In recognition of his competitive excellence and considerable charity, Wake Forest retired the No. 3 jersey of NBA All-Star Chris Paul (’07) in a halftime ceremony during Saturday’s home game against Maryland.

Chris Paul (’07), a former Wake Forest basketball star who now plays for the L.A. Clippers, wasn’t dressed as Santa Claus, but for the children eagerly anticipating his arrival at Toys R Us in Winston-Salem last week, he was as welcome as the real thing.

Established in 2005, the Dean’s Cup recognizes the Wake Forest athletic team with the highest grade point average each academic year.

Recently, men’s track and field/cross country and women’s golf celebrated a three-peat.  Each team has captured three consecutive titles.

Emily Wright, a junior on the women’s golf team had a perfect 4.0 GPA last semester and shares her advice, “Sacrifices need to be made, and often times these are leisure activities. I try to focus on what needs to be done on a given day as time management is particularly important as a student-athlete.”

Many Wake Forest athletes not only seek high GPAs, but also find time to give back to their communities.

Wright

Despite a busy class and athletic schedule, Wright works as a peer tutor and volunteer in the emergency room at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. Upon graduation, she hopes to attend medical school and specialize in the cardio-surgery field.

“This shows that our students can excel in both academics and sports,” head women’s golf coach Dianne Dailey said. “On a typical tournament week, we are out of town for four and a half days at a time between the travel, practice rounds and three rounds of competition. As a coach, we do what we can to ensure our athletes have time for their studies whether it is providing them with Internet in the vans or finding a few hours between rounds to complete their work.”

Loeser

Paul Loeser, a 2012 Wake Forest graduate and former member of the track and field/cross country team was a key player for the team’s three straight Dean’s Cups. Loeser graduated with a cumulative GPA of 3.91 as a biology and spanish double major.

In his time away from the track field and the library, he tutored children at El Buen Pastor and served the homeless as a part of Wake Saturdays. As a result of his continued service, he was a two-time recipient of the ACC’s Top Six for Service Award.

“The Dean’s Cup exemplifies what we strive for as an athletic team at Wake Forest,” said John Millar, director of the men’s track & field/cross country team. “It is very exciting for our program to have won the award three years in a row and shows academics and athletics can go hand-in-hand if our athletes use the resources available to them.”

The success the teams find quickly translates to incoming players. As Student Athlete Services Assistant Director Sherry Long said, “The guys are very driven and goal-oriented. Those who aren’t as naturally driven in the classroom when they first arrive quickly become inspired by the work ethic of the other guys on the team. It’s contagious.”

President Nathan Hatch is involved in decisions at the highest levels of collegiate athletics and academics today. He recently sat down to discuss the latest developments in intercollegiate sports, leadership and academics.

Q: ACC Commissioner John Swofford acknowledged your pivotal role in bringing Notre Dame to the conference. Given your previous role as provost, dean and faculty member at Notre Dame, what is your unique perspective on this historic move and what does it means for Wake Forest?

A: It has been my distinct privilege to have grown up in the heart of ACC country and to have represented the fine institutions of Wake Forest University and the University of Notre Dame for most of my professional career. Personally, the convergence of these three things – Wake Forest, Notre Dame and the ACC – is quite terrific.

When the 4x4x4 committee¹ asked Clemson President Jim Barker and me to join John Swofford in discussions with Notre Dame, I was both honored and glad to do so. Whenever there are delicate negotiations, it helps when you know someone. I knew all the parties in this discussion and have a longstanding relationship with President John Jenkins.

As I said in the news conference, the institutions in the ACC and Notre Dame share a belief in the balance of academics, athletics and integrity. Keeping that strong blend is something we take particular pride in at Wake Forest. Bringing Notre Dame to the ACC only reinforces that distinctive. We believe in doing things right. We’re committed to the well-being of student-athletes. We are serious about becoming better universities.

In these ways and more, Notre Dame is an excellent fit for our conference, and I look forward to welcoming the Fighting Irish to Winston-Salem again. And since I have the floor, it’s worth noting that I also look forward to a Demon Deacon victory in South Bend on November 17.

Read more of President Hatch’s perspective in this USA Today article written by Tom O’Toole (’78, P ’07).

¹ The ACC’s 4x4x4 committee is comprised of four university presidents, four athletic directors and four faculty representatives, each from one of the ACC’s schools before Notre Dame’s joining the conference.

Q: “Academics, athletics and integrity.” What do you think the state of college athletics is today, and where does Wake Forest fit into that picture?

