Pre-game warm up

I walked into Circuit City this morning to buy the cheapest, smallest radio I could find. All the TVs were tuned to ESPN's College GameDay, broadcasting on this, the first college football Saturday of the 2006 season, from the University of Michigan.

If College GameDay ever broadcasts from Wake Forest, I might break down in tears. Shoot, if College GameDay ever broadcasts from the state of North Carolina, I might break down.

I was buying a radio in the first place because, even though North Carolina might not be the center of the football universe, this is a big weekend for its college football teams. UNC opens at home against Rutgers at 3. Traditional HBCU rivals Winston-Salem State and NC A&T* face each other tonight for the first time in years; A&T moved up to I-AA a few years ago, while WSSU just made the jump this year.

And speaking of I-AA, the reigning I-AA national champion Appalachian State Mountaineers come down off their mountain and head to Raleigh for NC State's home opener.

NC State is led by head coach Chuck Amato, an alum and the defensive coordinator on Florida State's powerhouse teams of the 1990s. Amato promised big things for the Wolfpack, and the Wolfpack faithful rewarded him with a massive expansion and renovation project for Carter-Finley Stadium.

Those big things have yet to arrive, and last season was considered a disappointment despite winning a bowl game. Chuck is also a little too . . . we'll say colorful . . . to sit well with some of the Wolfpack's boosters. Amato wore bright red shoes. He wore sunglasses, night games and indoor games included. Plus, there's a story making the rounds that claims Amato tried to woo a recruit from South Carolina by telling him he needed to go to an in-state school.

Is that story true? Probably not. Does his wardrobe have anything to do with his coaching? I doubt it. But it sure does make an easy target for the rest of us.

Appalachian, meanwhile, won their first national title this year after a thrilling run through the I-AA playoffs, which included an injury to their star quarterback and three-year captain Richie Williams. That injury led to backup Trey Elder, who's this year's starter, taking the reins and leading them to a win in the semi-final game. Elder started the championship game, too, and played adequately. Adequately wasn't going to cut it, though, so in came Williams for one of the all-time great Willis Reed moments in college football.

I really like Appalachian State football. For years Wake opened the season against them to see who held the 'Northwest NC' title; more often than not, Appalachian did. My in-laws met while student at Appalachian, which might seem a strange reason to like a team, but if they hadn't met there, I'd have never met my wife. My younger sister just graduated from Appalachian, and I managed to make it up to Boone for a few of their games. Their fans are great. They take over the town. Last year I went to their late-November matchup with Southern Conference rival Western Carolina. This may be one of the great small-college rivalries in all sports. The winner of the game gets to take home the Little Brown Jug, which looks exactly like you'd think a prize fought for by two mountain colleges would. Before the game they played on the scoreboard a video with highlight clips from past games, set to "Dueling Banjos." The temperature was in the 40s, but plenty of guys were so fortified with whiskey that they stripped down to t-shirts. The crowd was fantastic - enthusiastic, knowledgeable about the game, excited just to be there. And Appalachian won going away.

The Wolfpack and the Mountaineers kick off at 6 tonight, just half an hour before the Wake game starts, and I want the radio so I can keep an ear on that game while I'm watching Wake's. And if the I-AA National Champion Mountaineers somehow pull off the upset against Wake's ACC rival NC State, it'll make a good day a whole lot better.

Meanwhile, in 6 hours and 33 minutes, Wake Forest kicks off against the Syracuse Orangemen.

Jim Brown. Ernie Davis. Donovan McNabb. All were Syracuse Orangemen.

But I get to use the past tense in that last sentence, and none of those guys are going to be on the field at Groves Stadium tonight.

This year's Orangemen, in fact, were ranked #5 in ESPN's preseason 'Bottom 10' teams in the country. We shouldn't be worried, but we're Wake Forest fans - we always have reason to worry. Last year Wake opened at home against Vanderbilt, subject of dozens of Lewis Grizzard jokes. We knew going in that Vandy had a pretty good quarterback, some kid named Jay Cutler*, but we figured, Come on - it's Vanderbilt. But we're Wake Forest, and though we played them tough to the very end, Cutler picked apart our secondary and the Commodores took home the win.

Syracuse has a new defensive coordinator and a lot of tradition, and the Big East proved last year to be a better football conference than anybody expected. Wake returns 18 starters from last year, the highest number of any ACC team, and nothing helps a team like experience - except for speed, size, and good coaching, of course. We'll see what happens in six hours and twenty-five minutes.

* A&T filled an empty spot in Wake's schedule a few years back. My daughter, who wants to be a vet, saw the Aggies' bulldog mascot and they've been her favorite team since then.

* Jay Cutler was the Denver Broncos' first-round pick in this year's NFL draft, and so far has impressed everyone who's seen him play. He impressed the hell out of Wake fans last year; his accuracy is scary. He's one of those guys you end up wanting to succeed, because then it proves that he was that good and your team wasn't that bad.

