Sports > March 6, 2008

By Connor Swarbrick | Asst. sports editor

He might be more of a staple at Deacon basketball games than the players and coaches. He dons the signature tie-dye T-shirt and matching hat, along with his Demon Deacon glasses. During a timeout late in the second half his music comes on and all 29,382 eyes looks his way. He brings the stadium to life. He is “Naz-T Deac.”

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(Jeff Merski/Old Gold & Black)

While Deacon fans may only know him as “Naz-T,” his friends and coworkers call him Noel.

Noel Shepherd, a 1990 graduate, has been attending Wake Forest sporting events ever since he stepped onto the campus as a freshman. Simply put, he loves this place.

While Shepherd has been attending games for the last 22 years, “Naz-T” has only been around for the past five. The routine started by coincidence. When Skip Prosser arrived on campus, he and the marketing department had a goal of energizing Lawrence Joel Memorial Coliseum. They wanted to create a true ACC home court. The “Screamin’ Demons” played a big role in that.

Shepherd had always been vocal, but inspired by the new atmosphere that Prosser was creating, he decided to take his game to a whole new level. When they began to play “Jump Around” during timeouts late in the fourth quarter, Noel would start dancing around in his seat and getting the people around him involved.

One day, someone had to get out of their seat during “Jump Around,” so Shepherd courteously moved out of the way.

In doing so took his dance moves into the aisle. And the rest, as they say, is history.

“I was dancing and people on the other side started egging me on. So I was like, okay, I’ll put on a little show,” Shepherd said. “I just kept doing it and it was amazing because every single game it was like one more section would notice and people would start yelling and screaming at me, so I just kept on doing it.”

Shepherd says he has always loved rap and R&B, and those musical genres are the inspiration for both his nickname and his dance moves. In college, the name “Naz-T” began as a rap-inspired nickname that was a joke among his friends. It was a knock off of popular artist “Ice-T.” As for the moves, Shepherd explains that they are to the product of twin passions – dancing and making people laugh.

“You look at a short overweight bald white guy and all of a sudden he starts busting some moves and it makes people get into it, laugh and have a good time,” Shepherd said.

“So I don’t mind sacrificing my body for that.” When he is not doing his signature sprinkler move and riling up Tie-Dye Nation, Shepherd works for the local NBC affiliate WXII. He is in advertising sales for the station and Wake Forest is one of his clients.

This is yet another way for Shepherd to immerse himself in the Wake Forest atmosphere. He even works on video board production. Shepherd uses this time to get to know the players and coaches he so ardently supports.

“Everybody is so fantastic, the people are phenomenal and that’s one of the reasons I love everything about Wake Forest,” Shepherd said.

Working with the team also gave Shepherd a chance to get to know the late Skip Prosser.

“It was very touching to me when they honored Skip Prosser this year because I knew Skip outside the court too,” Shepherd said. “I considered him a friend and he was always so great to me. He would always joke with me and say ‘hey, maybe one day I can be as famous as you are, Noel.’”

Prosser, known for his great sense of humor, once thanked Shepherd for sacrificing so much for Wake Forest by explaining that he knew that as a consequence of Shepherd’s unwavering support there was no woman that would ever go out with him. Shepherd says that is when he realized why he isn’t married yet.

Shepherd has seen upsets of the Blue Devils and great players like Tim Duncan, Randolph Childress, Josh Howard and Chris Paul and he has even seen ACC championships.

But perhaps Shepherd’s favorite moment did not come at a game where he was a fan. It came in a pick-up game in Reynolds Gymnasium his freshman year.

Shepherd said he had a miserable game and probably got the ball stolen 50 times. But, it didn’t matter because his opponent was his idol: Mugsy Bogues. Bogues was a senior and guarded Shepherd during that pick-up game that he will never forget.

“I was just smiling the whole time because this was my idol coming into Wake Forest and I was playing pickup basketball with him; I could care less what I was doing during the game,” Shepard said.

Shepherd is not just a basketball fan. He also attends all the football games and you can frequently find him in the stands at baseball, volleyball, soccer or for that matter, any other sporting event were there are Deacons competing between the lines.

“I just think we are so lucky to have the people that we have right now. To me this is kind of wrapping around a golden age of Wake Forest athletics because we have taken off in some sports and we are really starting to take off in others. It’s just fantastic,” Shepherd said.

He also believes that the small school environment creates a special atmosphere.

“The atmosphere is small enough to the point where you feel like you have a personal connection,” Shepherd said.

As for the “Naz-T Deac” routine, Shepherd says he plans to continue doing it, under one condition: that people continue to enjoy it.

“I don’t mind being a fool as long as people like what I’m doing. It really gets me excited to see little 8-year-old kids coming up and showing me how they do the sprinkler move and at the same time a 70 or 80-year-old couple will tell me how much they love to watch me dance because it makes them laugh. That’s the kind of thing I really enjoy,” Shepherd said. “So if I can add to the atmosphere, that just makes me really happy.”

And it is what makes Deacon fans everywhere happy too.