A: Many strains weigh on collegiate athletics today, including commercialism, winning at all costs, the treatment of student-athletes. At Wake Forest, athletics is a great source of pride, but we are also careful to keep it in its proper role within the greater institution. We have seen what can happen when this balance is not sustained.

There is a misinformed narrative that intercollegiate athletics today is worse than before. Rather, I believe that overall, college athletics is in a stronger position than ever before. Of course, when there are problems or scandals, they become so public in this interconnected age. But when you consider the NCAA’s ongoing reform efforts, continual improvements for student-athletes, and higher graduation rates, it paints a pretty good picture. For example, Wake Forest has the second highest percentage of varsity teams with perfect Graduation Success Rate scores in all of Division I sports. Our goal is to serve as a model for what intercollegiate athletics can be.

Read the NCAA profile on President Hatch’s longtime interest in sports.

Q: As chair of the NCAA Division I Board, what priorities will you focus on during your two-year term?

A: Under the leadership of President Mark Emmert, the NCAA has a reform agenda that began about a year ago. Reform efforts span academics, playing standards, transfer students, and perhaps most significantly, new baselines for what it means for teams to compete in NCAA championships. These are significant efforts.

In the coming year, the NCAA is streamlining its enforcement efforts by taking a 1,000-page rulebook and simplifying it drastically. The process of establishing core principles instead of focusing on minute details is complicated. In doing so, the NCAA hopes to make enforcement more transparent so that people will know the range of penalties for certain violations. It also will speed up related processes.

Right now, the NCAA is also doing a lot to improve the well-being of student-athletes. For example, there are serious efforts in football around the issue of head injuries. Wake Forest, in partnership with Virginia Tech, is a leader in this important area of research. For women’s athletics, ACL injuries are another area of focus. I certainly applaud those efforts and the national studies that assist individual colleges and universities in addressing these chronic issues with student-athletes.

Learn more about the Wake Forest and Virginia Tech’s research on head impact exposure in youth football from ESPN.

Q: You also currently serve as chair of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. What is your personal approach to leadership?

A: Max DuPree said, “The first job of a leader is to define reality.” That is, understanding where an organization is and where it needs to go. This includes having a vision and a collective sense of purpose.

I would add that getting the right people and building a collaborative team is also the sign of a good leader. I’m so blessed at Wake Forest to have strong leaders around me who work collaboratively. I’m convinced that teams of leaders together can do so much more than leaders working in isolation.

I often reflect upon Ralph Waldo Emerson’s certainty that “character is higher than intellect.” If university leaders are to fulfill our highest purpose, we must focus on educating whole people and framing issues of character. It’s a big challenge given the highly professionalized, specialized academic environment in which we live. At Wake Forest, we are trying to address these issues creatively because they are the heart of what we do.

Q: Character is central in educating the whole person, a great passion of yours. What other passions do you envision bringing to life on the Wake Forest campus over the next few years?

A: We have to challenge and encourage students to be able to focus, deliberate, and think deeply about things. In this world of digital connection, continuous partial attention and continual interruption, maintaining that kind of focus is difficult. I don’t think we will have really well-educated people and develop mature leaders unless students can learn to focus. It’s a passion of mine in some measure because I see how easily I can be distracted by a full range of digital connections.

Read President Hatch’s 2012 commencement speech, The Art of Conversation, on this topic.

We also need young people who don’t accept easy answers. I hope our students will read all sides of a position and, at times, agree with both The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Communities of discourse tend to be internal. In other words, one person watches a certain channel with one point of view, while someone else watches another. The upcoming election is a great example. I would encourage students to listen to the best arguments of both sides, not just to caricatures one of the other.  This kind of cultural and political polarization is great danger in our society.  In this vein, I am delighted that Wake Forest is welcoming Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles to campus on September 25.

Finally, Wake Forest is looking at a broad range of issues relating to wellness and well-being. In keeping with our mission to educate the whole person, we want Wake Forest to be where they learn a lifestyle that helps them integrate complexities. Students today have never been under more stress, but this will also be true as they become young professionals. This year, we will talk more about how Wake Forest will help students develop habits of the body that include physical fitness and nutrition, as well as habits of mind that relieve stress and promote relaxation. If we can establish a culture that addresses those issues to and prompts young people to live healthfully – not just in body, but also in spirit – we will have done a great service to our students.

Q: Of course, academics are also central to educating the whole person.

