Wingate University Athletics Director Steve Poston and Head Football Coach Joe Reich announced the 2018 Wingate Football schedule in March. For the first time since 2002, Wingate University’s football team will have the upperhand of playing seven home games.
Coach Reich explained how the Bulldogs got lucky, “When we look for games sometimes we take what we can get. Last year we had a bye week but we also played the first two games on the road so we only had four home games in the regular season. When the scheduled flipped we immediately had six home games,” said Reich.
Coach Reich also said that,“Florida Tech really needed a game and was willing to come up here and play us at home so that’s how we got to seven. Florida Tech is a top quality out-of-conference opponent who will be a great new challenge. We know UNC Pembroke will be tough as well.”
The Bulldogs have played six home games on eight occasions, the most recent being in 2016. The Bulldogs will play a senior college school-record seven home games, beginning with a Thursday, August 30 contest versus local rival Johnson C. Smith at Irwin Belk Stadium and John R. Martin Field (7 p.m. start time).
“We are looking forward to opening on a Thursday night,” said Reich. “This will be a nice change up…having seven home games will be a good thing for us as well.”
Wingate will see many benefits from the seven home games and has many plans in store. The Bulldogs will host their annual special events throughout the 2018 home schedule including Church Youth Day, Patriots’ Day and Tailgating for the Troops. These events will influence larger crowds just as last year when the Bulldogs sold-out the first night game to ever be hosted by Wingate.
“The best thing about having seven home games would be that we wouldn’t have to travel as much plus it will be more fun for the school,” said Domineke McNeill, a sophomore running back. “Hearing the crowd pushes us more to be more physical and make more plays but for the other team they tend to get scared and fold.”
General admission season tickets range from $40 for adults and $20 for non-Wingate students. Single game tickets are $12 for adult and $8 for non-Wingate students. For more ticket or schedule information go to www.wingatebulldogs.com. We hope you join us this year as we continue to make history!
Both Wingate Golf teams had strong showings this year at the SAC Tournament with the women taking the title and the men finishing third in the competition. The women’s championships, hosted by Newberry at Member’s Club at Woodcreek, was a runaway with the Bulldogs winning by a whopping 26 strokes. They were led by sophomore Mind Puangcharoen, who won the individual title with her 54-hole total of 232, edging out Queens junior Cameryn Smith by just one stroke.
Coach Erin Thorne said the team, “Couldn’t be happier,” for Puangcharoen, who also grabbed her first career collegiate win at the championships. Laura Nunez Rodriguez and Diana McDonald also had strong performances, finishing tied for fourth with each other and giving Wingate three golfers on the All-Tournament first team. The women will travel to Germantown, TN for the NCAA Division II Championships hosted by Christian Brothers University at Germantown Country Club.
The men improved on a disappointing tenth place finish last season, finishing in third and putting three golfers in the Top 15 of the individual rankings. The Bulldogs finished with a total of 891 at Cobb’s Glen Country Club in Anderson, SC, 13 strokes short of champion Carson-Newman, and were unable to qualify for the NCAA Championships. Coach John Hackney, in his first year at the helm, expressed the disappointment that the team felt after the finish, “We were disappointed not to win, obviously, because we knew that’s what we needed to get to the tournament.”
The team was led by fifth place finisher Charles Joubert, who tallied an even-par 216 for the three days and made the All-Tournament First Team. The Bulldogs had a one-shot lead heading into the back nine on Tuesday, but played holes 11-14 at eight over par and could not recover. Coach Hackney believes the team will use this experience and improve coming next season. “We will be even better next year and be ready to make a postseason appearance.”
The Wingate Bulldogs men’s lacrosse team is hoping to take advantage of some home field advantage throughout the South Atlantic Conference tournament here at Graham Gill Field this weekend.
The Bulldogs, 9-5 overall and 7-1 in the SAC, are hosting the Final Four of the Tournament this weekend. Wingate had a bye round in the quarterfinals by earning the No. 2 seed in the conference. The team has caught fire at the right moment, winning five straight heading into the tournament, the most recent win coming in a close battle on Saturday, a 10-9 home victory over Queens, which is the tournament’s top seed.
Wingate plays No. 3 seed Lincoln Memorial University (14-3) today at 1:30 p.m., a rematch which had the Bulldogs winning 11-10 on March 31.
“Everybody is ready and excited to play LMU again and I think we have a pretty good chance of going to the championship,” said senior Marc James.
Junior Christian Hall added, “We just don’t want the year to end.”
The Wingate-LMU winner will play the winner of the semifinal game between Queens and No. 4 Lenoir-Rhyne for the championship on Sunday.
Since the fall of 2016, the Leo club has been continuing its growth at Wingate and looks towards the upcoming changes and growth opportunities that are coming into the near future.The Leo club is an organization that looks to educate the student body about the visually impaired. It is also a community service organization.
