This is an annotated version of the Athletics Strategic plan. Highlights and annotations were added by Richard Hain. This is not an official document of Duke University.
UNRIVALED AMBITION:
A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR DUKE ATHLETICS
May 9, 2008
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Facilities 19
Health, Physical Education, and Recreation 24
Football 31
Basketball 33
Conclusion 38
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The last ten years have been arguably the most successful in the history of the Duke University Department of Athletics on many fronts: more NCAA and ACC championships than in any previous decade, continued high graduation rates and academic honors, and an unprecedented period of facility improvement and expansion. This level of success has been widely recognized. The university has, for example, finished first among NCAA Division I institutions in the National Collegiate Scouting Association Power Rankings in every year since this ranking --- based on a combination of academic and athletic achievement --- was initiated. No Division I institution more seamlessly, successfully, and consistently combines athletic and academic excellence.
There is much to be proud of, but little room for complacency. The enterprise in which we are engaged is competitive and the rewards of success in that competition are considerable. However successful we have been, we can never assume that we have reached some plateau of excellence where we can bask in the glow of our triumphs. Our competitors never rest; the landscape of college athletics is constantly changing and, far from resting on our laurels, we must remain agile and flexible enough to respond to change. We find ourselves, then, as we look forward, in the position of maintaining what has been successful while always being vigilant to ways to enhance that success. We come to the enterprise with institutional values that we will never alter or abandon yet needing to adapt to a rapidly evolving athletics universe. The balance we must strike is to continue our culture of success on the field and court, in the pool and on the mat, while clinging steadfastly to our core principle: intercollegiate athletics at Duke is an integral part of the educational process.
At the same time, we must remain faithful to our obligations to Duke's other athletes, those in the intramural program, on club sports teams, in the Physical Education classroom, and, indeed, in every form of athletic or recreational endeavor. Our design, then, is of a wide-reaching program that encompasses and promotes healthy competition, physical activity, and wellness for the entire university community, whatever the individual level of commitment or accomplishment. The plan for the continued development of this program can be broken down into seven areas, with considerable overlap among them: finances and fund-raising; facilities; Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (HPER); student-athlete welfare; football; basketball; and Olympic sports.
1. Finances and Fund-Raising. The essential factor necessary for the future success of Duke Athletics is the replacement of the outdated funding model whereby athletics is under-funded relative to its competitors. Within the proposed plan, athletics would become a university-wide institution and not an Arts and Sciences/Engineering activity with costs shared by the University as a whole. Shared facilities would be funded by both DUAA and the university; HPER projects would be funded by the university; and new DUAA initiatives would be funded from either increased revenues from football or fund-raising.
2. Facilities. Priorities for facilities projects are ongoing. Our goal in every case has been to conceptualize facilities that will meet not just the needs of one sport or team or even merely of intercollegiate athletics but as many teams and students as possible. We are thus proposing a number of facilities that would be shared with the larger university community, long overdue renovations of Wallace Wade Stadium, Jack Coombs Field, and the Murray Building, and the continuing restoration of Cameron. One of the most exciting new ideas is the plan for a performance enhancement center that would benefit all sports and eventually the entire university community.
3. HPER. We are dedicated to providing all students with the opportunities to participate in intramural and club sports as well as pursuing their own health and fitness. In order to do this we need to increase staffing and funding to accommodate the demands of the intramural program, the club sports teams, and free recreation.
In the Physical Education Department, develop new classes and new programming to respond to the changing recreational and educational needs of the university community.
In conjunction with Student Affairs, establish a formal Wellness and Fitness Program for first year students on East Campus.
4. Student-Athlete Welfare. Continue to enhance and expand the Student Development program in three areas: personal growth and development, community service, and career planning.
Maintain
the excellence of the academic support program in its new facility in
the Krzyzewski Center.
5. Football. Change the culture of the entire program.
Address personnel needs both on the staff and among the players.
Schedule strategically, giving the program the maximum chance to win out-of-conference games.
Build field house with an indoor practice facility.
Renovate Wallace Wade Stadium.
6. Basketball. Continue the restoration of Cameron Indoor Stadium, including a comprehensive study of creating new revenue streams in and around the facility and the men's basketball program.
Continued aggressive fund-raising to endow the program.
7. Olympic Sports. Facilities improvements and additions as outlined above.
Add scholarships as increased revenues make possible.
Without lowering admissions standards, increase flexibility in the admissions recruiting process.
Ensure that coaching salaries are competitive with our peers, especially for assistant coaches, trainers, and strength coaches.
Ensure
that coaches have the administrative and operational support
necessary to win.