A: I hope Wake Forest will be a place that continues to know the magic between great teachers and great pupils. There’s something about that kind of interaction that is at the heart of quality education. The President of Williams University recently wrote about the irreplaceable value of a student’s relationship with a “living, breathing professor” in The Wall Street Journal. I agree with his suggestion that there’s a deep correlation between improving the skills students really should develop in college – how to write clearly, communicate effectively, and think clearly, among them – and time spent between students and professors. I would hope we nurture great teachers so they can continue inspire students on an ongoing basis. That nexus is at the heart of what we do.

And it’s great to welcome Rogan Kersh (’86), back to Wake Forest as our new Provost and professor of politics and international affairs. Before his return to Wake Forest, Rogan has been a brilliant and captivating teacher at Yale, Syracuse and, most recently, at NYU. Rogan absolutely loves students, and he is a riveting lecturer and a wonderful scholar. He represents the very best of Wake Forest, and I look forward to his leadership of our academic life.

Get to know Provost Kersh.

Q: Do you have any advice for Wake Forest students?

A: Students need to break out of their comfort zone. It’s very easy to say, “I’m good at math or writing or I’m ‘this kind of person,’” and tailor one’s curriculum and social life according to perceived strengths. As I look at people who are really successful, transformative experiences ultimately become very helpful, and often those experiences are completely unexpected.

Say someone wants to go to Wall Street. Perhaps one summer, she should go to a third-world company and do something completely different than a track in finance. Or, if someone has avoided math, science or art, he should delve into those. That’s the beauty of the liberal arts environment Wake Forest offers. By expanding one’s mindset, a person begins to use muscles that previously haven’t been exercised, which can be both surprising and enriching. After all, isn’t that what college is all about?

Wake Forest golf icon Arnold Palmer received the Congressional Gold Medal at a special ceremony at the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 12.

The Congressional Gold Medal is the highest civilian award in the United States, along with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which Palmer received in 2004. He is only the sixth athlete in history to receive the Congressional Gold Medal.

Speaker of the House John Boehner, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi and Senators Mitch McConnell and Harry Reid participated in the ceremony. Support from two-thirds of the Senate and House is required before the bill goes to committee.

“I’m particularly proud of anything that the House and Senate agree on,” Palmer joked. Then, he said, “I am very humbled.”

Palmer’s career includes 62 PGA Tour wins and seven major championship titles. His commitment to children, philanthropy and fans helped him elevate the sport.

“Throughout his life, he’s been a model of integrity, compassion and commitment,” Boehner said.

Last year, Wake Forest named its newly renovated golf complex in honor of Palmer. He paved the way for future generations of Wake Forest golfers, including fellow U.S. Open winners Curtis Strange in the 1980s and Webb Simpson earlier this year.

“When it comes to golf, the Demon Deacons have one of the best traditions in all of college athletics, thanks largely to the legendary Arnold Palmer,” said President Nathan Hatch. “On behalf of the entire Wake Forest community, please join me in congratulating him on his Congressional Gold Medal.”

Learn more information about Palmer’s legacy at Wake Forest »

I will never forget certain things about my first football game as a Demon Deacon, although, to tell you the truth, I can’t remember what team we played or what the final score was. All I really remember is feeling like I was in well over my head. Everyone seemed to know songs that I had never heard, cheers I had never seen and if they weren’t fully clad in black and gold, they likely wore bow ties or sundresses. Clearly, there were things about this school I did not yet understand, but I wanted to learn and fully embrace the Deac culture.

Now that I’m beginning my senior year and fully immersed in the community, I have resolved not to take any of the things that make this school special for granted. I am determined to get the most out of my remaining time here, starting with the season home opener. After all, football games have always been my favorite venue for demonstrating school spirit. As my friends and I celebrated our match-up against Liberty, I couldn’t help but think about the traditions that make Wake unique. So, I entered the first of my last football games with a nostalgic eye open to what it is that can turn such unique individuals into a single Old Gold and Black spirit.

The unifying power of our collective school identity became clear as soon as Liberty got set to kick off. The beat of the fight song turned the crowd into a single force, clapping in rhythm, shaking their keys and joining their voices together, as if to guide the football smoothly into the punt returner’s hands. From that point on, the crowd and players seemed as one, fighting for a common goal and to pronounce our school victorious. As a final celebration of our identity, first-years and seniors alike celebrated as students always have after a win, by rolling the quad.