“It’s a mixture of service and educating ourselves and the campus about those topics. We have monthly meetings to discuss how we can impact our community with our projects. Coming up, we have a Roadside cleanup day on April 21st.” Senior Leah Joyner said.
The club has made strides in their successful community projects and have worked closely with clubs such as the Lion Club in recent time.
The group is very active and continuing to grow. There is still much planned for the club in the future too. “We have not begun planning for the fall yet, but will definitely have the letters to Soldiers event where students can write letters to Soldiers for Christmas. We may also do reading buddy services for the Wingate Elementary School as well as other visual- awareness related projects.” President Gabrielle Slabaugh said.
Joyner and Slabaugh also discussed their favorite moments in the club this year. “I liked being a part of something bigger than myself by participating in a team to accomplish common objectives. Out of the many events we have done with the Leo club, I enjoyed volunteering at the letters to soldier’s event last November. It was great way to interact with people who all wanted to write a thank you letter to a soldier and hear their stories.” Joyner said.
“My favorite event this calendar year was our Visual Olympics event where we hosted different challenges to spread awareness of various visual maladies. I believe there are pictures of that on our social media; if you can’t find them, let me know. Leo Club is focused on the same service areas that the international Lions Club is focused on, specifically community service through recycling and awareness of and aid to the blind.” Slabaugh said.
Even though the Leo Club is still a new organization, the impact the club is having on campus and in the community is continuing to grow.
Instead of walking out of class, walk up to a student who is isolated and be nice to them. While this seems like a good idea at first, when it is looked deeper into it, this is victim blaming.
The entire point of the walk out was for students to take a stand as they feel that the Government is not doing their job of taking care of this situation. After the shooting on February 14th in Parkland, Florida, students have begun to demand better reform on gun laws and for people in control to stand up.
Instead of helping the students, people are choosing to call out students. Telling them to walk up instead of out is such a typical thing for today’s conservative Americans who like to ignore real everyday situations.
The youth of today is trying to stand for something they believe in and are asking for support from the American community only for them to be told that they are in the wrong.
It’s not unusual for people to try and change a movement to become inclusive to all. For example, “All lives matter!”, which was used to combat the “exclusive” political stand of “Black lives matter.”
They chose to ignore the problems at hand and make them into something that will bring less attention. Once students began to express that they were going to walk out and protest gun violence people on social media began to tell them how the idea was wrong. Telling students to walk up, not out began to spread on social media and soon enough everyone was posting about it trying to ignore the real problem at hand.
Is walking up going to show the government that we need reforms on guns or that the students are sick of being ignored and told they are too young to have opinions? Walking out is something that allows them to protest and make headlines.
Walking up is victim-blaming. Yes, it wouldn’t hurt kids to be nicer, but telling them that they are the cause of school shootings is wrong. Walking up is suggesting that the kids who have died in these shootings would have lived if they had been “nicer.”
This is also making kids across America feel more excluded and seemingly like an outcast even more. The logic of a walk up is telling students to walk up to the kids that they feel like would be the ones to bring a gun to school.
Imagine being one of those misjudged kids to get on social media and see that the kids only came up to you because they fear that you would kill them. This hashtag is telling students that it is their fault that school shootings are happening. This entire trend is taking away from the fact that the problem we face is an epidemic of gun violence and is placing the blame on students.
They act as if the entire problem of gun violence can be solved by just being nicer to people.
There’s a big difference between love and hate when it comes to being an athlete. The path every athlete takes isn’t the same and the reasoning for the things they do aren’t always the same either. I talked with Wingate assistant basketball coach Marcus Kirkland to get to know more about him and his journey to becoming a basketball coach.
Coach Kirkland was born in Genoa, Italy, where his dad was a professional basketball player as well as in the NBA with the Philadelphia 76ers. Guess it’s not too hard to see where his basketball genes came from. Coach Kirkland said that, “Being around my dad as a younger child always just inspired me to want to be just like him, but better” is what pushed him to be as good as he could be in the game.
Coach Kirkland played his college ball at Hampton University in Virginia. Standing at 6-foot-4 l with a 40-inch standing vertical, his career didn’t just stop once he graduated from Hampton. Coach Kirkland had the nasty go to move where he faked the middle, drove the baseline and punched it down on the other side of the rim that made fans go crazy.
What he dreamed about doing as a little kid was finally becoming a reality when he got the opportunity to play professional basketball overseas. Coach Kirkland played 6 years of professional basketball in two different cities. His first stop was Rome where he made more of a name for himself before making that transition to Milan where they paid the big bucks.
Being an athlete people always tell you to have a back up plan because you never know what could happen on any given day. Well, that was the case with Coach Kirkland and he had his back up plan in place. After 6 years of ball, a gruesome injury to his leg cut his career short to the point where he couldn’t play basketball anymore.
