Wake Forest players explain origin, meaning of dugout Polaroids, remembering historic season

Wake Forest has had a storybook season, one the Demon Deacons are hoping to finish off the right way with a College World Series title over the next two weeks in Omaha. And the journey has been captured in a remarkably special way: Wake Forest Polaroids.

Sophomore Chris Katz was watching the San Diego Padres playoff run in 2022 and saw the team snapping Polaroids at various moments. The idea intrigued him. And with the NCAA changing the rules so that props could no longer be used in team celebrations — players have gotten in trouble for so much as handing a home run hitter a sandwich after he rounds the bases — Katz thought adopting the Padres’ technique could be cool.

So Katz got a Polaroid camera and began taking shots of ever big moment in the season.

“They’re awesome,” star pitcher Rhett Lowder said. “Every win we collect, we hang it on the board, and it’s one of the coolest things that I think we’ve ever done.”

The Demon Deacons ran up 45 regular season wins and attached 45 Wake Forest Polaroids to the board, with the regular season record and the caption “Now we go!”

After storming through NCAA Regionals and Super Regionals, Wake Forest has reached the College World Series for the first time since 1955. It’s been a heck of a season. A season that has included the ACC record for home runs falling, courtesy of slugger Brock Wilken, as well as several other notable feats.

Accompanying them all? You guessed it, Wake Forest Polaroids.

“Every personal achievement, like Brock’s a million homers, he gets one for every one of those,” Lowder said. “And then the few that I’ve gotten this year, I get to keep a little memory, and probably give them to my mom or something at the end of the year. It’s pretty cool. Pretty cool little gift.”

Katz posted a thread highlighting some of the Wake Forest Polaroids that have been snapped this season. It’s well worth checking out.

But the bottom line is the Demon Deacons are capturing every step of the 2023 journey live in living color. And no matter what happens the rest of the way, it’s a season they will likely never forget.

“Polaroids are really special. It captures an in-the-moment feeling,” Wilken said. “Not too many people get to see that from the outside perspective. So for the world to get to see that, it’s just a little glimpse of how much fun we have together in the dugout. We have some more Polaroids to put up.”