redacted] firing.

As for your poll on basketball vs. football, it was highly unscientific, inartfully phrased and had a very limited sample size. It wasn't any kind of evidence of anything. Whether some Wake fans like it or not, football will be the future determinant of whether Wake survives any future conference alterations. Basketball, unless Wake were to attain the stature of Duke basketball, will have zero input on Wake's value to a BCS level athletic conference. Deemphasizing football would spell the end of big time sports at Wake. So I'd call that aspect of your thesis highly misinformed, if not highly dubious.
 
I think you hit the nail on the head. If Wellman were to make a home run basketball hire that turned us around quickly, a lot of people would feel better. Unfortunately that is unlikely both because he won't and the program is in bad shape so even the right hire will need time to actually turn things around.
 
Wake fans endured Jim Caldwell, Bob Staak and the worst half century of unpaid football ever played. Winning cures a lot of ills, but the contemporary angst is about being misled. Management has a credibility gap, which has turned into an immunity to accountability, which turns into helplessness...which aggravates the pain of losing.
 
Like I said, it wasn't scientific, but the people who post on these boards are pretty much all top 10% fans of Wake Forest. Just by the nature of registering a name to read the site you're probably a top 10% fan. I think there were around 100 responses to the poll and around 50 of the people, out of this group of top 10% of Wake fans, said that they would trade FBS status for basketball success. Furthermore the question was a complete thought experiment not meant to actually occur, as was made clear in the question (which in and of itself was phrased appropriately and quite clearly) and I don't think that anybody actually believes that this trade is possible.

The point of using the poll was to show that even extremely passionate fans love basketball so much they would trade football success at the FBS level for a consistently competitive basketball team.
 
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