He then began coaching at Reading College in Reading, PA before coming to Wingate University in 2010. It takes a lot to coach and mentor young men and that’s something Kirkland cherishes when it comes to his job. Coach Kirkland said, “I love to shape, mold and mentor, watching young men become men.”
Growing up in life you have to learn how to make tough decisions and sometimes those tough decisions could hurt the people you care about. Coaching isn’t easy and when you are teaching men to become men, you have to also treat them that way. Coach Kirkland said, “The hard conversations about life, grades, performances, the things young adults might not want to here about but they are important. Maybe the parents aren’t happy about something and you have to handle that.” Talking to Coach Kirkland really helped me and motivated me to strive and also helped me understand how to handle certain situations.
Edited by Brendan Shriver
Photo Credits to Wingate University Sports Information
This past week, all of the Greek organizations at Wingate University gathered together to celebrate Greek week. Greek week is an annual event on campus where the organizations get together and compete in events to win a trophy and a winning title.
The first events began Tuesday around 5pm. Organizations presented their tokens they crafted while dressing in 70’s themed clothing. These tokens made up of a album cover and record decorated by each organization. Chi Omega took the win for the Token making.
Shortly after, the next event took place, which was the cardboard boat races. Each organization had only 30 minutes to build a boat using just two pool noodles, Cardboard, and Duct Tape. Sadly, only 1 boat made it to the end.
Chi Omega had the fastest time and walked away with two wins. Wednesdays events was a Trivia match and the theme was 50’s attire. Chi Omega won with Pi Kappa Phi following behind them.
Thursday was many people’s favorite event, The annual Variety Show. Each organization was paired with another and they had to prepare 15 minutes of dancing under several guidelines.
Tri Sigma and Kappa Alpha Order getting ready to perform their Variety Show Routine
Alpha Xi Delta and Alpha Omicron Pi came up with a catchy dance to some of their favorite songs from the decades. Chi Omega and Pi Kappa Phi wowed the crowd with some intense dance moves and a stunt that left the crowd going wild.
Lastly the sisters of Sigma Sigma Sigma and the brothers of Kappa Alpha Order performed a creative routine where they traveled through TV land dancing to all of their favorite television hits. The results came in and Tri Sigma and Kappa Alpha Order took the win with their routine.
Fridays event was the Window Painting contest in front of Starbucks, The winners were Alpha Xi Delta, second Chi Omega, and third Alpha Omicron Pi.
Chi Omega-Greek Week Champions
Finally, on Saturday all of the organizations gathered at Campus Lake to finish off with several minutes-to-win-it games. After the games, the Greek Week Champion was announced. This years’s winner was the sisters of Chi Omega!
These girls were so happy to win again! I asked senior, Mackenzie Ponds, memeber of Chi Omega, how she felt when they announced her chapter had won. She said “I was very proud and excited for our chapter. This was my third time winning in my four years on campus. It gets more exciting every year to find out who will win. We put in a lot of work for greek week and hearing that we won is always a great feeling”.
The organizations then took a special moment to recognize Diana Coyle for all of her hard work and sending her farewells after working with Wingate Greek Life for the past 8 years. Everyone gathered in a circle while the sisters of Chi Omega sang their farewell song “shades”, since Diana is a former Chi Omega.
I was able to get an interview with her and asked what she loved most about Greek Week and what she would miss most about Wingate Greek life Community. She said “This year’s closing ceremony for Greek Week will go down as one of my fondest memories. Seeing the community all come together to celebrate as I prepare for my next big step in my career was bittersweet. I will remember the laughs of the minute-to-win-it games and the enjoyment of free food from Two Chicks and a Truck, I will even recall the misty rain that was taking place during the event. As a Chi Omega, having my sisters sing our special song, Shades, to me was the icing on the cake. As my final Greek Week at Wingate came to a close, I definitely realized it would be my favorite one to date.”
Diana said she would miss the family aspect of what Greek Life is, she came from a chapter with 100+ members so working with the small chapters here at Wingate helped to create a closer bond.
Diana gave some great advice, she says “As a sorority women, I continue to be amazed by what the connection of sorority life has offered me. Being able to build off that common life connection is magical, I love being able to share that network with collegiate women and the 80-year-old woman in the airport that is wearing her sorority letters. I encourage all members to hold their membership close to their heart, and to be grateful for all it provides to you.”
I also had the opportunity to talk to several members from other organizations to get their favorite memories from Greek week. Overall everyone had a great time getting to know other organizations better than they did when the week started. This years Greek week, was one for the books!
“I think my favorite memory is the variety show, because it was so much fun dancing and learning the routines with everyone. I also love how we came together as a community here at Wingate.” – Mckelvey Stone (Kappa Alpha Order) Freshman.
“My favorite part of Greek Week is the spirit aspect! I loved being able to dress up in decades themes with all of my sisters. It was fun to see the creativeness of what people wore, and how they used our themes of the 50’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s to show off their personal style and creativeness!” –Amanda Alling (Chi Omega) Senior.
