📍 Winston-Salem, North Carolina
⚾ Home of Wake Forest Demon Deacons baseball

Located adjacent to Wake Forest’s other off-campus athletic facilities, David F. Couch Ballpark has played a pivotal role in the Winston-Salem baseball scene since its construction in 1956. Host to the city’s minor league teams for most of its life, the stadium is now a strictly college venue, becoming the full-time home of Demon Deacons baseball in 2009.

Settling in for the 1957 season, Winston’s Carolina League franchise played uninterrupted for more than half a century at the ballpark. The club went by several monikers during that time, including the Red Birds, Red Sox, Spirits and Warthogs, before rebranding as the Dash and moving to a new downtown facility in 2010.

Meanwhile, Wake Forest – despite being an original tenant of the ballpark on Deacon Boulevard – moved on-campus to Gene Hooks Stadium in 1981. A nearby barebones facility that didn’t have lights and required the Deacs to still play marquee nighttime games at their old home, the stadium was deemed more than inadequate for ACC baseball and the team moved back to the Couch after buying the ballpark outright in 2009.

Known for a long time as Ernie Shore Field, the stadium was renamed in 2016 in honor of philanthropist and former Wake Forest player David Couch. That same year, the venue received some extensive upgrades and improvements to help modernize both the fan and player experiences. Today, the park features a contemporary design, including a bullpen party deck and seating enough for 3,800 excited Deacon fans.

Wake has been a fixture in the college baseball world since the program’s inception in 1891, making them one of the oldest teams in the NCAA. As members of the SoCon and the ACC over the last century, the Demon Deacons have won six conference championships and appeared in over a dozen NCAA tournaments, clinching the 1955 College World Series trophy. Although they had been trending down for decades ever since, the diamond Deacs have experienced a resurgence in recent years, capped by a trip to Omaha in 2023.

As the Deacons continue the fight to recapture their former glory, the passionate Wake Forest fans will likewise continue to fill up the Couch and provide their boys a great atmosphere to play in. While the ballpark itself may be quaint, the energy for ACC games here in Winston-Salem are always charged with excitement – and often with cheers of victory.