As the son of Wake Forest alumni, as well as a lifelong Deacons’ fan, Drew Weaver never envisioned himself playing golf outside the ACC.

Until the past year, that would have ruled out Virginia Tech.

Tech had not joined the ACC officially when it began its pursuit of Weaver, but impending membership proved timely when the Hokies took a commitment from Weaver.

With Division I-A schools being limited to 4-1/2 scholarships, and that’s for the schools that are fully funded, it is a rare recruit who gets a full scholarship. Weaver, winner of the North-South Junior and the Donald Ross Junior, got a full ride from Tech.

“It didn’t have to be full for me to go somewhere,” said Weaver, a senior at High Point (N.C.) Central High School. “My parents talked about it and that was something we didn’t want to hinder my decision.”

Weaver’s mother feared that her son had become brain-washed.

“We’d lived in High Point since he was six weeks old and taken him to Wake Forest games,” Cathy Weaver said, “Then it came time to look at colleges and we finally said, ‘Listen, we’ve probably done you a terrible disservice by taking him to all these Wake functions. You need to step back and look at all the schools equally.’ ”

Drew Weaver had a connection to Tech in that High Point Country Club pro Jim Brotherton had played at Tech for Jay Hardwick, the same coach who was recruiting Weaver.

“The fact that I got my offer in the spring, when I was playing poorly, assured me that Coach Hardwick knew that I had a lot of talent,” said Weaver, who missed the cut by one stroke in the Scott Robertson Memorial in Roanoke.

The schools that interested Weaver most were Wake Forest, North Carolina, N.C. State and Tech.

Weaver’s mother, a free-lance writer with a background in newspapers, and his father, a family-practice doctor, had hoped for selfish reasons that they could join him on a visit Notre Dame.

“I said, ‘Drew, how many times in your life are you going to be courted by Notre Dame?’ ” Cathy said, “and he just said, ‘I don’t want to go to Notre Dame.’ I think part of it was, they weren’t in the ACC.”

Recruiting

In the week leading up to its football game with Virginia, North Carolina received oral commitments from the 28th- and 31st-rated players on The Roanoke Times’ list of the top prospects in Virginia, linebacker E.J. Wilson from Brunswick County and quarterback Bobby Rome from Granby High School in Norfolk. . . . Defensive back Devon Fentress from Deep Creek in Chesapeake committed to Penn State.

In basketball

Expected at Virginia Tech this weekend on official visits are basketball prospects Zarron Cann, a 6-foot-5 forward from Brandon, Fla., and 6-10 Calvin Hampton from New Hampton (N.H.) Prep and Oxon Hill, Md.

Tech is also back in the mix for 6-8 Jerome Johnson, who signed with Clemson last summer out of the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., but is now prepping at Hargrave Military Academy, whose team was at the Tech-Western Michigan football game last week.

-After taking an oral commitment Tuesday from 6-10 Sam Warren from Greenwood Village, Colo., Virginia will entertain 6-8 Alfred Aboya and 6-5 Mamadi Diane on official visits this weekend. Aboya, rated the No. 48 prospect in the country by Prep Stars, is from the Tilton (N.H.) School. Diane plays at DeMatha in Hyattsville, Md.

-Warren’s father, Rudy Woods, was the 73rd player selected in the 1982 NBA Draft. Woods, who played at Texas A&M from 1978-82, holds the school record for field-goal percentage in a career (58.4) and is second in blocked shots, fifth in rebounds and 10th in scoring.

Duke hurting

Cedric Dargan, who rushed for 114 yards in Duke’s opener, did not play Saturday against Connecticut due to foot and calf problems, and both Dargan and defensive back Kenneth Stanford are “very doubtful” for the Blue Devils’ visit to Virginia Tech on Saturday, coach Ted Roof said Wednesday.

Stanford, the 2003 team leader in pass breakups, has a bruised shoulder. Against UConn, Duke lost defensive end Philip Alexander, who led the Blue Devils in tackles for loss. Alexander, who underwent surgery Tuesday for a broken fibula, is a candidate for a hardship appeal that would enable him to return in 2005.

Select company

Wake Forest junior Cory Randolph on Saturday became the third player in ACC history to rush for as many as 300 yards (344) and pass for as many 100 yards (107) in game. The first two were Florida State’s Charlie Ward in 1992 and Clemson’s Woodrow Dantzler in 2001.