PRIORITIES
Restoration of Cameron
Raise endowment for scholarships
Immediate
Action items:
Develop new financial model for athletics
Agree with Admissions about reaches and stretches and more admissions officers
Augment staff for club sports and intramurals
Develop East Campus Wellness Program
Develop general facilities plan and model of athletic campus
Facilities:
Build field house
Renovate Wallace Wade restrooms, concession stands, and ticket booths
Renovate Murray Building
Upgrade Brodie weight room
Renovate Jack Coombs Field
Add scoreboard and TV tower to north end of Wallace Wade
Relocate Olympic sports weight room to Yoh
Construct two new turf fields for intramurals and club sports
Expand Brodie Gymnasium
Replace the grass field adjacent to Brodie with turf
Three-five years
Renovate Koskinen Stadium press box
Five years
Replace the President's Box in Wallace Wade
Build the Performance Center
Construct a recreation complex on the New Campus
400 meter track
Squash courts
Aquatics center
Recreation center
5-10 years
Endow entire program as part of next development campaign
Add
scholarships for Olympic sports
INTRODUCTION
During 2007, the President and the Board of Trustees of Duke University publicly reaffirmed the centrality of athletics in the accomplishment of the mission of the institution. They did so as the Department of Athletics was completing the most successful decade in the history of the university. During that time, Duke teams and individuals won more NCAA and ACC championships than in any other decade in Duke history. For the first time, not only men's teams but also women's teams competed for and won national championships
During this period, Duke student-athletes continued to excel in the classroom, as well, leading the country in graduation rates, leading the ACC in number of students named to the ACC Honor Roll every year, and producing numerous winners of post-graduate scholarships, including two Rhodes Scholars. The stature of the department has been repeatedly affirmed by its top-twenty finishes in the Director's Cup, which compares the success of university athletic teams against the teams from all other NCAA Division I universities in the country. But perhaps the most telling measure of our success has been in the Power Rankings of the National Collegiate Scouting Association, which reflect the combination of academic and athletic excellence. Based on this metric, Duke has been the nation's top-ranked Division I institution for the last three years. The evidence is clear: no other institution more successfully combines top-quality athletics with academic excellence.
While we have been very successful, we must also recognize that there are areas in which we have failed to achieve the level of excellence that we take to be the hallmark of Duke. We need to address these as we move forward. Also, as we look to the future, we have to recognize that we cannot rest on our laurels. While the last ten years brought unprecedented success to Duke, they also brought unprecedented change to the world of college athletics. Thus, in order to maintain and improve our strong position, we must try to anticipate the challenges we will face, and to evaluate our goals in the light of our resources. We are charged with achieving excellence, but at what cost? Are there factors other than financial cost that stand in our way? What limitations and constraints?both internal and external?affect the way in which we conduct our programs? How do we satisfy the desire for our non-varsity athletes to compete in team and individual competitions? And how do we meet the health, fitness, and recreational needs of the general student body and the larger university community? Our current resources do not allow us to do all that we would like to do. Does that mean that we cut back and concentrate our resources on fewer programs or seek ways to expand our resources? How do we prioritize the competing demands of different programs? How, in short, do we reconcile "unrivaled ambition" with the realities of the complex undertaking that is Duke University?
1 We
are committed:
To uphold the values essential to the fulfillment of our
Athletics mission: excellence, integrity, respect, commitment, loyalty,
diversity, accountability, and sportsmanship.
In our intercollegiate program to attract young men and women of character who embody our values both in competition and in their service to the community.
To sustain a program that is committed to the intellectual, physical, and ethical development of its student-athletes, and that encourages academic achievement and maintains high graduation rates.
To maintain a program that goes beyond mere statistical compliance with Title IX in providing a rewarding experience for both men and women.
To compete perennially for team and individual championships.
To adhere to principles of fiscal responsibility.
To support a program of intramurals, club sports, and free recreation that meets the needs and interests of the student body and larger university community.
To support a Health, Physical Education and Recreation (HPER) program that promotes fitness, healthy life styles, and life-long physical activity.
To be a leader in the NCAA on issues concerning the welfare of student-athletes.
In formulating a strategy to reach these goals we need to evaluate our strengths and weaknesses but we can only do this in the context of our competitive environment. In making our assessment, we considered elite private universities with strong athletics programs (Stanford, Northwestern, Notre Dame), elite public universities (Michigan and Berkeley), as well as the quality private and public schools in our own conference (Wake Forest, Boston College, Miami, UNC and Virginia). All of these schools share in common a focus on elite intercollegiate athletics and a strong emphasis on academics. We also included Princeton as an exemplar of the Ivy League with a strong focus on athletics.
