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(08/22/08 7:00am)
Becca Ward spent her first two days at Duke like any other freshman.
She moved into Southgate Dormitory Tuesday, played volleyball in front of the Marketplace in the torrential downpour Wednesday night and decorated her room with photographs and two posters Thursday. She even read the summer reading book, Dave Egger's "What is the What," even though she doesn't love Eggers' writing.
But any attempt at normalcy was almost immediately thwarted by President Richard Brodhead, who mentioned Ward in his Olympic-themed Convocation address Wednesday. Since then, Ward has heard a steady stream of similar questions:
"What's fencing?" or "What's it like to win an Olympic medal?"
So Ward has crafted quick synposes to both basic questions. She is in a unique position to answer them, having won two bronze medals in saber at the Olympics last week-an achievement that distinguishes her from the rest of her overachieving classmates.
"I've had quite a few people come up to me and ask if I'm the 'fencer girl,'" Ward said.
Indeed, Ward's place at Duke-at least for orientation-was defined half a world away in Beijing, where she took third place in the individual competition and led the American squad to a bronze medal in the team bouts. The MSNBC broadcasters even made a point to mention her decision to attend Duke on a full athletic scholarship, a rarity in collegiate fencing and the first ever granted by the University.
For Ward, however, the most memorable moment of the games had nothing to do with the Olympic Village where she resided in a suite with fellow fencers, or Beijing Normal University where the United States Olympic Committee entertained its representatives with Rock Band on Wii and big-screen televisions, or a mundane moment in the lunch line between a 7-foot basketball player and a 4-foot-8 gymnast.
Instead, it was a preview of the next four years of her life.
"This is going to sound like I'm trying to be good with Duke, but honestly, one of the coolest things was when I met Coach K there," said Ward, whose visit with Mike Krzyzewski was coordinated through the public relations officers of fencing and men's basketball.
Ward's two competitions sandwiched her meeting with Krzyzewski, and she entered the individuals-her first shot at a medal-as the prohibitive favorite to win gold. She faltered in the semifinals, however, losing to fellow Oregon Fencing Alliance member and 2004 Olympic champion Mariel Zagunis 15-11.
Still, Ward had a bronze medal on the line when she fell behind her Russian counterpart Sofiya Velikaya 6-1 just minutes after her dreams of a gold medal had been squashed. Down 10-8 in the race to 15, Ward reeled off five touches in a row to take her first lead of the match. Velikaya responded in turn, tying the bout at 14, when the pro-USA portion of the crowd erupted in cheers to boost Ward to the win and the medal stand.
After Ward, Zagunis and silver medalist Sada Jacobson won a bronze medal in the team competition Aug. 14, Ward flew from Beijing to Portland, Ore Aug. 15. She took off at noon in China and landed at 12:47 p.m. on the West Coast, thanks to the time difference. She then took another cross-country flight to Durham Monday, affording her little time to dwell on the gold medal that could have been.
She would, of course, replay the scene and do things differently if she could-she would be more aggressive, maybe even fight harder. But Ward understands a lesson perhaps more poignant than one she could ever learn in a West Campus classroom.
"It's over. There's nothing I can do now," she said Thursday. "I don't want it to haunt me for the rest of my life."
Whether or not London beckons Ward in 2012 is still up in the air, like the future of almost all freshmen. Ward says that training for the games would force the presumptive 2012 graduate to skip her senior year and maybe even her junior year, and she's not interested in the international travel circuit, at least not during her freshman year. She has more immediate endeavors to navigate: classes, for one.
Calculus and Writing 20 highlight her fall semester slate. She is, after all, just a freshman-and perhaps a more typical one than two bronze medals would suggest.
(07/08/08 4:00am)
Kevin Cullen picked up his phone one day after he had accepted a new position on Duke's basketball staff and associate head coach Steve Wojciechowski was on the other end.
(07/08/08 4:00am)
How do you say "Coach K" in Chinese?
(07/08/08 4:00am)
Every two years, the Olympics capture a fan's attention like no other sporting event, and every two years, I'm pleasantly surprised that my growing cynicism is curtailed for at least three weeks. What doesn't surprise me anymore, though, is the reason we become enraptured by the biennial games. Almost everyone has a rooting interest. Now, you have a new team to root for in Duke.
