Thank You, Jeffrey! Lifelong Demon Deacon Jeffrey Griffin Announces Retirement as Public Address Announcer for Wake Forest Athletics

• Interested applicants to be the new public address announcer for the Demon Deacons should email Associate AD Daniel Watkins (watkinj@wfu.edu) and Assistant AD Lonnie Penner (pennerl@wfu.edu).  

A more than two-decade career that began with a mysterious impromptu audition will come to an end this March, as Jeffrey Griffin steps away from his role at public address announcer for Wake Forest Athletics. 
 
With his wife Vikki in attendance, Griffin plans to walk off the Joel Coliseum floor for his final game hand-in-hand with his daughter, Sophia, and son, Miles, as they embark on new family adventures in the coming years. 
 
“I told them all I want them to be there, for us all to walk out together,” Griffin said. “They know that’s coming. You don’t have forever with your children. We don’t want to get 10 years down the road and look back wishing we had that time back. 
 
“Between now and when our children get grown and live their own lives, we’re going to go 500 miles an hour and do as much as we can with our children and friends. This is like we’re jumping in one race car to another, but we’re just going down a different road now.”
 
Griffin’s public address announcing journey began in the fall of 2001, the first season of the Skip Prosser Era of men’s basketball. He started announcing football the subsequent fall and in recent years has taken on the task for women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, volleyball, field hockey and both tennis programs. 
 

Over the course of a year, Griffin is the public address announcer for around 100 events for football, men’s & women’s basketball, men’s and women’s soccer, field hockey, volleyball and some tennis matches as well.
 
“I’ve never known the answer to it,” Griffin said with a laugh when asked how he started with the Demon Deacons 22 years ago. His mother was the choir director at Maple Springs United Methodist Church, where former Wake Forest dean of admissions William Starling also attended, with his wife (Elinor Wallace Starling) a member of the choir. When Dean Starling tragically passed away in June of 2001, Griffin was asked to sing at his funeral at Wait Chapel. 
 
“The chapel was packed, because so many people loved Bill and he meant so much to Wake Forest,” Griffin said. 
 
A few months later, Griffin received a call from a church friend who also happened to work at…