Wake Forest University has fired one of its football team’s radio analysts, who the school says provided game plans to its opponents. Tommy Elrod is a former player for the Wake Forest Deacons. He had also been doing radio analysis at Wake Forest games, until a school investigation concluded that Elrod had provided play sheets to rival teams.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A little sports espionage story now from North Carolina – a scandal at Wake Forest University that is nicknamed…
SCOTT HAMILTON: Wakeyleaks.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
That was Scott Hamilton. He’s a sports columnist with The Winston-Salem Journal. He says the leaks in Wakeyleaks came from one of the football team’s radio broadcasters, a color analyst named Tommy Elrod.
SIEGEL: This week, the university accused Elrod of betraying the team.
HAMILTON: He was divulging details about the game plan to the opponent prior to games.
CORNISH: Yesterday, Wake Forest said they found evidence that he had been sharing game plans as far back as 2014, and they fired Elrod.
SIEGEL: Now, before calling Wake Forest games as a broadcaster, Elrod worked as an assistant coach for the team for more than a decade. And Hamilton says Elrod even played quarterback for the black and gold Wake Forest Demon Deacons.
HAMILTON: He’s from Florida, but he was baptized in black and gold.
CORNISH: Hamilton says the irony in all of this is that Wake Forest has actually had a decent football season.
SIEGEL: And later this month, Wake Forest will play in the Military Bowl in Annapolis.
HAMILTON: People aren’t talking about the ball game. Twenty-four hours ago, that was the buzz. Now it’s Wakeyleaks. Go figure.
CORNISH: So far, Tommy Elrod has not publicly commented on the story, and sports columnist Scott Hamilton only reached Elrod’s lawyer.
SIEGEL: Hamilton says there are a lot of unanswered questions, like what’ll happen to the schools that received the leaked plays? And if the university’s accusations are true, what could have been the motive?
CORNISH: Hamilton says he knows Elrod personally, and so he’s puzzled himself.
HAMILTON: It’s just a bizarre, bizarre story that gets more bizarre by the minute.
SIEGEL: Scott Hamilton, sports columnist at The Winston-Salem Journal and radio host.
CORNISH: He says there’s a lot of speculation about why this might have happened. In a statement, the head football coach called the news simply incomprehensible.
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