(07/08/08 4:00am)
The postseason chances of Duke's baseball team may well rest on Freiman's bat. The now-senior slugger led the team in every major hitting category last season and, with his draft stock on the line, could finish off a memorable career with an end-of-season reward: an NCAA tournament berth.
(07/08/08 4:00am)
Dr. Allan Friedman is a meticulous neurosurgeon who abides by only the strictest rituals. He runs the trail at the Washington Duke Inn three times a week and on Fridays, he loops twice. He does not mind the scorching humidity of early June, because that's when the smell of honeysuckle is most intoxicating. He watches women's basketball games from the front row under the Duke basket and mentors female athletes interested in medicine through a program he co-directs with another top neurosurgeon, Dr. Henry Friedman (no relation). He leads a biweekly, Socratic discussion for first-year medical students called "brain school." He enjoys poetry and has a copy of Marvell's "To His Coy Mistress" on the corkboard behind his desk; he can even recite by memory the first, oft-quoted line.
(06/19/08 4:00am)
Head coach Mike Krzyzewski still has a passion for coaching and has no plans to leave the sideline anytime soon, but when he does retire, he will not appoint his own successor, Krzyzewski said Tuesday at his annual summer press conference.
(06/12/08 4:00am)
Coming out of high school as a highly-touted right-handed pitcher, Nate Freiman was ultimately passed over in the 2005 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft because of signability issues-that is, the scouts knew he would almost definitely honor his commitment to Duke.
(06/05/08 4:00am)
Before Kevin White left his position as Notre Dame's athletic director, he spoke with Theodore Hesburgh, the school's president emeritus. When White told him he was thinking about taking the same role at Duke, Hesburgh gave him the approval he was seeking.
(05/29/08 4:00am)
Before Kevin White left his position as Notre Dame athletic director, he spoke with Father Theodore Hesburgh, the school's iconic leader. When White told him he was thinking about taking the same role at Duke, Hesburgh gave him the approval he was seeking.
(05/22/08 4:00am)
It's easy to hide under a cloak of obscurity when you're a freshman stepping into a national championship program, even if you're a highly-touted junior. It becomes a bit more complicated when you win your first college tournament. And when you're named National Player of the Year in your first two campaigns and you're the leader of a Blue Devil dynasty-that is, when you're Amanda Blumenherst-you couldn't be further from the underdog.
(04/28/08 4:00am)
The coach and former player who helped establish Duke as a basketball powerhouse is headed to the Duke of the West.
(04/23/08 4:00am)
Somewhere in the two-minute walk from the season's last press conference to the locker room in the lonesome bowels of the Ford Center in Oklahoma City, Abby Waner finally felt the weight of another lost season. Three NCAA Tournaments come and gone, producing nothing more than a prolonged anguish, like failing to remember the most desirable and vivid dream, flickering between fantasy and reality for three long years-for an entire lifetime, really.
(04/08/08 4:00am)
President Richard Brodhead named Chris Kennedy as interim athletic director in a statement Monday. Kennedy, senior associate director of athletics, will assume the responsibilities of former Director of Athletics Joe Alleva until a permanent replacement is found.
(03/31/08 4:00am)
OKLAHOMA CITY - All season long, Duke was compared to the Dukes of old.
(03/28/08 4:00am)
As the NCAA Tournament moves to its second weekend, third-seeded Duke finds itself in almost unchartered territory. The Blue Devils play in Oklahoma City, where they have never played a Tournament game, against Texas A&M, who they have not played since 1995.
(03/21/08 4:00am)
Only two current Blue Devils, senior Wanisha Smith and redshirt junior Chante Black, have played in the NCAA Tournament without the prestige and luxury of a No. 1 seed. Even then, Duke's two resident veterans lost in the regional final in 2005 as a No. 2 seed.
(03/20/08 4:00am)
It all makes sense, why Duke lost four of its last 11 and two of its last three, why Mike Krzyzewski sat stoically under the guise of letting players coach themselves, why no one seemed crestfallen after Clemson made Duke look like the unranked team in the ACC semifinals, why DeMarcus Nelson promised to raise a championship banner in Cameron this season after the March 8 loss to North Carolina.
(03/18/08 4:00am)
The basic rule of the NCAA Tournament: don't look ahead. Duke, of all teams, adheres to this universal law, but it's still tempting for any team to pencil itself further in the bracket.
(03/17/08 4:00am)
Duke isn't the top seed in the East, won't play in Raleigh or Charlotte and might have to travel to Phoenix to reach the Final Four.
