WAKE FOREST — A professional basketball team will represent the town of Wake Forest in 2021 when the N.C. Capitals come to the area.

The Capitals will be the first semiprofessional basketball team to play for Wake Forest. They will compete in the East Coast Basketball League, which features teams from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia.

The Capitals will participate in the Northwest Division along with the Carolina Chosen Lions, N.C. Coyotes, Hampton Roads Warriors and Petersburg Cavaliers.

DeMarcus Oliver is the team’s owner, general manager and head coach. He is bringing 17 years of coaching experience, most of it from North Carolina.

Owner starts in Oxford

Oliver’s basketball career started when he played for J.F. Webb High School in Oxford. In his senior year, the Warriors won the most games in a season in school history.

Oliver had a scholarship offer from Catawba College, but his oldest son was born the same year. He decided to work and get his career going. At 21, he got into car sales; a year later, he started coaching his 4-year-old son’s basketball team in the Oxford Parks and Recreation program.

From there, Oliver took the job of assistant head coach for Northern Granville Middle School’s boys basketball team. Later on, he became the head coach of Henderson Middle School’s team. Some time later, he became the assistant head coach at Vance-Granville Community College and then was promoted to head coach the same year.

Two years later, Oliver became the assistant coach at the newly founded Raleigh Firebirds semiprofessional basketball team. It plays its home games at Southeast Raleigh High School and is part of The Basketball League.

At the end of his first year with the Firebirds, the team made it to the East Coast Finals where they played in Albany, New York. Later, Oliver became the general manager of the Jamestown Jackals from New York.

Forming a program

Chris Tomlinson, who owns the East Coast Basketball League, reached out to Oliver last November through Instagram, Oliver said. Tomlinson told Oliver he was impressed with what he was doing with the Jackals and wanted him to bring him in as an owner of a team for ECBL.

Oliver’s time with the Jackals came to an end when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in March and shut down the rest of the season. He said time away from the Jackals helped him reflect on what matters most to him.

In July, Oliver picked up the conversation with Tomlinson about owning a team in his home state of North Carolina to be closer to family. On Aug. 20, Oliver got a phone call from ECBL. It had voted him in to be an owner of a semipro basketball team.

“It’s kind of predestined by God’s design,” Oliver said. “I want to give Him all the praise. My passion was to pass on my basketball knowledge and energy to my kids and then it grew from there. I can serve and help the youth. Coaching has always been my passion. I want to use basketball to reach out to the local youth in the community.”

Finding the players

The Capitals held tryouts twice last month. The team will play at the Capital Sportsplex in The Factory.

A last tryout will be held Saturday, Dec. 5, at the team’s official training camp. The registration fee is $185 and the deadline is Thursday. The training camp begins at 12 p.m. at the Capital Sportsplex.

After that, the final roster will be announced via virtual draft Dec. 6. The new player orientation will be Dec. 19. Practices will be held at the Capital Sportsplex in January.

Oliver said he is excited to bring a semipro basketball team to Wake Forest.

“The timing was right,” Oliver said. “Things started happening. Young men are coming out of college to get their basketball playing career started. Four of the guys I’m coaching this year played for me at Vance-Granville Community College.

“This is a great time for the community as a whole. We’ve got a lot of special things that we want to introduce to the Wake Forest area. Wake Forest is the perfect place.”

Community engagement

Sandra Dubose, the team’s director of community relations, said she and the organization are ready to impact Wake Forest in a way never done before by professional sports teams.

“We’re making sure this is a community initiative,” Dubose said. “We want the businesses in Wake Forest to rally around the team. We’ve got everything laid out and set up for this season.”

She said Wake Forest didn’t have professional basketball representation, but the Capitals program had enough connections in the area to build a team.

“We jumped on the opportunity to capitalize on being the first semiprofessional basketball team here in Wake Forest,” Dubose said. It’s about building relationships.”

The Capitals are sponsored by local businesses, including Chick-fil-A, Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott, O2 Fitness and the Fireball Basketball Academy.

O2 Fitness is giving free conditioning and strength workouts to players. Fairfield Inn & Suites is letting the Capitals use its conference rooms for a player meet and greet this week and later for the virtual draft and player orientation.

The Capitals said it will use it’s platform to promote local talent during halftime shows and singing of the national anthem.

“We want to give locals an opportunity to showcase their talent,” Dubose said. “It’s a family-friendly communitywide thing. We hope that will make things more exciting and more different than the typical basketball game.”

Staying healthy

The Capitals said it is taking actions to make sure everyone stays safe and healthy during the pandemic.

“We go through the same procedures and protocols as any other team,” Oliver said. “We keep the guys spaced out with the training drills.”

“We’re doing temperature checks and making sure everyone fills out a form,” Dubose added. “We’re taking precautions, such as everyone wearing masks unless they are playing on the court. Everyone has their own individual bottles of water and equipment.”

Games won’t be played until March. The season will end in June.

The Capitals will receive a schedule from the ECBL in a couple of weeks. There will be eight or 10 home games and seven or eight away games played in 2021.

“We want a local platform to show everyone what kind of talent we have,” Oliver said. “I’m hoping this team can help some guys make it into some bigger leagues either here in the United States or in another country.”

For more information about the N.C. Capitals, visit http://www.northcarolinacapitals.com. The Capitals can also be found on Instagram @NorthCarolinaCapitals.