With 126 ACC championships and one of the most prominent men’s basketball programs in the nation, Duke has made it easy for varsity athletes to earn their moment in the spotlight.
But some of the Blue Devils’ most successful athletes can also be found competing on club teams.
With funding from Duke Student Government, Duke Recreation and Duke Athletics, club sports boasts 1,220 members on campus and is sending nearly half of its 36 teams to nationals in the 2016-17 academic year. Among the notable storylines are a rugby player earning a professional contract offer, a cross country runner winning nationals and growth for club squash and the Dancing Devils.
“Our student government is phenomenal with us,” Duke Director of Club Sports Mike Forbes said. “We’ve tried to make a conscious effort to grow involvement instead of numbers. If you have 40 members and they’re all involved, it’s better than having 85 members where half of them can’t do anything. We’ve tried to get away from growing numbers just for the sake of numbers and moved towards growing in quality.”
Rugby star offered professional contract
Although Blue Devil varsity athletes frequently receive professional contract offers, Duke never had a club sports competitor earn that distinction—until this year.
Second-year physical therapy graduate student Adam Hockaday was extended a professional rugby contract offer by the Glendale Raptors, a team based near Denver.
Hockaday still has another year of school to finish before deciding whether or not to accept it when he earns his degree.
“It was very humbling,” Hockaday said of receiving the offer. “Obviously, you set goals to achieve them, but to actually see it happen and see the hard work pay off, not only for yourself but for everyone who supported you, it was a very humbling experience.... I’m looking forward to accepting it. Obviously, things have to line up right regarding academic and family life. I want to use my degree, but yes, I look forward to accepting it.”
A physical specimen at 242 pounds, the 6-foot-1 player ran a 4.64 40-yard dash at his most recent rugby combine. With his size and strength, Hockaday excels in tackling and rucking—a crucial aspect of the game to retaining possession.
“I’m very good at being a nasty player,” Hockaday said. “It’s doing the dirty work on the field. I don’t do the flashy scoring a lot or the fancy kicks, but I do the fundamentals of rugby well.”
Eventually, Hockaday hopes to become a physical therapist and work in healthcare policy.
He played Division-I rugby as an undergraduate at N.C. State, leading the team to a top-25 ranking and an American Collegiate Rugby Bowl championship, per his LinkedIn.
The former body-building champion has led the Duke club team to the NSCRO 7s National Championship in early June in Chester, Pa., after an undefeated run in the qualifying tournament March 4. With more international students who have played rugby for their entire lives than at N.C. State, Hockaday felt that Duke’s style of club rugby was more fundamentally sound.
“N.C. State was a bit more physical, but Duke has been more pace and efficiency,” Hockaday said. “We have more skillful players here. We play not necessarily harder, but smarter.”
From burnout to national champion
Senior Katelyn McCracken had not run cross country competitively since high school before joining club running last fall.
A few months later, she won nationals.
After finishing fourth in the state her sophomore year of high school, McCracken finished second in Virginia in the 6,000 meters as a senior but felt “burned out” as a three-sport athlete. McCracken continued to run at Duke by herself but felt the itch this fall to run with others.
Despite her time away from a team, McCracken finished fourth in her first competitive race and won every other race the rest of the fall—including regionals and nationals.
McCracken clocked a 23:08 in regionals before setting a new nationals record with a 22:10 time in the 6,000 meters.
“Honestly, it still really hasn’t hit me,” McCracken said. “It was an awesome feeling but I didn’t go into it expecting to win. I didn’t think there was a possibility to win. It’s overwhelming sometimes.”
Club squash on the rise
When Aaron Jung arrived at Duke in Fall 2013, creaky wood and a musty stench defined the University’s squash courts and were a main reason the club often struggled to field the nine players needed to compete officially.
But the current senior worked with Duke Recreation to fundraise for new regulation courts when he was the club’s president in 2014-15. Construction began in February 2015 and the two courts were completed by the start of the 2015-16 school year, allowing the club to take off.
“By then, we had an incredible amount of participation with just the sheer number of players that were registered with the club and being able to take a full team of nine to compete with us at tournaments,” Jung said. “The change has been pretty drastic but has been gradual and taken a few years to develop, but I’m glad we’re finally here.”
Increased participation quickly translated into team success, as the group captured the College Squash Association’s national team championship in its division in 2016 with a dominant 8-1 win against Vanderbilt.
Forbes said club squash now has 29 active members, and even with Jung—a top-35 player nationally—set to depart, the Blue Devils seem to have enough depth now to stay competitive. Duke knocked off Fordham’s varsity team 7-2 Jan. 28.
“As we’ve gotten better results, we’ve had to get our players to recognize that we can do huge things,” said junior Charlie Niebanck, the club’s current president. “When we were standing there with the [national championship] trophy, it started to sink in. People were like, ‘Okay, we can do this.’”
Dancing Devils expanding their influence
Like squash, the Dancing Devils have taken off, expanding from roughly 10 members to 17 with a strong freshman class and earning full-time status with the men’s and women’s basketball teams.
The dance team travels to competitions and has a stronger relationship with the men’s basketball team, now standing next to the band and getting a designated timeout every game to perform at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The group also performs in the portals near the top of the arena, providing more opportunities to connect with fans.
The club finished fifth in the nation at the National Collegiate Cheer & Dance Competition as recently as 2010 but had taken a two-year break from nationals in order to focus on involvement at the school. The Dancing Devils planned to go to nationals this year, but a snowstorm forced their choreographer’s flight to Durham to be canceled, preventing them from preparing because they could not reschedule.
Nevertheless, the group is looking to continue its growth in the next few years and beyond.
“I’m so proud to be on the team and see it grow,” co-president and senior Haley Boling said. “We’ve gone through a lot of changes these past few years, but we’re on a great track to be involved and a full-time spirit squad at Duke as well as competing on a really high level nationally.”
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Managing Editor 2018-19, 2019-2020 Features & Investigations Editor
A member of the class of 2020 hailing from San Mateo, Calif., Ben is The Chronicle's Towerview Editor and Investigations Editor. Outside of the Chronicle, he is a public policy major working towards a journalism certificate, has interned at the Tampa Bay Times and NBC News and frequents Pitchforks.