Wingate football to make national television debut next Thursday

Bulldogs to make first national TV appearance in Sept. 24 game at Tusculum on FSN

Chris Siers
Staff Writer

On Sept. 24, the Wingate University football team will be featured on a national TV outlet, whose parent company is CBS. Wingate will travel to Greenville, Tennessee for a showdown with the Tusculum Pioneers. Senior captain Aaron Plyler says, “This game is just as important as any other game. It will be a different atmosphere with it being televised but we will we prepare just like any other game and come out determined to go 1-0.”
Wingate will be sending students to the game on a tour bus sponsored by the Campus Activities Board and the Student Government Association. The two organizations rented out a 57-seat bus to accommodate the students interested in traveling with the team, free of charge to students.
Senior captain Tylan Merkerson said, “You spend your whole life waiting for a chance to play sports on TV. At this level of competition (Division II) where televised games don’t come as often, it’s a pretty big deal when the opportunity does come. Most
importantly, we must take care of winning. Despite the excitement of playing on TV, we really do have to block out distractions and focus on winning a football game.”
The televised game presents a great opportunity for not only Wingate students and athletes, but also prospective high school athletes. Senior captain Ben Benshoof said, “We’re all excited about the chance to play on national TV. Tusculum is a great place to play so the atmosphere is going to be wild. We will finally be able show the nation how strong and determined our team and our conference is.”
SGA Athletics Chair TJ Yacenda said, “This is a great opportunity to show the nation that Wingate has a great football team, and really will get viewers to hopefully look more into Wingate athletics.”
Wingate has posted a record of 2-1 so far in the season, beating both West Georgia and North Greenville. The Bulldog squad dominated both teams on both sides of the ball, but fell to UNC Pembroke in a barnburner on Saturday. Wingate dominated Pembroke until the fourth quarter when the Braves rallied to score 21 unanswered points to win the game, 24-13.
The Bulldogs have a bye this week before the televised game. The extra off time will provide more practice time, and time to work out all the kinks before the big game. By giving an extra week before the big game, Wingate will be able to process the mistakes against Pembroke, and focus on Tusculum.
In the 2008 season, Wingate defeated Tusculum 37-34, which was part of the Bulldogs’ seven-in-a-row win streak. The Bulldogs are looking to repeat their victory at Tusculum this year, and bring new attention to Wingate athletics.
By showing the game on TV, Division II football will get a chance to showcase to prospective athletes that they can play in college. “By showing the game on TV, it shows to potential recruits that there are levels of competition beyond Division I in collegiate athletics,” said Yacenda,” and not only are they picking any team, they’re picking Wingate, which is a pretty good representation of Division II football.”
Anyone interested supporting the Bulldogs on the big night of TV and hard playing football, be sure to contact Sarah Smith with the CAB, or Yacenda with the SGA for more information.