After a solid performance in the heptathlon at the ACC Championships, I accomplished one major goal I had for my first year at Duke: qualify for the NCAA Indoor Championships. I was a little bit shocked, however, when I discovered that I was the first male Duke athlete to qualify for the indoor nationals since 1982. Duke track has produced multiple NCAA Champions, Olympians, and world record holders since the 1950s—yet no qualifier to the NCAA indoors in the past 28 years. What happened to the Duke track legacy?
The 1981-1982 school year marks a special time for the track team. Not only because of Bryan Allf qualifying to the nationals in the 2 mile, but because this was when the Women’s Track and Cross Country programs were established after Title IX came into effect. Part of beginning women’s varsity sports at Duke meant that less funding could be allocated to the men’s sports, so when the former assistant athletic director and long time track coach, Al Buehler, gave up all three of his men’s scholarships to fund women’s sports, he gambled the success of his men’s program for the bigger cause of gender equality.
Almost 30 years later, the men’s track team is finally starting to receive its scholarships back (we’re at about 7 scholarships, half of the maximum allowed by NCAA). We’re still going to “take the talent we have and stretch it as far as we can” as Coach Buehler once said, but now we can do it while attracting the high school blue-chippers.
With the increased support from athletic department, the men’s track squad has been able to start doing damage on the national level: our recruiting was ranked 6th in the United States for 2009, the our 4x800 relay set a meet record at the prestigious New Balance Invitational, and I was able to set a world record in the Heptathlon 1000 meter run at the NCAA Indoor Championships en route to a 12th place overall finish. We’ve come a long way, but we are still fervently seeking to return to (or possibly surpass) the 70s Duke track dominance and join the women’s cross country team as a major national power in the NCAA.
-Curtis Beach ‘13
March 10th was a special day for our class’s guest speaker, Willy Weinbaum; it was the fifteenth anniversary of starting his job as a producer for ESPN. Weinbaum began his journalism career as a student at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, soon taking a job at Major League Baseball doing video production. While covering the Super Bowl, Weinbaum received the call that changed his life; he was offered his dream job as an ESPN producer and has been there ever since producing pieces for Outside the Lines, SportsCenter, and other ESPN programming.
In addition to discussing some of the editorial choices he made in his different video clips that our class watched and wrote about, Weinbaum shared his advice for those students seeking careers in journalism; for Weinbaum the key is writing.
“I can’t emphasis enough to young people, being able to write is the most important skill,” said Weinbaum. “Letters and emails need to be clear and concise, they are the first thing someone is going to see from you…work on your writing, the more you can hone your skills the better you’re going to be.”
-Cate Harding ‘10
Coach Buehler and crew filming in Wallace Wade Stadium
ESPN, the self-proclaimed “Worldwide Leader in Sports” was on campus Wednesday, February 24th, in hopes of recruiting students to be the next Stuart Scott, or rather, Stuart Scott’s next producer. The Coach Buehler Project crew had the opportunity to meet with the ESPN recruiters during its weekly class. Since Starting at the Finish Line: The Coach Buehler Story is a sports documentary, conversing with “The Worldwide Leader in Sports” seems to have been a pretty sensible move on our part.
I was impressed by the number of employees ESPN sent on its recruiting campaign. I haven’t been to many of the recruitment meetings that seem to constantly take place on Duke’s campus, but if I had to guess, most of the companies do not send four employees, let alone ones who have substantial roles within their departments, to speak with college students. ESPN did it in black and white baseball jerseys, which I thought was a nice touch.
The recruiters shared their own work experiences, as well as their understanding of the types of people who would thrive at ESPN. Don’t kid yourself, sports knowledge definitely helps. However, the overall vibe in the room was one of encouragement and excitement, with Joe Franco, ESPN’s manager of university recruiting and relations, telling us to “follow our dreams, follow our passions.”
It wasn’t the actual advice they gave that made me want to work for ESPN, but rather the underlying care and encouragement with which they said it. In an industry as uncertain as media and entertainment, it seems rare to find a person or company that is willing to guide you to the best of your abilities. My impression was that ESPN is one of those rarities. Thanks for the assist, ESPN.
-Lara Glaswand ’10
Coach Buehler and director of photography Gregg Hoerdemann in Wallace Wade Stadium. Photo: Megan Morr, Duke Photography
