Bill's Bowl Blog

How about ‘Fearsome Friars?’

Just as it may be inexplicable to outsiders that a barnyard animal would be on the sidelines at a Navy football game, so too have I been mystified by Wake Forest’s team name ever since I first heard it earlier today. Accordingly, a mission to Wikipedia was in order, where I learned that Wake Forest’s players originally were the “Fighting Baptists” — which is a pretty terrifying nickname for any committed drinker of booze. After a big win over the Duke Blue Devils in 1923, however, a newspaper reporter wrote that Wake Forest’s players had “fought like demons,” which gave rise to the team’s current name, the Demon Deacons. I also learn from the Inter-Tubes that the mascot, a man wearing a giant foam head, rides onto the athletic field atop a motorcycle, which, I would imagine, yields several rounds’ worth of hearty huzzahs from the students.