After five long years – one pandemic, a brief absence, and 18 finding aids – I have completed processing the Wake Forest University Department of Athletics archival collections! Refresher: In 2020, the department of athletics announced the vacating of several offices from a building on Deacon Boulevard that has since been demolished. Special Collections and Archives was supposed to receive around 70 boxes of audiovisual materials. While our athletics liaison fulfilled that part of the promise, we also came into an extra 150 movers boxes of additional athletics materials, primarily administrative files from the offices of the Men’s and Women’s Golf Coaches, and the former Directors of Women’s Athletics.

The first phase of processing this collection involved organizing all donated materials into similar mediums – because we ended up receiving materials beyond the A/V stuff we were told about, I had to tackle dozens and dozens of boxes of paper files already foldered and labeled. The bulk of these non-A/V materials are season-by-season administrative files for some of the intercollegiate athletic programs, mainly women’s sports and men’s golf, offered by Wake Forest. My first blogpost highlighted the inventorying of all A/V materials that we did receive – a mix of Betamax tapes, VHS, DVDs, and audiocassettes that include game coverage as well as promotional material. Access to the A/V materials will be available on a case-by-case basis and dependent on key factors such as copyright and viewability.

The additional paper materials required the bulk of my time and focus. I used the sports section of the AP stylebook as a guide for description as each sport has it’s own terminology. An interesting situation at Wake presented itself as two of the women’s golf coaches assumed the responsibilities of the Director of Women’s Athletics which explains the breadth of women’s golf materials in addition to overarching operational and departmental files. While we do have similar documents in the collections of other athletics administrators and figureheads such as John Wesley Sawyer, Ed Wilson, and college presidents, James R. Scales, and Nathan Hatch, records from the Director of Women’s Athletics highlights the experiences of women coaches and administrators. Additional materials include the initial budget request to establish a women’s soccer team, as well as operating budgets for other sports, correspondence, scheduling materials, and media guides.

Coverage begins when women’s athletics programs joined conferences for intercollegiate competitions. Most coverage stops during the late 1990s and early 2000s. As aforementioned, the women’s golf coach was also the Director of Women’s Athletics. The last woman to hold the position was Dianne Dailey who decided to retire from her administrative duties to focus on coaching the golf team. The entirety of athletics oversight went to the Director of Athletics.

In addition to women’s intercollegiate sports, there is also a significant amount of records related to the Men’s Golf Team. Beginning when Jesse Haddock assumed the role of coach, men’s golf records include Haddock’s coaching files and records, as well as the files of succeeding coaches Jack Lewis and Jerry Haas. Wake Forest Golf, both men’s and women’s teams, have built impressive legacies for the university. We have photographs and files of former players like Arnold Palmer, Brenda Corrie-Kuehn, Webb Simpson, Cheyenne Woods, and Billy Andrade.

It was interesting to observe the changes and evolution of college sports over such a long time span. Writing historical notes and information appraised me of the early issues with college sports; I consulted the Wake Forest Student magazine and Howler yearbooks for insight into student responses to college sports. During the 1890s and 1900s, WFC faculty and administrators found football too barbaric for its scholars, and they had additional concerns that baseball and basketball, would interfere with academics; very valid concerns, even in the present. Before the formation of intercollegiate sports conferences and structured oversight, schools could and would hire professionals to play on the teams. In general, the integrity of sports as well as the virtue of the players and spectators was threatened by the influence of gambling. Which is also fascinating considering sports betting is now legal and many college programs are being impacted by Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) laws.

Additional collections include Wake Forest Sports Hall of Fame Records, Deacon Club (as part of the development record group), in addition to other operational departments. Other materials researchers will find useful are records documenting the early organization of women’s sports. The ACC was founded in 1953 by Wake Forest and other Southeast institutions, however, the women’s teams did not compete in the ACC until the early 1980s. Most women’s intercollegiate athletic programs were originally part of the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women but that organization dissolved in 1982 and many women’s athletics programs were absorbed by the NCAA and it’s regional conferences.

Listed below are the available Athletics record groups.

• 21.2 Baseball
• 21.3m Basketball, Men
• 21.3w Basketball, Women
• 21.5 Track & Field and Cross Country
• 21.8 Field Hockey
• 21.9 Football
• 21.10m Golf, Men
• 21.10w Golf, Women
• 21.14 Soccer
• 21.15 Sports Information and Promotion
• 21.16 Swimming and Diving
• 21.17m Tennis, Men* (combined)
• 21.17w Tennis, Women* (combined)
• 21.18 Ticket Office
• 21.20 Volleyball
• 21.21 Women’s Athletics, Director of
• 21.24 Athletics Director
  • 21.24.1 Sports Hall of Fame
• 21.26 Development