For a brief few years in the mid-1950s Wake Forest and the area experienced a complete disruption as Wake Forest College moved to Winston-Salem. The change was particularly evident to sports fans used to the excitement of the Southern Conference and later the Atlantic Coast Conference sports on their doorstep. At the time Wake Forest ranked as one of the Big Four schools with Duke, N.C. State and UNC.
Then in 1956 the college moved to Winston-Salem and the area fans had to begin cheering for the local boys at Wake Forest High and Youngsville High.
On Sunday, Sept. 26, the Wake Forest Historical Association will sponsor a panel discussion about those days, those athletes, and that glory.
The panelists will be Curtis Harrison, Larry Lindsey, Al Merritt and Jack Murdock with Louis Jackson as moderator. The hope is that others with fond memories of those days will attend to add names and recollections.
Harrison played on the first Wake Forest High School team, the ???? , when Wake Forest College football player and graduate Tony Trentini started the first program. The Trentini name is still revered in Wake Forest because his coaching and moral ethics were so well remembered his former players formed a foundation to provide scholarships for local Wake Forest High students.
Lindsey is the legendary Youngsville and Wake Forest basketball coach. He played for Youngsville High in the 1950s, then returned to lead the 1968 and 1970 Youngsville teams to state 1-A titles. He was lured away to Wake Forest-Rolesville High and continued, grabbing five 2-A titles with Cougar teams in 1971, 1972, 1973, 1978 and 1979, and in the year WF-R was ranked with 3-A teams, 1977, his team took that title also.
Merritt is a graduate of DuBois High School, still a devoted fan of that school’s Lions, and has been following local sports for 55 years as the production manager for The Wake Forest Weekly.
Murdock was an All-ACC guard and a teammate of Dickie Hemric when the Wake Forest Demon Deacons played in Gore Gym, now Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary’s Ledford Center. Murdock one made 39 straight free throws.
People who have moved to Wake Forest since the 1950s find it hard to understand how the college dominated the town, filling the streets, shops, restaurants and boarding houses with students and providing the excitement of top collegiate competition in sports.
In 1955, Wake Forest College boasted of three All-American athletes, each in a different sport. The Demon Deacon baseball team won the NCAA championship –and today no other ACC team has done that.
Dickie Hemric was an All-ACC and All-American basketball player, and he played his last game in Gore in 1955 before graduating and joining the Boston Celtics. Along with talent and hard work, some of his success came from the coaching of Horace “Bones” McKinney, who joined Head Coach Murray Greason’s staff for the 1952-1953 season. Bones had played six seasons in the NBA and he taught Hemric all the tricks of the trade from the big show.
Even if you are not a rabid college basketball fan you will enjoy the 2009 column by the ACC’s Jim Sumner about Dickie Hamric. See http://www.theacc.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/020409aae.html.
The Sept. 26 program will begin at 3 p.m. in the new Wake Forest Historical Museum on North Main Street behind the Calvin Jones House. Parking is available on the street and behind the museum with entry from Juniper Avenue.
The program is free and open to the public. There will be refreshments and memberships in the Wake Forest Historical Association, $10 per year, will be available.
The association was established in 2007 with its primary purpose to promote the history of the town of Wake Forest and the surrounding area. The association works to achieve this by fostering interest in the community history through its quarterly meetings, each of them focusing on a different subject of historical interest.