Wake Forest Finds Football Radio Analyst Provided Game Plans To Opponents

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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