A former Wake Forest student will appear on NBC’s Today Show Thursday to talk about a sexual assault incident she alleges took place on March 19th, 2009, Wake Forest fan site Blogger So Dear reports. The former student reportedly says she was raped by two members of the Demon Deacons basketball team the day before their first-round NCAA tournament game against Cleveland State.
You may recall that Cleveland State upset the fourth-seeded Demon Deacons that day 84-69 before going on to lose to Arizona in the second round. The loss for Wake Forest was surprising not only because they were a highly-seeded team, but also because they were blown out in embarrassing fashion. Wake went 24-7 that year, it’s best of the three seasons under coach Dino Gaudio.
Some of their players that year included future NBA players Jeff Teague, James Johnson, Al-Farouq Aminu, and Ish Smith. While nobody has been accused of anything just yet, we take all allegations of sexual assault extremely seriously here at LBS. Of course there are two sides to every story, but nevertheless we take all allegations seriously as should any school.
We have reached out to the Today Show for confirmation of the report. As of now, we can share the evidence Blogger So Dear has, and that is that the programming guide on TV Guide and DirecTV says a topic on Thursday’s show will be sexual assault. They also share a Facebook post in the National Coalition Against Violent Athletes group that says:
“The NCAVA has been aching to announce this: Tune in to the Today Show this Thursday at 7:45am ET to watch a very determined, strong and special young woman talk about her rape by basketball players at Wake Forest University. We are privileged and proud to work with such an extraordinary woman and her incredible family.”
Here’s the confirmation from TV Guide’s website:
Looks like we’ll have to tune into the show Thursday to find out more details.
UPDATE: The Winston-Salem Journal has details on the allegation.
