Tough to earn, even tougher to lose
(07/19/00 4:00am)
One-year renewable scholarships. For scholarship athletes at Duke, they are a concept that must have seemed more like an urban legend or a myth than a reality.
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One-year renewable scholarships. For scholarship athletes at Duke, they are a concept that must have seemed more like an urban legend or a myth than a reality.
He has yet to play a single game in a Duke uniform, but already Chris Duhon is making people take notice. Mike Krzyzewski has promised the media and fans that Duhon will be a "very special" player, and the incoming freshman discussed his basketball future with The Chronicle inside his future home, Cameron Indoor Stadium.
CHAPEL HILL - Once upon a time, it was a job you waited 30 years as an assistant to get a crack at. It was, as has been said, the greatest coaching opportunity in the world.
When Chris Carrawell last stepped off a basketball court, he had tears streaming down his cheeks as he exchanged a nationally televised embrace with his coach and friend, Mike Krzyzewski.
When Carl Franks arrived on campus as the head football coach more than a year ago, the promise of a multi-receiver, aerial offense straight from the pages of Florida Gators coach Steve Spurrier's playbook had Blue Devil fans dreaming of high-scoring shootouts.
The first wave of the 2001 recruiting class swept through Durham last weekend.
In a sport not known for surprises or upsets, the thousands of dedicated fans who lingered around Wallace Wade Stadium late Friday evening for nearly four hours of pole vaulting were treated to one of the biggest upsets of last week's NCAA Track & Field Championships.
Forty-five years before Duke hosted its second NCAA Track & Field Championships last week, high jumpers landed in sawdust and vaulters fashioned their poles out of the bamboo trees grown outside Wallace Wade Stadium.
Jay Lapidus finally led a team to that elusive round of four he has been searching for since coming to Duke 10 years ago. As it were, however, nearly all of his players had long since departed the Dan Magill Tennis Complex in Athens, Ga., the site of this year's NCAA men's tennis Championships.
When the NCAA Track and Field Championships last stopped through Durham, pretty much everything was the same-big crowds were expected, exorbitant funds were pumped into the city and the Arkansas Razorbacks were the ones to watch on the men's side of the competition.
All season long, the Blue Devil Express sped determinedly along a track seemingly destined to arrive at a second national championship in Sunriver, Ore. Yet, when the leader of that powerful machine veered drastically off course Saturday, Duke women's golf coach Dan Brooks was the hapless conductor left to idly watch his runaway train thunder ahead into a spectacular crash.
When the final round of the men's golf NCAA East Regional concluded Saturday in Moosic, Pa., Mike Christensen's teary eyes told all that one need know about Duke's performance.
It didn't take too long for the curtain to come tumbling down on this Broadway smash.
Fortunately for the second-ranked Blue Devils, repeats don't have to be mirror images.
ATHENS, Ga. - When rain began to fall Sunday evening on the McWharton courts of the University of Georgia's Dan Magill Tennis Complex, the fifth-seeded Blue Devils stood at a peculiar fork in the road. The slightly less treacherous path-a 25-mile stretch of two-lane highway heading out of Athens, through the Ga. countryside and back to the freeway-would take the Blue Devils home. On the other side lay a less-traveled road that ran straight to the semifinals of the men's tennis NCAA Championships. Successful navigation of this second road, however, required the defeat of the No. 1 collegiate player and reigning singles national champion, Florida's Jeff Morrison. That road proved too difficult for the Blue Devils to pilot as the fourth-seeded Gators triumphed 4-2 in a battle reminiscent of the two teams' early April meeting in Gainesville, Fla. Despite a tremendous first two sets by Duke top seed Doug Root, Morrison flashed the skills that made him champion a year ago after rain forced the match to move indoors. Following a run of four consecutive games in the decisive third set, Morrison served out the match and forged his team into previously unchartered territory when a Root forehand sailed long at match point. "This is the kind of atmosphere you love," Morrison said. "We had a big [group] from Gainesville and in here it was so loud [when] the match was on the line." Duke coach Jay Lapidus was far less enthusiastic about the situation his team put his top player in. "That's a tough situation to be in, obviously," he said. "Morrison's obviously a really great player. When he was under pressure, you could see he played a great third set. Doug was playing well, he played a good match, but the guy just stepped up under the pressure and did a great job." But grace under fire wasn't always there for the nation's top player Sunday. When Duke's No. 2 singles player Ramsey Smith dropped his match to give the Gators three team points, it became evident that Root would have to upend Morrison for the Blue Devils to advance. On serve in the 10th game of the second set, it was Root and not Morrison who answered the bell for his team. In a spectacular return game, Duke's senior bullied Morrison into a 6-4 second set victory, which catapulted the Blue Devils back into the match. But then the NCAA champion took over in the third, breaking Root and his rocket serves three times to begin the set. "It probably still looked like I was going for it [on my serve], but I think I held back a little and tried to make more first serves, which just wasn't happening," Root said. "I felt like [when we] went indoors, I probably should have gone after it more and taken more chances." Although Morrison provided the crucial victory in the final singles match, it all may have been decided hours before during doubles. When the two teams met in April, the Blue Devils lost 4-2 after winning the doubles point. Playing without No. 3 singles player Pedro Escudero in that meeting, Lapidus hoped that the Spaniard's return would give his team the edge. But Escudero, who was trailing in the third set of his match when the Gators clinched the victory, never became a factor as Florida dominated doubles play. "We just didn't come through with the doubles points," Lapidus said. "Morrison and Overholser are really strong at No. 1. They take a lot of pressure off of their 2 and 3 because they really only have to win either 2 or 3. They're just a really top-heavy team. They aren't as deep as some of the other teams, but they win up high and that's where they win a lot of their matches." Duke had the same struggle with doubles Saturday in its Sweet 16 victory over Southern Methodist, but the Blue Devils rebounded after singles wins from their top and bottom. Root, Smith, and Marko Cerenko all added points from singles, while Joel Spicher lifted Duke into the quarterfinals with a come-from-behind win at No. 5. Notes: In yesterday's NCAA singles championships, Smith and junior Andres Pedroso both advanced to the second round with victories over 45th-ranked Matt Wright of Michigan and 100th-ranked Rodrigo Echagaray of Kansas, respectively... Root was eliminated in the opening round by 11th-ranked K.J. Hippensteel of Stanford... Root and Smith begin play in doubles today.
When Round 2 of the NCAA East Regionals concluded Friday, the defending national champions were about as close to watching next week's NCAA Championships from their living room television sets as they were to winning their region.
Two weeks ago, the tennis team at the other end of 15-501 thought it had proven it was only one small step behind archrival Duke.
The Chronicle
For the last 12 years, the rest of the ACC has been playing for second place at the annual conference tournament. But when the ninth-ranked Blue Devils take the courts at the ACC Championships today in Norcross, Ga., they will do so in the unfamiliar role of underdog.
There was a strong showing of Tar Heel blue intermixed with the masses of royal blue at Duke Tennis Stadium yesterday, but the primary concerns of all involved were to make sure things didn't turn black and blue.