A big man who doesn’t dunk, the 44th-ranked power forward in his class and a player who didn’t have enough talent to see the court his freshman year, Ryan Young is by no means a traditional Duke captain.
Young, a sixth-year graduate student, is the oldest returner on this year’s roster by a wide margin. The 24-year-old, however, has only been with the Blue Devils for one season. So while he is an old head by college basketball standards, his presence is new in The Brotherhood.
Still, it didn’t take long for the towering center to grow quickly into his own at Duke, both as an off-the-court mentor for the seven freshmen on last year’s roster and as a seasoned veteran in the games themselves. This season, Young became just the second transfer player to ever be named a captain.
Even more impressive is the platform Young has created to spread Duke men’s basketball, as he hosts “The Brotherhood Podcast,” which features current and former players, coaches and others around the program. In just one year, Young went from someone uninvolved with The Brotherhood to one of its biggest advocates.
‘You didn’t take a day off’
Unlike the majority of Blue Devils, who enter Durham as highly recruited players expecting to make an immediate impact, Young did not see the floor in his first year at Northwestern. He redshirted to work on his size and game, and struggled with the adjustments and humility that came from being at the bottom of the ladder.
To get through this time and progress as a person and player, he leaned on older players who pushed him beyond his limits and brought the best out of him.
When he did earn a place in the Wildcats’ rotation, Young competed in the Big Ten — a conference stacked with elite big-man talent, including former First-Team All Americans Kofi Cockburn and Luka Garza.
“It was difficult to come to college and realize, ‘I’m not even good enough right now to help this team right now as a freshman,’” Young said at Duke’s preseason media day. “There were so many lessons learned through those first couple years and tough losses that I think molded me into the leader I am today.”
When he arrived in Durham, Young was ready to flip the script and teach the same lessons to a new generation. In the cases of fellow centers Dereck Lively II and Kyle Filipowski — freshmen in 2022-23 — even former head coach Mike Krzyzewski noticed the impact the older big had on the rookies. Lively struggled to find his role on the team early in the season after coming back from an injury, but ultimately developed into a lottery pick. Filipowski began his rookie year still needing to adjust to the physicality of the college game, but consistently improved en route to winning ACC Rookie of the Year.
“You helped them. You really helped them,” Krzyzewski said to Young on episode 16 of the podcast. “They got better, not just because of what they did. That was one of the things you brought to the team last year. You were there every day, and you didn’t take a day off.”
Young’s work ethic and veteran presence have further grown this season, and he has embraced his role as a captain wholeheartedly.
His fellow captains, senior Jeremy Roach and sophomore Tyrese Proctor, spoke with Young on episode 15 of the podcast about the team’s lofty goals, their unique leadership styles and what they have seen from the team in the preseason.
Each player enters the season with a unique background: Roach is entering his fourth season with Duke, Proctor brings international experience from his time with Team Australia and Young has four years in Evanston, Ill., under his belt. This allows the three to lead symbiotically, with both guards describing themselves as leaders by example and Young admitting he has taken on a “rah-rah” role this year as a vocal presence in the locker room and on the court.
“I think ‘captain’ is something that’s thrown around these days … but it’s actually meaningful. It’s been something meaningful in our program for a long time. I remember myself, when I was named captain, that was a big deal to me,” head coach Jon Scheyer said at media day. “Ryan’s probably our most vocal person on the team. You can ask any of our players — his voice carries a lot of weight.”
‘Uncle Ryan’
When the Blue Devils traveled to Orlando, Fla., for the first two rounds of last season’s NCAA tournament, they were bombarded with a flurry of questions from the media. One “reporter” stood above the rest per the request of the in-house media team: the 6-foot-10 Young.
Young started asking questions purely to entertain but soon got hooked on interviewing. The result? “The Brotherhood Podcast.”
In addition to contributing to team morale and dynamics, Young is simultaneously reaching a new audience of potential Duke fans. Already the most-followed basketball program on Instagram and TikTok with 1.3 million and 826.4 thousand followers, respectively, “The Brotherhood Podcast” has peaked at 15th in the basketball category in the US on Apple Podcasts and garners thousands of listeners per episode across various platforms.
“The Brotherhood Podcast” has featured a number of current and former players, including the self-proclaimed “Freshmen Four,” who affectionately refer to the host as “Uncle Ryan.”
Young’s interviewing skill allows viewers to also see the players’ personalities shine through, and he is able to bring out smiles from each of his guests. For instance, Mark Mitchell is known as the fast-food lover of the team and can name everything that comes with an All-Star breakfast from Waffle House.
In many ways, Young’s role as the podcast’s host allows him to act as a bridge between the Blue Devils of new and Blue Devils of old and as a voice of what this season shapes up to be. The podcast’s center, and each of the discussions it facilitates, is in its name: The Brotherhood.
It’s something every guest, no matter their graduation year or affiliation with the team, has lauded.
“You will have relationships with all these guys, so about my sophomore, junior year I felt like I played with some guys who played in the 90s even though I was born in ‘93,” 2015 national champion and former Blue Devil captain Quinn Cook said to Young on episode 5. “I felt like I played with Ricky Price, and I played with Trajan Langdon, all these guys. It was just authentic.”
“We’re proud of [the Brotherhood],” Krzyzewski told Young on episode 16. “Other people might try to copy it, but it’s tough to copy because I was the coach for 42 years, so we created a family.”
This camaraderie is shown in episode 10, when Filipowski took on the role of interviewer, turning the tables and forcing Young to answer questions — among them, his role and the importance of the Brotherhood in ensuring this season is a triumphant one.
Young told Filipowski that it will be anything the team needs from him to be successful. In his sixth season of college basketball, Young does not put any individual accolades or recognition over the singular goal of winning.
“I’ve been around college basketball enough and I’ve seen how effective glue guys and hustle guys can be for teams,” Young said to Filipowski. “There’s a lot of teams with a ton of talent, but if you don’t have a few guys willing to do the dirty work, be gritty guys and do whatever it takes, those teams can only get as far as they can without them.”
‘Paying it forward’
Duke has been vocal about its goal this season: to go all the way to the end and hang a sixth championship banner from the rafters of Cameron Indoor Stadium. Knowing the stakes, the tone of the podcast changed when talking about the upcoming season, turning dead serious.
In particular, Scheyer, the guest on episode 12, emphasized that nothing is given, not even to a team that returns its four leading scorers.
“Experience is only helpful if you take the lessons you learn and change them,” Scheyer told Young.
The second-year head coach focused on the versatility of the team and talked about the growth possible with the number of returners. Young will be key to facilitating this growth, especially considering how far the sixth-year has come.
Throughout his collegiate career, Young has transformed from a freshman who didn’t see the court into a senior that averaged nine points per game, and then again into an important role player on a young team that needed guidance. Now, he shares those lessons and the lessons of others via his podcast.
“Something that has had a big impact on me and my career, especially when I was younger, I was fortunate enough to be around older guys in the locker room that were really impressive captains and helped mold me to the person and player I am today,” Young said at the team’s preseason media day. “So [being captain is] a sense of kind of paying it forward in my mind, but also just having the opportunity to have a positive impact on my teammates.”
Editor's note: This piece is one of many in The Chronicle's 2023-24 Duke men's basketball preview. Check out the rest here.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.
Dom Fenoglio is a Trinity sophomore and an assistant Blue Zone editor of The Chronicle's 119th volume.