The most visible of our strengths are the success of men's basketball, the growing visibility and success of women's basketball, and the extraordinary success of women's golf. While less visible, the success of our Olympic sports teams that have a full complement of scholarships is also outstanding, as is our club sports program. At the core of this success is the quality of coaching in all sports, the unmatched excellence of the academic support we provide to athletes, and our superb health care, training, and rehabilitation services. We also pride ourselves that we have achieved all this while running an ethical program that prepares athletes not merely to win on the court or field but in life after graduation, facilitated by the academic quality of the institution that allows us to attract athletes who fit our ideal, who perform at a high level in the classroom, and who graduate at a rate at or near the top of all Division I schools. All of this has created not merely excellent opportunities for our students but also a great fan experience for the larger Duke community and a national and international presence, a Duke ?brand,? as it were, that has helped attract great students and faculty to the university.
Our most obvious weakness has been the lack of success of our football program. We have not been competitive on the field; attendance has been abysmal. Moreover, our stadium is one of the least appealing in Division I. As a result, we have not been able to offer the quality game-day experience that would attract fans, and we have thus not been able to produce desired revenues. As a consequence, our department has become overly reliant on our basketball program for fundraising and revenue generation. The inadequacy of our facilities is not merely confined to our football stadium. We also have an immediate and pressing need for more fields for intramurals and club sports and a new baseball stadium. We clearly need to build another swimming pool (perhaps as part of Central Campus redesign) to meet the needs of our student body and the larger university community. Finally, at the core of our problem is an outdated funding model that treats athletics as part of Arts and Sciences and Engineering rather than as a university-wide institution. Under this model, it is difficult for us to plan for the future and difficult to convince donors to support new initiatives. Duke has achieved great things in athletics at a very small cost to the university, but this model, which was stretched to the breaking point in years past now is clearly broken and needs to be replaced. Without a new model for funding athletics that allows us to sustain our activities and to raise funds for the improvements that are needed, we will not be able to retain our position and defend the brand that is so important to Duke's continuing athletic and academic success.
Success in athletics arises from a fairly straightforward set of factors. Resources from gifts, tickets and other revenue permit the construction of great facilities. With resources and facilities, universities attract great coaches, who in turn recruit great athletes. Together they forge winning programs, attracting fans and resources. Of late this virtuous cycle has become more a vicious circle as a result of outside forces that have serious implications for the way in which we compete, recruit, and conduct our program.
Television and the commercialization of College Athletics. At the core of the problem is the fact that college sports have become increasing popular and increasingly lucrative over the last twenty years, partly as a result of the proliferation of cable television networks dedicated to sports broadcasting. This has led to increasing commercialization, which has brought in vastly increased revenues but also driven up the costs of doing business. This trend has resulted in heightened competition for coaches and athletes. The result of this competition has been an almost continual increase in coaches? salaries, attempts to secure top recruits at an ever younger age, and a facilities "arms race."
While it is theoretically possible to remain competitive at the Division I level without acquiescing to some level of commercialism, it is becoming increasingly difficult to do so. One of the most visible manifestations of increased commercialization is the impact of television on scheduling, particularly in football and men's and, increasingly, women's basketball. We no longer determine at what time we will play our games, because they are scheduled by TV executives. This is particularly troubling for basketball, which may be required to play weeknight games away from home at 9:00 p.m. The potential impact on academic work is obvious, as students are required to board a flight at 2:00 a.m., arriving back at their dorms at 4:00 or 5:00 a.m., and then are expected to go to class, study, and otherwise act as if it were a normal school-day. In return for large television contracts, we have surrendered control over a function that can profoundly influence the experience of our students. Similarly, the revenue from advertisers and corporate sponsors has become a very important supplement to long established revenue streams but that means that each year our amateur student-athletes take the field with a corporate logo displayed on their uniform beside ?Duke.?
Growing Coache's Salaries. A second problem has been the increasing growth of coache's salaries. Most visible in the glamour sports of football and men's basketball, it has nonetheless swept up the other sports, most notably women's basketball. Moreover, the revenue sports exert a gravitational effect on other sports as their costs rise, pulling everyone else along with them. In the case of Duke, such increases are partly a response to the demands of the marketplace but also a consequence of our success in identifying and hiring excellent coaches who are attractive to other institutions.
