During Wake Forest’s training camp, players had to wake up every day at 6 a.m. for two weeks. While most on the team complained, juniors Codi Miller-McIntyre, Andre Washington and freshman Greg McClinton joked about how it was like sleeping in for them.

Miller-McIntyre, Washington and McClinton all attended Hargrave (Virginia) Military Academy for their senior years of high school. There, they had to be in full uniform and lined up outside by the time the Demon Deacons players were just waking up this preseason.

“I think those guys enjoyed their time there,” Wake Forest head coach Danny Manning said, “but I think they’re pretty happy they’re not there anymore with those early morning trumpet calls they had to do.”

The structure and discipline at Hargrave was unlike anything these three players had experienced before. Practicing twice a day, lifting weights four times a week and going to bed at 10 p.m., mixed in with military training and school, helped instill skills that have led to their success in college. Miller-McIntyre is second on the team in scoring and rebounding, and while Washington’s and McClinton’s stats are far from eye-popping, all three said what they learned at Hargrave has significantly influenced their careers.

On Tuesday, this trio and the rest of the Demon Deacons (9-8, 1-3 Atlantic Coast) will take on Syracuse (12-4, 3-0) in the Carrier Dome at 8 p.m., and look to hand the Orange its first conference loss.

“Andre Washington, he’s like – well, not like, he is my brother,” Miller-McIntyre said. “… Being here at Wake Forest for three years now, it’s just a bond that’s unbreakable because of how much stuff we went through.”

At Wake Forest, unless players have class together, they mainly only see their teammates during practice, Washington said. At Hargrave, he said players spent all of their time together, which helped build chemistry among them.

The two future Wake Forest players roomed right next to each other and they grew even closer as a result. Their birthdays are one day apart, and they’ve celebrated together each of the past three years. After graduating from Hargrave, they went to Miami to celebrate.

Looking back, McClinton said he and his teammates laugh about the challenges they faced at the military school, but recognize the more serious effects on mental preparation. The majority of each day at Hargrave was structured, so players had no choice but to use their time efficiently.

“Just how the school worked with the timing of a bell goes off, you have to be somewhere,” Miller-McIntyre said. “Then another bell goes off, you have to be somewhere else.”

Miller-McIntyre said it’s nice to know McClinton had a similar experience in his senior year of high school. Washington added that his teammates at Hargrave were closer than any other team he’s been a part of.

Hargrave Head Coach A.W. Hamilton graduated from the school in 1999 and played two seasons at Wake Forest before transferring. Anytime a player would ask him about the college, Hamilton would talk about the opportunities at an underdog school like WFU.

Miller-McIntyre and Washington have been right at the forefront of Wake Forest’s turnaround. After finishing worst in the ACC in 2010-11, the Demon Deacons were above .500 last season for the first time since then. And it is their on-court chemistry that has led to success.

“When one of them would get down, the other one would pick them up and vice versa,” Hamilton said of Miller-McIntyre and Washington. “So it was a special thing to watch those guys grow and you can see it now even when they play games, the chemistry they have is a really special thing.”

Published on January 13, 2015 at 12:10 am

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