About Dan Collins

Friends in the newspaper business marvel at how good I've got it, covering Wake Forest for the Winston-Salem Journal. I tell them it's the best beat in college sports.

Well, with the launch of our new blog, the best beat is getting better.

Born in Franklin, N.C. and educated at a state university in the geographic center of North Carolina that will remain nameless, I began writing for the Journal in 1978. In 1992, the year Ron Wellman was hired as director of athletics, I was assigned the Wake Forest beat. Nice timing.

In the 16 years since, I've gotten to know countless coaches, players and fans of Wake Forest. With this new venture, I should expand the circle. That's a hope, as well as an intention.

Another goal is to give you a little closer, more intimate look at Wake Forest sports, from the wall alongside the football practice field to the pull-out bleachers of Budd Gymnasium, where Dino Gaudio and his staff put the Deacons' basketball team through their daily paces. No school in the ACC allows a writer as much access as Wake Forest grants me.

It's an arrangement I have always felt benefits both the Journal and its readers. The best, again, is getting better.