Facilities Arms Race. We also find ourselves involved in a facilities "arms race," in which institutions are playing a perpetual game of leap frog in response to facilities upgrades by their competitors. Successful recruiting is the engine that drives Division I programs and attractive, modern facilities are central to recruiting. When the University of North Carolina revamped its football stadium, locker room, weight room, and offices in 1992, it set in motion a tidal wave that swept across the ACC, reaching Duke in the late nineties and producing the Yoh Football Center. The facilities message is simple: more or less continuous improvement is central to the ability to attract the best coaches and athletes and thus to win. Our challenge is to manage those improvements prudently and in ways that make sense for Duke. We do not envision an enormous expansion of our major venues. In fact, we would like to preserve the uniquely cozy atmosphere of Cameron and to try to duplicate this feel in our renovations of Wallace Wade and Coombs Field. One of the hallmarks of our program and Duke generally has been our ability to compete with the best large universities while sustaining our commitment to the notion of community more typical of smaller universities and colleges.
Accelerated Recruitment. On another front, we are faced with a different order of external pressure: the tendency of recruiting to commence earlier and earlier in students? high school careers and of commitments by those recruits to take place ever earlier. It is not new that prospects now find themselves subject to pressure from other institutions to accept an offer of admission and financial aid within a few days or it will be withdrawn, but increasingly, such 'squeeze plays? take place as early as the fall of the prospect's junior year. Concomitant with this development has been the desire of many prospects to make their college decisions as early as possible. This phenomenon is growing across almost all sports and presents us with a real conflict between our desire for athletic success and our established and prudent admissions policy. The most desirable long term solution to this problem is action by the NCAA or the bodies that govern individual sports to limit the dates at which colleges can make offers to student-athletes. While we hope to take the lead in the NCAA in trying to set limits on recruiting, in the interim we have to address this issue by working more closely with the Office of Undergraduate Admissions to develop ways of making prudent decisions about athletes at an earlier time.
These are but a few examples of the way in which external forces continue to shape and reshape the environment within which we operate, illustrating the difficulties we face in sustaining championship level programs that remain true to the mission and values of the university. There are no easy answers; in fact, the answers change as the environment changes. We will have to carefully evaluate the ways in which we manage our affairs, looking for rational and efficient policies and practices to handle the challenges we face.
The premise of our strategy for the future is that we need to sustain the partnership between excellent academics and superb athletics that gives Duke its unique character and competitive advantage. This matters for several reasons:
It helps build Duke's identity. Athletics is one of the most visible faces of the university, often attracting the interest of prospective students and leading them to find the other great strengths of the university. Duke is distinct from its highest ranked peers, in that a student can have a world class education and attend an institution that is highly competitive in Division I Athletics.
It contributes to a unique student experience. Tenting in Krzyzewskiville, painting faces blue, watching brilliant diving, seeing Olympic caliber fencing, seeing your former classmates on the PGA tour contribute to a unique experience at Duke. The rivalry with UNC provides a sense of identity and cohesion that helps current students and alumni recognize each other as part of a larger, connected community.
It brings a special kind of student-athlete to Duke. The level of accomplishment attained by Duke student-athletes requires discipline, leadership, teamwork, integrity, and passion rare in the world today. These students bring these features not just to the court, the pool, or the field, but also to the quad and the classroom.
It attracts talented diversity. Student-athletes contribute ethnic and economic diversity to the student body.
It creates loyalty to the institution. Success in athletics is a significant factor in alumni loyalty and giving. Some of our most successful and loyal alums were once athletes at Duke.
It differentiates us from the other elite schools. Of the top institutions in the US News and World Report rankings, only Stanford and Duke have Division I-A football programs. This gives Duke a unique stature among the other great East Coast schools.
Many schools evaluate the success of their programs based upon national rankings, conference championships, and national titles. But, Duke needs to adopt a higher standard. Duke should aspire to be the university that consistently wins the NCSA Power Rankings, the only measure that incorporates a balanced emphasis on athletic and academic excellence. There are three components of this ranking, each a critical component of the unique partnership to which Duke aspires:
The U.S. Sports Academy Director's Cup, ranking performance across all sports.
The graduation rate calculated by the NCAA. To epitomize our unique partnership, Duke should consistently have the highest graduation rate of athletes in the country.
The US News and World Report rankings which reveal the overall academic quality of a university.
Even in a changing environment, and as we face the future with "unrivaled ambition," determined to embody the institution's pursuit of excellence, we can articulate a basic principle for the allocation of resources: we should treat all moneys as investments and seek the highest rate of return on the dollars we invest. Such a return may be actual dollars, a better academic/athletic experience for student-athletes, the increased likelihood of championships, increased visibility for the university, increased HPER resources for undergraduates, improved community relations both with other parts of the university and with the local city and county.
