Duke rounded out one of its best years in athletics by finishing 23rd in the 1996-97 Sears Directors' Cup all-sports competition. The finish was the highest ever for the Blue Devils in the four-year history of the award.
Duke finished third among Atlantic Coast Conference schools, trailing only second-place North Carolina and No. 22 Virginia.
The order of finish was determined by a point system based on a 64-team bracket for each sport. A first place finisher garnered 64 points, second 63, etc. A maximum of 16 sports were counted for each school with six core sports in both men's and women's competition automatically counting. In addition, four 'wild card' sports-two in each gender-that attained the highest finishes also figured in.
Stanford won this year's Sears Cup for the third straight year, finishing with a record-high 1,084.5 points. The Cardinal captured an NCAA-record six national championships this year-men's and women's cross country, men's and women's volleyball and men's and women's tennis. Stanford was also one of only two schools in the nation to send its football team to a bowl game and its men's basketball team to the NCAA Sweet 16; UNC was the other.
The Tar Heels finished a distant second with 804 points while UCLA (802), Nebraska (780.5) and Florida (763) rounded out the top five.
Duke's total score of 506.5 was bolstered by a strong showing from the Blue Devil spring sports squads. Women's tennis and men's lacrosse both advanced to the NCAA semifinals, garnering 61.5 points per team. Men's tennis reached the round of eight at NCAAs, earning 58.5 points, while men's golf picked up 36 points for advancing to the NCAA finals. The women's golf team scored 31.5 points by reaching the NCAA regional competition.
The fall season saw the women's soccer team earn 52.5 points for advancing to the second round of the NCAA tournament, while the field hockey team received 54.5 points for its NCAA tourney appearance.
In winter sports, fencing led the way with the men's and women's teams combining for 53 points. Both basketball teams brought in 40.5 points apiece by advancing to the NCAA second round, and wrestling garnered 16.5 points to round out the scoring.
Duke also finished fifth among private schools, trailing only Stanford, USC, Notre Dame and Brigham Young.
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