| Jim Grobe |
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Wake Forest head football coach Jim Grobe is in the midst of piloting the Demon Deacons through the most successful period in school history.
After seven seasons at the helm, Grobe has built a football program that that has been to back-to-back bowl games and proven itself to be an annual contender for the Atlantic Coast Conference championship.
In 2007, Grobe led the Deacons to a 9-4 record including a 24-10 win over Connecticut in the Meineke Car Care Bowl. Combined with last year's 11-3 record, Wake Forest has won 20 games in the last two seasons. Only 18 members of the NCAA's Football Bowl Subdivision have won 20 or more games since the start of the 2006 season. Among the nine wins in 2007 were victories over North Carolina, North Carolina State and Duke. Never before had Wake Forest swept the Tobacco Road series in consecutive seasons. And never before had Wake won as many as 20 games in just two seasons.
During his first seven seasons at Wake, Grobe has set numerous milestones that were never previously achieved by a Deacon football coach. Grobe has taken the Deacons to back-to-back bowl games for the first time in school history. He is the only coach to take Wake Forest to three bowl games in a career. And, with a 46-39 record in seven seasons with the Deacons, he is the first coach in over 50 years to have a career mark of seven games over .500.
The success of the Deacons in 2007 came as no surprise to those who have watched Grobe build the Wake Forest program from the ground up. In his first five years on the job, Grobe was busy building respectability. In the last two years, he has been busy chasing championships.
The 2006 season was one to remember for all Wake Forest fans. Grobe led Wake Forest to its second-ever ACC Championship and its first since 1970. The Deacons won the ACC's Atlantic Division title after being picked to finish last by the league's media in the preseason. The 11 wins posted by the 2006 team set a school record as Wake was the most improved team in the nation, following a 4-7 record in 2005. The Deacs were ranked in the AP top 25 for nine straight weeks in 2006, the longest streak in school history and beat Florida State in Tallahassee for the first time since 1959 while posting their first win over N.C. State in Raleigh since 1984. Grobe's hard work was rewarded by his unanimous selection as the ACC Coach of the Year. He was selected as the National Coach of the Year by the American Football Coaches Association, the Bobby Dodd Foundation, the Associated Press, The Sporting News and CBS Sportsline.com.
Grobe was hired in December 2000 to take over a Demon Deacon football program long regarded as an afterthought in the ACC. He inherited a Wake Forest program that won only 38 games in the 1990's.
Football observers have recognized Grobe's efforts in transforming Wake Forest into one of the rising programs, not just in the ACC, but on a regional and national basis.
The levels of excitement and expectation surrounding Demon Deacon football have reached unprecedented heights. That is a tribute to Grobe and his staff who believe the best is yet to come.
Grobe, 56, has gained a national reputation as a builder of programs.
He came to Wake Forest after turning a struggling Ohio University program into a contender for the Mid-American Conference championship.
In the six seasons before Grobe left his assistant's position at the Air Force Academy to become Ohio University's head coach, the Bobcats won nine games. In the six years under Grobe, they won 33 and finished with winning records in the Mid-American Conference five straight seasons.
Grobe coached at Ohio for six years (1995-2000). After taking over the reigns of a program that went 0-11 and was ranked last among Division I-A programs in 1994, Grobe led the Bobcats to a cumulative six-year record of 33-33-1.
A 1975 University of Virginia graduate, Grobe gained valuable experience as an assistant to Fisher DeBerry at the Air Force Academy prior to going to Ohio. He served as linebackers coach from 1984 to 1994, during which time the Falcons produced a record of 84-50 and appeared in seven bowl games.
Grobe was born on Feb. 17, 1952. A native of Huntington, W. Va., Grobe earned his undergraduate degree (B.S.) in education from Virginia in 1975 and earned a Master's degree in guidance and counseling in 1978.
He and his wife, Holly, are the parents of two boys, Matt and Ben, and have two grandchildren.