It is crucial to improve all revenue sports in a manner that maximizes their financial contribution to athletics. With respect to revenue sports we should continue to maintain our basketball programs at their current high level. Football is under-performing as a revenue generating area and can be a source of increased revenue. This will require certain improvements. In addition to improvements in coaching, which we have already made, we will need to upgrade some of our facilities. We must also reinforce our efforts to find donors who are willing to take advantage of naming opportunities. This may require increased support for the development staff and an increased involvement of coaches in development. We should also explore possible revenue streams in baseball, soccer, and lacrosse.
We should give preference in the allocation of funds when the use of those funds is more likely to improve the experience of the student-athlete. Duke's unique advantage is the opportunity for students to become the best athletes they can possibly become and at the same time to get an education from one of the world's great institutions.
In order to increase the chances of winning championships we should invest first in those sports that can be moved to a championship level with relatively small increases in funding. In sports of this category that already have the maximum number of scholarships, we should seek to provide essential staff, improve basic facilities, and provide better pay for assistant coaches. As revenues increase from football and increased giving, we will consider improvements in sports that do not now have their full complement of scholarships. Our goal should be to maximize the return on investment while recognizing that the means of doing so may vary from sport to sport.
We should provide improved club, intramural, and HPER opportunities. We anticipate at a minimum that we will need to a) increase staff for intramurals and club sports; b) provide more fields and facilities for intramural competition; and c) provide better facilities for swimming and other recreational activities. We particularly want to emphasize planning that will look at the long term needs of the university as a whole and construct facilities that will be useful to more than one team and to HPER as well as intercollegiate sports. These facilities should also be regarded as a means to improve relations with the local community.
We should address the health and wellness needs of the student body as a whole. To this end, in collaboration with Student Affairs, we will propose a first-year wellness program housed on East Campus under the supervision of a full-time director.
We should invest in facilities at an appropriate scale designed to create a unique Duke fan experience. Duke does not need to build huge athletic venues, but instead needs to create in its varsity sport venues a size and feel appropriate for Duke. For example, the scale of Wallace Wade is appropriate and with some investment could have the feel of Cameron.
Having
articulated our goals, identified constraining factors and the
influence of outside forces, and developed a principle for
prioritizing our efforts, we need to describe in particular how all
of these factors will be accounted for or expressed in actual
planning. This process can be organized into seven inter-related
areas: a financial plan, a comprehensive facilities plan, a plan to
rescue HPER from its long-standing role as the neglected step-child
of both Trinity College and the Department of Athletics, a plan to
improve the experience of our student-athletes, a plan to strengthen
the football program, a plan to maintain and enhance the basketball
programs, and a plan which addresses the needs of the non-revenue
sports.
FINANCES AND FUND-RAISING
The current financial reality of the Duke Department of Athletics is quite simple. Our expenses exceed our income, and have for several years. To cover that difference we have consumed our reserves, which are now depleted. The university subsidy, which was designed to cover the difference between expenses and revenue by paying for a certain number of athletic scholarships per year, no longer fills that gap. As a result, the department will run a substantial deficit in FY2008, which needs to be covered from University funds.
This deficit is in part the product of collective increases in salaries for the men's and women's basketball and football coaching staffs. Since FY 2002, those salaries have risen, in total, by more than $X million a year, as approved by the President and the Trustees. Each time those increases were approved, it was promised that the deficit would be covered out of central funds. Unfortunately, the reallocation of funds has never occurred, and time has run out.
The University Subsidy. The 40-year road to this position is marked by a series of adjustments to the level of subvention provided by the university, culminating in the development of a formula whereby the amount of subvention would be tied to a fixed number of scholarships, originally 186 but reduced twice--first to 169 and then, in 1997-98, to 146--producing the current subsidy of $X. However, as a consequence of the 1997-98 gender equity plan, the department now awards the full time equivalent of approximately 245 scholarships, at a total cost of approximately $X.
Other costs that have risen precipitously while the subsidy has remained relatively fixed are the considerable maintenance and operation costs of our expanded facilities, the growth of the athletic staff over the last decade, the dramatic increase in summer athletic aid, and the cost of support services for student-athletes (strength and conditioning, academic support, rehabilitation and health care):
1997-98 2007-08
M&O $X $X
Department FTE's 90 147.5
Summer School $X $X
Support Services $X $X
Clearly, university support of the Department of Athletics has not taken into account the cost of the changing landscape of intercollegiate athletics. To continue to sponsor the broad-based, highly successful program that we currently enjoy, we need to provide an annual institutional subvention of approximately $X per year, or double the current number. This would bring us into line with Boston College, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, Rice, and Wake Forest (other academically solid private research universities which compete in BCS Division intercollegiate athletics) and we believe below several members of the Ivy League, at least two of which spend more than $X million per year.