The enthusiasm surrounding football games may have prompted my nostalgia for Wake Forest traditions, but the home opener is really just a backdrop for the pride that wells up inside all Wake Foresters collectively. Tradition permeates all aspects of our campus lives, not just the games and tailgates. Whether attending the inaugural Lilting Banshees performance or crowding Shorty’s for their first meal of the semester, I see students approaching the new school year with a renewed vigor for all the things that make them Deacs. The enthusiasm and pride that we take in being students here propels us to do great things throughout our community and beyond, and that is what makes Wake Forest a special place.

We are encouraged to forge our own paths and celebrate the differences that make Wake Forest students individuals, but it is the things that link and unify us that I have only just begun to appreciate. Our teams might not always win, just as we may not always find it easy to fulfill the expectations that come with being enrolled at a place with such high standards. But when we graduate, we will define our experience by the things that unified us and remember, above all, the traditions we shared.

Chris Paul scored 11 points to help the U.S. men’s basketball team beat Spain to win gold Sunday at the 2012 London Olympics. The gold medal is the second for Paul, who also played on the U.S. team at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Webb Simpson (’08) watched the final moments of U.S. Open golf action on Sunday sitting in the clubhouse next to his wife, Dowd (’07).

Simpson, playing only his fifth major, already had finished with his second straight round of 68. He and Dowd could only watch and wait to see if Jim Furyk and Graeme McDowell could match his score.

Furyk struggled on the final holes, but McDowell had a 25-foot birdie putt on No. 18 to force a playoff. When it missed, Dowd squeezed Webb’s arm and covered her mouth. Her hand’s attempt to keep her calm was quickly betrayed by a big smile, a shocked Webb said, “Oh, wow,” and they shared a hug and kiss.

Simpson won his first major, becoming only the fifth champion to shoot two rounds in the 60s on the weekend. After finishing second in the FedEx Cup standings last season (behind former Demon Deacon Bill Haas), Simpson, 26, is now firmly entrenched among golf’s top players.

More information

Webb Simpson (right) talks with Arnold Palmer in 2011 when Wake Forest named its newly renovated golf complex in honor of Palmer.

• Learn more about Palmer and his relationship with Wake Forest »
• Current Wake Forest golf headlines »
• See the Wake Forest golf tradition in the record books »

Simpson’s victory came at The Olympic Club in San Francisco, the same course where Wake Forest legend Arnold Palmer suffered one of his most heart-wrenching defeats in 1966. Simpson attended Wake Forest on a scholarship provided by Palmer, and he made sure to give thanks in his victory speech on the 18th green.

“Arnold has been so good to me,” Simpson said. “Just the other day, I read that story and thought about it. He’s meant so much to me and Wake Forest. Hopefully, I can get a little back for him and make him smile.”

Palmer told USA TODAY Sports: ”(Webb’s) a great representative of the game of golf. He’s a wonderful man. And golf is better off for him playing so well.” (read more)

Palmer told John Dell of the Winston-Salem Journal: “(Webb) is an outstanding representative of Wake Forest.” (read more)

Simpson, a Raleigh native, is the third former Wake Forest golfer to win the U.S. Open, following Curtis Strange (1988 and ’89) and Palmer, who won in 1960. Wake Forest golfers have now won 12 major titles.

Simpson closed his final round with a difficult par save from the fringe of the 18th green.

“I’m so happy for Webb,” said Wake Forest coach Jerry Haas (read more from Haas in the Winston-Salem Journal). “His swing looks great, and he looked so composed down the stretch. If you want to sum him up, how about that up-and-down at the last hole? That’s a perfect example of what it takes to win at that level. He’s got a great short game. I’m so proud of him. He’s a great young man and a great ambassador for Wake Forest.”

Webb and Dowd shared the week together, their first time away since 16-month-old son, James, was born. Dowd, though 7½ months pregnant, walked all 72 holes on the hilly course with Webb.

“It was a challenge,” she told ESPN’s Bob Harig (read more). “This golf course is hard to walk whether you are pregnant or not. But I didn’t miss one hole. I was here Thursday to Sunday and just love being able to do that.”

Now she and Webb will have something new for James to play with when they return home to Charlotte — the U.S. Open trophy.

Former Wake Forest track & field standout and Hall of Famer Hunter Kemper qualified for his fourth consecutive trip to the Olympic Games after finishing fifth in the ITU World Triathlon Championship Series. Kemper earned the automatic bid to the London Olympics as the first American to cross the finish line.

Inspiration often comes in unlikely places. For Paul Loeser, a senior cross-country runner, his epiphany hit while on Los Angeles’ Skid Row. Loeser was working with Athletes in Action’s Urban Project when he got the idea to replicate a program he saw there when he returned to Winston-Salem.