My SEC friends sound off

I work for an independent publisher that specializes in books about the Southeast (www.blairpub.com - don't tell me about your manuscript; read the guidelines). Last year the Southeastern Booksellers' Association had their trade show and convention here in Winston-Salem, on the same weekend as Wake's home opener. Booksellers, publishers, and others in the book business came from all over the South, including the part that's south or west of the Appalachians - SEC country. Since several of them are friends of mine, and I know them to be football fans, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek piece for our website, comparing the rich tradition and pageantry of Wake Forest football to the humble, unassuming fall gatherings in places like Athens, Gainesville, Tuscaloosa, Knoxville, Baton Rouge. I just didn't want them to be shocked by the rabid hordes that invade Winston-Salem when the Deacons play.

So you'd think they'd know that I understand Wake's place in the college football universe, but no sooner had I announced my first post for this blog than I began to get questions along the lines of "why don't you find a roundball to write about?" and "Isn't that like a Tampa Bay Devil Rays fan writing about baseball?"

Thanks, guys, but that's kind of the point of this here Deaconball: to find out why on earth anyone would fall in love with college football if they're a Wake Forest fan. I know it must seem strange to anyone who grew up in SEC towns, or might-as-well-be-SEC towns like Clemson, which becomes the 3rd largest city in South Carolina on game days, but Wake Forest does have fans who are just as passionate about their team as 'Bama, LSU, or Tennessee does.

We just don't have as many of them. Blame it on our high academic standards.

I was partly inspired to write this blog by two recent and very enjoyable books: Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer (http://www.alabamabooksmith.com/NASApp/store/Product?s=showproduct&isbn=0609607081) by Warren St. John, about the RVers who follow the Crimson Tide to every game, home or away; and To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever (http://www.parkroadbooks.com/NASApp/store/Search;jsessionid=aPp9q4jxl-Zh3JYoM1) by Will Blythe, about the UNC-Duke rivalry in college basketball* (I don't remember that he ever mentions football). Both books, in addition to being loving tributes to the authors' respective home states, chronicle and attempt to explain the unreasoning devotion inspired by the teams in question.

Wake Forest fans, though, piss on the so-called 'unreasoning devotion' of fans of Alabama football or Duke or Carolina basketball*. Unreasoning devotion? Those programs win - a lot, all the time; they win conference championships, national championships, multiple championships. What's unreasonable about that? Where does devotion come into play? You've got plenty of company on those bandwagons.

It takes guts, and faith, to be a Demon Deacon fan. It takes patience. The wins are sweeter because they are fewer and farther between, and because of the odds the team must overcome to earn them.

Meanwhile, the ACC opens up the 2006 season tonight with Boston College against Central Michigan. The SEC opens with South Carolina and the Ol' Ball Coach at Mississippi State. And there's 2 days and 27 minutes until kickoff at Groves Stadium.

* One of the infuriating things about sharing a spot in the ACC's Big Four with Duke and Carolina is the maddeningly consistent high quality of their basketball rivalry. Only recently have I been able to let go of my dislike of both teams and just enjoy some fantastic college basketball.

* Actually, Wake fans would be happy to piss on Carolina and/or Duke fans, period.

But it's football . . . It's college football . . .

That's what I said in September, 1991, just a couple of weeks into my sophomore year at Wake Forest. I was standing in the middle of my suite, about to go tailgate before the Deacons' home opener, and I was gobsmacked. None - not one - of the 5 other guys in my suite were going to the game. They were going to spend a fall Saturday doing something other than watching college football, and I just couldn't wrap my mind around it.

What do you mean you're not going to the game? What possibly could be a better way to spend a fall Saturday? Hanging out with your girlfriend? Well, why isn't she going to the game? Studying? Come on.

This is sad to admit, but I almost couldn't see the point of going to college if you weren't going to go to college football games.

That moment produced my first beginnings of an inkling of a thought that college football, for me and many others, had become a phenomenon whose dimensions made absolutely no sense. By confronting people - buddies, even - who did not and did not want to take part, who had chosen this rejection casually and without a second thought, I had to take a step outside my love for football and take a look at it, especially all of its ridiculous contradictions:

I'm a lifelong fan of Wake Forest. They're not exactly a football powerhouse; in fact, for a while they held the title for fewest wins in the history of NCAA Division I. I'm a native of North Carolina, a state that's hard to top for college basketball, but hardly the first place you think of when someone brings up big-time college football.

I never played high school, much less college, football - too slow for the skill positions, too skinny for the line.

In the abstract, I hate what TV and booster money have done to big-time college sports, the way they've professionalized what started as an extracurricular diversion for student. On the other hand, I sure do love being able to watch SEC games, games from the West Coast, more bowl games than anyone could possibly need, and of course, Demon Deacon road games.

I know I'm supposed to hate the hypocrisy that's so often produced by big-time athletics at academic institutions, but like the late, great Bear Bryant said, "It's kind of hard to rally 'round a math class." And who am I to argue with the Bear?

I recognize that football, of all the major sports, applies the most pressure to conform, to submit yourself to the organization, and to let the game consume your life. I listen to the Clash; I'm not supposed to love a sport that does all that.

But I buy the preseason magazines at the end of every spring, even though injuries and suspensions have already made half their predictions obsolete. I check www.wakeforestsports.com almost every day. I listen to sports talk radio, lurk on the message boards and know that I'm not the only one. I plan the tailgate. I count down the days:

3 days, 57 minutes to kickoff.

Coming soon . . .

Four days, five hours, and 47 minutes to kickoff. Check back soon.