In the short term, this increase will need to come from general university funds. It now comes entirely from charges to Arts and Sciences and Engineering, on the decades- old assumption that athletics is an undergraduate activity. We need to recognize it for the community good that it is, and pay for part of it from planned reallocation of earnings on the short term investment pool. If that reallocation does not provide enough (it has many other planned beneficiaries already), the unrestricted funds (essentially from the SIP pool) will be needed.
Providing $X of central funding permanently is highly undesirable. The preferred solution is to fund all scholarships by endowment. At Duke, that would require an endowment of at least $X million. Such an endowment can only be raised if athletics is a major focus of the next capital campaign, and if the institution provides significant matching funds to motivate donors. An investment of $X would be prudent and far-sighted, if it generates enough response to eliminate a $X annual obligation.
Athletic Development. In addition to university support, we need to concentrate on our own fundraising efforts, principally through the Athletics Development Office. The importance and complexity of Athletics fundraising has increased over the years due to our commitment to success in 26 sports, our need for new and improved facilities to attract and retain the best student-athletes and coaches, the cost of new technology in training, conditioning, and sports medicine, our larger investment in coaching salaries, our commitment to women's athletics and to compliance with Title IX, and the cost of a peerless Duke education. Our success in meeting the goals of this plan will be largely dependent upon increasing revenue. As, we set out to do so, there are some especially important issues to consider:
We currently are dangerously dependent upon the Iron Dukes (our annual fund) which provides 26% of our revenue. We know that much of our success in raising this money is tied to the success of the Men's Basketball program.
Contributions to the Iron Dukes, particularly those of five thousand dollars and above, are funds that could be directed to endowment and/or facilities which would secure the future for the athletic program. Instead, we must raise a substantial amount annually just to pay the scholarship bill.
Our donor base is getting older. We must continue to design programs for young alumni and friends.
Our donors want to be assured that the university recognizes how important athletics has been in establishing the Duke brand. The best evidence of this is a significant increase in the university's financial support.
Our goal is to increase the endowment to a minimum of $X million in order to cover the annual costs of operations. At that point, we will be able to raise money principally for the enhancement of facilities and programs: the margin of excellence.
If athletics is truly an important focus for the campus, our donors with large giving capacity will be encouraged by the university leadership to include athletics as a significant part of their giving.
The Future. Planning has already begun on the next major campus-wide campaign. The Athletic Department expects to play a major role in this campaign. While there are many discussions yet to take place relative to goals and objectives for our part in the campaign, we can forecast our needs based upon what we currently know to be our priorities. We would anticipate that Athletics? total goal for the campaign would be something on the order of $X: $X for the Iron Dukes, $X for capital projects, and $X for endowment.
As part of the campaign, we propose that the university make
a
?challenge grant? of $X which would be a 1:1 match for all
contributions to Athletics Department programs and/or scholarship
endowment.
A matching program such as this would provide a tangible
incentive to
our donors to partner with the university in building our endowment so
that our
costs are covered in perpetuity and annual support can be directed to
those
items that provide the margin of excellence. Increasing the subvention
level to
$X (with annual inflationary increases) and approving a challenge grant
of $X
million to increase endowment sends a powerful message both internally
and
externally about Duke's position on the importance of
athletics.
FACILITIES
One of our most important needs is an augmentation of the facilities for HPER. Our club sports program and our popular intramural program are hampered by the need for more space and particularly the need for more playing fields. We are so constrained that many of our club teams can only practice two days a week and we have had to limit the number of intramural teams which can participate to 2005 levels. Almost half of Duke undergraduates participated in varsity sports in high school and many want to continue to compete in team and individual competitions. We believe that it is very important to provide these opportunities to all students, undergraduate and graduate alike, as well as to the faculty and staff. We are also convinced that many of the facilities that are needed at Duke can be shared, multi-use facilities that will benefit not only intercollegiate athletics but also club sports and intramurals. They all need more field space.
Field House. As we mentioned above, football in particular and many of the Olympic sports need a full sized covered practice field. We thus propose to construct a field house that will be used for some portion of the day and at certain times of the year by football and other varsity sports but that will be used primarily by other students and the university community for club and intramural sports as well as general fitness.
