Late Tuesday afternoon, Scottie Montgomery sat alone in Wallace Wade Stadium. Sitting there, he thought about his past and he thought about his future. Most of all, though, he thought about Duke football and how his chapter in its history was about to end.
Montgomery made a promise to himself that evening, swearing that in his final home game, he would leave the fans of Durham-and himself-a lasting memory of just who Scottie Montgomery was.
"That's when it first hit me that I wasn't going to play in Durham again," Montgomery said. "It hurts me right now. But I told myself that I'm going to go out no matter what and I'm going to play hard and I'm going to have fun and I'm going to keep guys going the whole game no matter what happens."
That's exactly what he did.
On the game's opening kickoff, Montgomery caught the ball on the one-yard line and sprinted down the field 99 yards for his first career kickoff return for a touchdown. By the time the record-setting first quarter was finished, Montgomery had three touchdowns and 232 all-purpose yards.
After the game, Montgomery fought off tears during his post-game interviews.
"On the way over from the [hotel], I had to get away from the guys because I didn't want to get too emotional," Montgomery said. "Right now, it's like, 'I can't believe this is over.'"
In Scottie Montgomery's world, Saturday's game was supposed to matter for reasons beyond pride and emotion. Saturday's game was supposed to determine Duke's bowl future.
But Montgomery's stellar career-during the game he became Duke's third all-time leader in both receiving yards and receptions-has been spent on losing teams. This year was the year he was supposed to go out a winner, and with blown fourth quarter leads over three opponents, that could have easily been the case this season. But like a lot of things over the last four years, 1999 did not go exactly as planned.
"You don't like to look back, but at the same time, I'm a human and I do look back, and I see that and I know what could have happened," Montgomery said. "It kind of hurts me, but we've got to go on. This program is going in a different direction. This program is not Scottie Montgomery, this program is Duke and it's Duke football and coach Carl Franks and the direction of the coaching staff.
"This program is going up, and whatever I can do to provide another step or a boost for this program to go up, I'm willing to do it."
For the past four seasons, Montgomery has been giving his team boost after boost. Saturday was the last boost he will ever give the Blue Devils in Wallace Wade and next weekend in Chapel Hill will close out one of the most productive Duke careers in recent memory.
"Even with the win, this is hard for me," he said. "It's hard for me to leave the people of Durham and Duke, because Duke has treated me like gold. It has been a hard time for me here at certain times, but this is the way I wanted to go out."
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