The Chronicle celebrates one of Duke's most successful decades by honoring our top 10 Devils of the Decade. Each Tuesday, The Chronicle will feature one of the selected athletes. Today we profile athlete No. 3, Vanessa Webb.
In the morning there was practice-stretch, run, hit, run, serve, run. Then back to the dorm room. Class in the afternoon. Practice with the team later. After practice there was more practice alone. Then studying. Economics first, maybe, French-je deviens fatiguée- next. Somewhere in there were social engagements, boyfriends, sorority events, the like. Then there was more studying. And it started again.
"Wait," she says, laughing likely in disbelief of her own life. "I slept in there somewhere. I do remember sleep."
It was little short of madness, but to Vanessa Webb-national champion, triple-major Vanessa Webb-it was life.
"When you have an opportunity," she says, "you've got to make the most of it."
And life, as hectic as it was, was that simple for Webb. She had an opportunity on the tennis court and she took advantage of it, rewriting every page of the Duke record book and a couple of chapters of the national one. She had an opportunity in the classroom, and she made the most of it, completing major requirements for three separate fields.
Where there weren't opportunities, Webb created them herself.
"Sometimes, you have to make things happen," she says.
And what she made happen was Duke tennis. For four years, Vanessa Webb was the brand name of Duke tennis.
New dynasties come along in women's tennis with the regularity of Halley's Comet, but that was all Webb ever wanted to do, spurning Stanford-owner of more national championships than Duke had players-for the Blue Devils.
By December of her sophomore year she was No. 1 in the nation and over halfway to the Duke career victories mark.
There was only one thing that could slow
The serve-and-volleyer's shoulder had taken her as far as it could and now it was taking her to the operating table.
"It was awful," she said. "I had never had a serious injury before, and it was frightening."
She was back in a month and a half, but the Webb that took the court in 1997 wasn't the same player who had breezed to the top of the tennis world, and she knew it.
In a career full of highlights, Webb was at the bottom.
"I was playing awful, the worst I had played," she said. "I was having problems with everything. I just hit rock bottom."
But when she finally did make it back, she did it in style. The junior bowled her way through the NCAA tournament in South Bend, Ind., never losing a set on the way to the singles championship.
But it's funny what Webb remembers about her years at Duke. Individual goals never much mattered to her, and her memory is a reflection of it. The singles championship she barely remembers, but the team's upset of Stanford in that same tournament-the first defeat of the Cardinal in school history-that's an entirely different subject.
"I honestly don't remember everybody I played in the singles tournament," she says, "but if there's one thing I'm never going to forget, it's that victory over Stanford. That was my greatest moment ever and I still remember everything."
The Blue Devils lost in the finals to Florida, but it didn't matter. Senior year was what her career was about. Almost everybody was back and the captain Webb was No. 1 in singles and doubles.
The whole year was a season-in-waiting. The Blue Devils were made for the NCAAs and it was there where Webb would make her stand. Twenty-seven matches later, it finally came.
The tournament was everything her career had built up to, the reason she hadn't turned pro. It was what the last year of her life was all about. Championship Sunday for Vanessa Webb was the day the player became the legend. But justice and tennis are sometimes miles apart.
It came down to a do-or-die doubles stand, Florida led 4-2, but doubles was tied up and down the line. Then, a wayward volley caromed off teammate Karen Goldstein's racket.
It smacked into the the net with a loud pop, and for one brief second, as the ball dropped to the ground and rolled back past a stunned Webb, a perfect spring day fell silent. Standing at midcourt Webb crumpled upon herself, her head falling down, shoulders drooping from the weight of a disbelieving sigh. Her tournament was over a day before what was supposed to be her finest moment.
It wasn't the way a hero was supposed to end a career and in that split second, everyone seemed to realize it.
But it was the way it ended, and as silence lost out to the raucous crowd of 1,100, it was over. There was still her individual title to defend, but it was clear her season and her career had already ended.
She could be considered Duke's greatest female athlete, but when she walked off the court, a Blue Devil for the last time, she considered herself a failure.
"[The loss] is extremely hard to handle because I am a real goal-oriented person," Webb said. "The reason I came to Duke was to help them win their first national title, and I didn't do that. I really feel like I failed in that respect."
Yet more than likely, she eventually will. Some players come along once-in-lifetime, but for Duke, Webb was a once-in-a-program talent.
"She helped take us to a new level," head coach Jamie Ashworth said last May. "Replacing her is the toughest thing we might ever have to do."
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