Turf Fields and Track. Two further outdoor turf fields solely for club sports and intramurals with a track should also be constructed and funded by the university. The grass field immediately adjacent to Brodie Gym should be enlarged and resurfaced with artificial turf.
Aquatic Center. The other obvious need for HPER and for Athletics is a new Aquatic Center. Our current facilities are too small and outdated. The West Campus facility is so heavily used that there is almost no time for recreational swimming, let alone for outreach to the local community. The current West Campus pool is also inadequate for a collegiate swim team. We thus propose to build a new Aquatics Center with a 50 meter pool and diving facility. This would allow us to open the pool in Memorial Gym and Taischoff to more free swim, PE classes, and club and intramural activities.
Squash Courts. Build new squash courts to replace the dilapidated courts in the IM Building.
The best location for many of the new facilities would be in the new campus expansion and development project. We propose a recreation complex there that would include the turf fields surrounded by a 400-meter track, a weight facility, squash courts, an aquatic center, and a recreation center. It is particularly important to evaluate access to this center. One of the most frequent complaints about the Wilson Center is that for non-students, there is inadequate parking, making access a legitimate problem, especially during the work-week.
Basketball
The scoreboard and the sound system in Cameron Indoor Stadium need to be replaced and the continuous process of improving the appearance of the concourse needs to continue. The creation of a basketball Hall of Fame and the feasibility of the construction of suites in Cameron need to be studied.
Although much has been done to improve the football infrastructure (e.g., construction of the Yoh Football Center, installation of an artificial turf practice field), Wallace Wade Stadium is in dire need of a number of enhancements. Concession stands are outmoded, the public restrooms are small, grimy, run-down, and poorly ventilated, the President's Box is the worst in the ACC. The most important lure for fans is, of course, a winning program, but the fact that parts of the Wallace Wade experience are downright unpleasant is hardly conducive to increasing attendance and revenue. Moreover, like all other facilities, the stadium plays an important role in recruiting and it also serves as the venue for the university's graduation. Several initiatives need to be undertaken.
Renovate restrooms, concession stands, and ticket booths. Amazingly, the restrooms and concession stands date to the original construction of the stadium in 1929. They can?t simply be cleaned and repaired. They are so far out of date and so inadequate that they must be demolished and replaced. Similarly, the external ticket boxes are inadequate, especially in this digital age, and must be repositioned and replaced.
North end Scoreboard. The north end of the stadium, where the scout box is currently located, also needs to be updated with a permanent television tower and a scoreboard.
Fence and upgrade the practice fields. It is crucial that the team feel the practice field is a special place, a place to which it is a privilege to come every day. It thus needs to have some of the aura of Cameron Indoor Stadium. As in Cameron, there should be visible reminders of the great teams and players of the past. The fields need to be enclosed with wrought iron fencing incorporating Duke stone. The team should enter the fields through a wrought iron archway that marks their transition to a hallowed team-oriented place.
Concourse remodeled. The appearance of the concourse and the plaza in front of Cameron also needs to be addressed. Put bluntly, it looks and functions like what it is: a 1920's facility in a 21st Century setting.
New President's Box. Our ability, both as a department and as a university, to host visitors at football games is limited, both in capacity and in quality. The President's Box, little more than a covered, but not enclosed, section of the stands, pales in comparison to similar structures at other universities. The Athletic Director's Box is nothing more than a shed that was grafted onto the roof of the Finch-Yeager Building. The President's Box, expanded to include a new Athletic Director's Box and additional suites for fund-raising and recruiting, can be designed, like Finch-Yeager, to house other university functions or offices on a day-to-day basis. For example, it could be an ideal site for the proposed Performance Enhancement Center.
Baseball
Jack
Coombs Field is the worst baseball facility in the ACC and far
inferior to stadiums at institutions against which we recruit
academically motivated prospects: Rice, Tulane, Stanford, Baylor, and
Vanderbilt. In its current state it does not meet the necessary NCAA
criteria for hosting post season play due to limited seating
capacity, poor lighting, inadequate concessions and restrooms, and
the lack of a press box. It is a serious detriment to recruiting,
player development, student-athlete experience, fan experience, and
community outreach. Features of the new stadium will include:
A synthetic turf surface covering the entire playing field with the exception of the mound. The artificial surface will provide savings on maintenance, watering, paint, and labor and will create a means for water collection and distribution to other natural grass areas of campus. The turf also allows the stadium to be a mixed use facility, providing opportunities for community tournaments, Special Olympic events, and free clinics during the summer, while adding a venue for the club team to practice and play when the baseball team is on the road in the Spring.
A locker room, training room, enclosed batting cage, and coache's offices. These essentials are critical to player development, student athlete experience, and recruiting.
