Gold Rush - June 2020

'A SPECIAL TIME A SPECIAL PLACE'

WAKE FOREST FOOTBALL CELEBRATES 50TH ANNIVERSARY OF FIRST-EVER ACC CHAMPIONSHIP

Larry Russell’s game-winning pass to Ken Garrett in the win over NC State.

‘NO ONE EXPECTED US TO WIN THAT YEAR. IT JUST HAPPENED TO WORK OUT THAT WAY.’

"Fifty years…” Larry Hopkins, the soft-spoken, bulldog of a running back for the first-ever Wake Forest ACC Championship football team, almost seemed to be questioning the math on how many years have now passed since a most improbable title run in 1970.

“That’s outrageous,” Hopkins says now. “No one expected us to win that year. It just happened to work out that way.”

Certainly, there had been many lean years in the previous decade, but the move to Groves Stadium in 1968 and the hiring of Cal Stoll as the new head coach the next year started to change the vibe.

There were still plenty of skeptics, however, including the predictions in Playboy’s annual College Football Pigskin Preview regarding the Deacons: “No offense. No defense. No hope.”

Linebacker Ed Bradley said that turned out to be a rallying cry for the 1970 season, when Wake Forest won its last five ACC games, including exciting wins at home over North Carolina and NC State, to claim the championship with a 5-1 record (6-5 overall).

“That used to be a big deal talking about the top 10 teams and individual conferences,” Bradley said of the magazine. “They got down to that line about Wake, and Cal Stoll got a hold of it, and that set him off. That got to be a mantra for our team.”

Ask any of the players about that 1970 team, and they’re quick to say that Stoll set the tone upon his arrival the previous year.

Quarterback Larry Russell remembered from the time Stoll arrived in January 1969 through spring practice that he ran off about 30 percent of the team.

“He was tough,” Russell said. “Cal would say you’re like a blade of grass. You die a little bit and grow a little bit every day. So I‘m going to grow a little bit. We all did. Cal taught us to do that, not just in football but in life.”

Head Coach Cal Still

Bradley recalled the offseason program and fourhour practices.

“It was stuff you couldn’t get away with today,” Bradley said. “Cal and his staff kicked our butts.”

Oval Jaynes, who coached the quarterbacks and running backs while calling the plays, said that although Stoll was very demanding, “he really was a player’s coach. They loved him. They’d run through the wall for him.”

Hopkins agreed.

“We just went out and gave it all we could,” he said. “That was Cal Stoll. He and the coaches got us in shape and got us ready to win. We made it through those hard practices, and it was like we came together to help one another. We were like family. Everyone contributed.”

Although Wake Forest got off to an 0-3 start in 1970 with losses at Nebraska, South Carolina and Florida State, a switch in offense from the wishbone to the veer late in the game against the Gamecocks – which turned out to be the team’s lone league loss – proved to be one of the key moves of the season.

“We had a young football team coming Head Coach Cal Stoll back in 1970,” Jaynes said, “and one of the biggest things we did that winter was recruiting two junior college running backs in Hopkins and (Ken) Garrett. We only ran five plays (with the veer) against Florida State and could have won the game. I knew then we were going to have a pretty good team, and next week we beat Virginia and got on a roll.”

Although the Deacons rolled 27-7 in Charlottesville, a brilliant triumph for the team and Russell turned tragic on the way home when his girlfriend, Marty Hill, died in a single-car accident.

“Quite honestly, that was a catalyst for me,” said Russell, who called her father from a pay phone along the Virginia highway to deliver the heart-wrenching news and then flew back home to Massachusetts to speak at her funeral.

“We were just 30 minutes out of Charlottesville when that happened,” Bradley recalled. “The remainder of the ride back was stone silence, some sobbing. That was a galvanizing moment for us coming together. That was another brick in the wall.”

Wake Forest rallied behind its quarterback with three straight home wins, steamrolling Virginia Tech (28-9) and Clemson (36- 20) before the dramatic 14-13 victory over the Tar Heels when the Deacons drove the length of the field in the final three minutes to win just before the final horn.

Another scintillating comeback win two weeks later against NC State (16-13) capped the perfect home slate. With its 5-1 league record, Wake Forest needed North Carolina to beat Duke on the season’s final weekend to secure the ACC crown, and that’s exactly what happened.

Coach Cal Stoll has a conversation with a referee.

Meanwhile, that night the Deacons closed out the season with a nonconference game in the Astrodome against Houston.

“That’s the only time I pulled for Carolina in my life,” said Jody Puckett, an assistant trainer under the legendary Doc Martin. “We knew it before the game. We had a telephone hookup at the hotel where we were staying in Houston and knew we were ACC champions before we took the field.”

Bradley described the scene when the team flew home and landed at Smith Reynolds Airport.

“We got on team buses to get over to campus and students were there in mass,” he said. “We were ACC champions and all the Wake supporters were there to greet us. That was a great memory.”

And now, a half a century after the school’s first ACC championship, plans have been made for a 50th anniversary reunion during the weekend of the Villanova game on Sept. 19.

Don Brown, a linebacker on the 1970 team, has headed up a small committee including players living in the area such as Bradley, Hopkins and Sammy Rothrock, which has put together a schedule of golf on Friday, followed by a reception that evening at Bridger Field House, a Saturday tailgate and introductions of each of the returning players and coaches during the game.

Brown said that before the coronavirus hit in March, he had heard from more than 50 players and coaches (with that total more than doubling including family members) saying they would attend.

“I know quite a few are planning to come,” Russell said. “We’ve got a lot of good memories and are good friends forever.”

As you might expect, this tight-knit team has stayed in touch with other reunions and gatherings over the years.

Larry Hopkins

“We’ve remained close,” Bradley said. “We’re in a generation now with all the technology, it’s so easy to drop somebody a text, email or make a phone call.”

Speaking of technology, Hopkins added, “I’ve got a tape that shows the 1970 highlights, but it’s all reel to reel. I’ve got to get it transferred over so I can distribute it to the guys.”

There have been so many changes since that storybook season for Wake Forest, including the magical second ACC championship in 2006 when the Deacons went to the Orange Bowl while winning a school-record 11 games, and stunning facility improvements in the last 15 years.

“Facilities-wise, we’re now one of the top campuses in the country,” Hopkins said. “You have to remember we used to have to go in the weight room at various times because they didn’t have enough of everything for us. They’ve got everything over there now for those kids.”

But the 1970 Deacons still managed to overcome the obstacles that came their way.

“I think we played with a chip on our shoulder,” Bradley said. “It was a brutal offseason, and with all the players that got weeded out, those of us left were hardened. We weren’t big physically and maybe weren’t extremely talented or fast, but we did have skills and ability. And we had toughness that was hammered into us by Coach Stoll and staff.” Russell said that it was a different day, a different dynamic. “It was a special time, a special place,” Russell said. “You can’t duplicate it.”