Not surprisingly, Media day for the Demon Deacons means plenty of coverage from a variety of outlets. The story that will probably be read more than any other is this AP story, which talks about Deacon Tower and the high expectations of Wake Forest fans these days.

I've been surprised by how difficult it's been to find photos of the event, but here's a pretty cool shot of everyone getting ready for the team photo. You may notice that the uniforms look a bit different. Russell Nenon has informed me that the new jerseys are "nice with skinnier numbers. The pants are a similar material with a black stripe down the side."

I'm guessing these new uniforms are one of Nike's newer, tighter fitting materials, and probably lighter weight and more breathable for increased player comfort. I'll be curious to see how the new piping on the pants looks in an actual game, and how it translates to the all black uniform.

It's a popular time to profile the 2008 defense, with this Dan Collins article about the players and Stan Cotten writing about new defensive coordinator Brad Lambert.

The Demon Deacons will practice again today at 3:30.

Photo by Bob Hebert

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Drew Markham, a prominent member of Wake's online community, has archived video of an impressively large amount of Wake Forest sporting events. Although the majority of his collection is from the 1980's, 90's, and 2000's, he recently obtained some 1960's basketball footage and posted screenshots of some of the action. The screenshots themselves are pretty impressive, and it makes me really want to check out the full video.

Here's some of the stuff he posted:

I have no idea what the ref is up to in this picture, but the thing I thought was cool about it was the old "WFC" logo at center court. Definitely hard to imagine something other than "WFU" for Wake people my age, but it's neat to see every once in awhile. I like the way they connected the three letters up at the top. This picture was from Duke/Wake game in the 1960's.

Two things stand out to me about this image from a Wake/NC State game in Raleigh. In keeping with the theme of the first picture, the first thing I notice is NC State's mid court logo. I've seen a lot of basketball and a lot of basketball courts, but I've never seen a mid court logo that face the baseline instead of the sideline. Anyone know how long NC State had their logo like that? Or why?

The other thing I notice about this picture is that Wake appears to be ahead of its time when it comes to their uniforms. You know those much maligned Wizards alternates with the gold top and black shorts? Unlike many people I happen to like those Wizards uniforms, but regardless it appears they may have drawn their inspiration from the 1960's Deacs. Awesome.


This last picture is said to be from a Wake home game against Duke on February 3, 1960. I am immediately struck by the "H" and "V" painted on the floor on either side of the lane. I have never seen these before, and if I had to guess they indicate that one side of the lane is for one team and one for the other. If this is correct, this rule has entirely changed in today's game. It seems like a set up like that would create an interesting strategy for missing freethrows. Anyone ever seen this anywhere else? Was that really the rule? When did it change? If you have answers to these questions I'd love for you to share.

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