Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Radford High School alum Wayne Lineburg has found a new home as an assistant coach at Wake Forest University after two years at the University of Connecticut.
Twenty-five years ago, Wayne Lineburg was putting on a Radford High School black and gold uniform for another football season in the New River Valley.
Now, he is back in the “black and gold” as a member of the coaching staff at Wake Forest. Lineburg was an all-district quarterback during his time at Radford.
Coming to the Winston-Salem school was a no brainer for him, as he is no stranger to Wake Forest coach Dave Clauson, serving as his offensive coordinator and running backs coach in 2004 at Richmond.
“I am very pleased to have Wayne join our staff. He is familiar with our offensive system and will be an asset in mentoring our tight ends and also coordinating our special teams,” Clawson said.
During their time together, the Spiders set school records for total offense and touchdowns scored.
A 1996 graduate of Virginia, Lineburg was a four-year quarterback for the Cavaliers and played on three bowl teams.
He started his career in 1996 as an assistant coach at William & Mary before returning to Virginia in 1998 as a graduate assistant coach. He rejoined William & Mary as a running backs coach and recruiting coordinator in 2000 before joining Clawson’s staff at Richmond.
Lineburg then spent three seasons at the UVA, serving as the receiver and running backs. He then returned to Richmond where he served in various roles including offensive coordinator, quarterbacks coach, running backs coach, recruiting coordinator, associate head coach and interim head coach.
The coaching carousel, then took him to the University of Connecticut in 2014 where he became the special teams’ coordinator. He also helped with receivers and last year with the team’s quarterbacks.
“I have learned a lot from other people at each of those stops. It (college football coaching) is a very humbly profession. Every step, I have tried to get a little better,” Lineburg said.
Of course, he learned a lot from his father who spent the past 37 years as the head coach at Radford and coached a Virginia High School League-record 484 games. He retired in 2006 after starting his coaching career as an assistant in 1959 at Andrew Lewis High School and was inducted into the Virginia High School Hall of Fame in 1996.
“He was a huge influence in my life, and one of the biggest lessons I learned from him was to care for your players, really care for them,” the younger Lineburg said.
He also points to his father’s energy and enthusiasm every day of his dad’s coaching career,
His father’s example is something that Wayne Lineburg hopes to bring to his new coaching gig. “I come to work every day and treat the kids in the right way. I just hope to attract talented kids that are good students to Wake Forest,” he said.
It was an easy decision for Lineburg to come to Wake. “It’s a great school. I’m back in the ACC and close to home” (106 miles to be exact).
Wake Forest opens fall practice this weekend and will face Presbyterian August 31 to start the 2017 season. Lineburg hopes a lot of his “Radford family” will be in the stands in black and gold for that game and many more this season.
For now, he is focused on being the best assistant coach and recruiter that he can be at Wake Forest. But in the back of his mind, he would love one day to be given a chance to be a head coach on the collegiate level—maybe in black and gold.