3,400 chair back seats, a press box, improved lights, and bathrooms in the dugouts. These attributes augment the fan experience, create an opportunity to generate revenue, and allow the possibility to host NCAA tournament play. Additionally, the facility upgrade creates an attractive gateway into our athletic campus from Whitford Drive.
Olympic Sports
Now
23 years old, the Murray Building was originally constructed to house
the football offices and locker room, and the training and weight
rooms for the entire department. Notwithstanding that the
construction of Yoh and Krzyzewski Centers has added two weight rooms
and two training rooms, the Murray weight and training rooms need to
be expanded. Since Murray was built in 1984, we have added women's
cross-country/track (40 participants), women's lacrosse (30),
women's soccer (25), and women's rowing (50). The
addition of 145 student-athletes made it difficult to operate an
effective program out of one weight and training facility; their
addition also required supplementing the weight and training staffs.
Not only did the service areas of the building become over-crowded,
there was also a shortage of office space for the new staff. The
construction of the Yoh and Krzyzewski Centers alleviated, but did
not solve, this problem.
Add New Weight and Training Center. In the short term, innovative scheduling will provide an adequate but less than optimal solution in the Murray Building, as various teams work out compromises with each other to minimize, but not eliminate, conflicts. Long-term solutions include an expansion of the training room into the space currently occupied by the weight room, to include additional office space, expanded storage capacity, and space for physical therapy. The existing weight room would be replaced by renovation of the agility room in the Yoh Center (which itself will be replaced by the new indoor practice facility), to include additional offices and a significantly expanded weight floor.
Performance Center. We are planning to centralize and coordinate number of the services which we currently provide in a performance center. Eventually, we would like to house these activities in one place, perhaps in the redesigned President's Box. We believe that this center will stretch beyond intercollegiate sports to serve the whole Duke community. We would also like to consider including in this facility a dining facility that would be open to all students and faculty and help us to encourage informal interaction among student-athletes, students, and faculty.
Renovate Press Box at Koskinen Stadium. To be replaced with a facility that is adequate to the needs of conference and NCAA tournaments.
Field Upgrades. The drainage systems on Field 4 and the 751 practice field need to be replaced and significantly upgraded. Our shortage of fields is exacerbated when these fields are rendered unusable for long periods of time, particularly in the spring, by poor drainage.
Refurbish The Taischoff Aquatic Pavilion. Repaint, replace the scoreboard, and add office space for the assistant swimming and diving coaches, as an interim measure until the new Aquatics Center is completed.
Build a Cross Country Course. Our national championship caliber program cannot host an ACC Championship, an NCAA Regional, or the NCAA Championships due to the lack of a course.
Williams Field. Renovate and refurbish bleachers, grounds, walkways and public restrooms for the field hockey program.
Tennis Stadium. Lights need replacing as we can no longer host matches at night due to inadequate lighting.
One of the goals of our strategic planning process is to develop a comprehensive plan for future facilities. The first steps outlined here involve determining the facilities that we will need as we move forward. The second step will involve consulting with the university architect about where these facilities should be sited on campus and how they should related both to our existing facilities and to each other. We anticipate that this process will take place next year and will end with the production of a comprehensive facilities plan and an actual architectural model that we can use in the process of explaining to potential donors what kinds of project they could fund. In this plan we also obviously need to consider the role of Athletics as one of the principal entry points to the university and the need to provide adequate parking for our athletes, staff, and fans.
HEALTH, PHYSICAL EDUCATION, AND RECREATION (HPER)
Although Physical Education (PE) has not been a curricular requirement at Duke for many years, PE still assumes an important role in students? lives. Just as the interest in intercollegiate athletics has grown dramatically, so, too, has general interest in health and fitness. A walk through the exercise machine area or the weight room of the Wilson Recreation Center at any time after noon on any given day reveals crowds of students, staff members, and faculty exercising or lifting weights. This importance is also manifest in overflow registration in all the Department's courses, in the robust number of club teams, and in the more than 4500 participants in the intramural program. In fact, the demands of the recreational program vastly exceed our capacity to meet them.
The budget concerns that characterize varsity athletics extend to the physical education, club sport, and intramural programs, as well. While varsity athletes make up a tenth of the undergraduate student body, they are by no means the only athletes at Duke, and the needs of club, intramural, and recreational athletes are no less important for their lesser visibility. Surely, part of the educational mission of the university requires the engagement of the whole person and the development of healthy life styles.
Central to both intercollegiate athletics and club/intramural/recreational athletics are facilities. A preponderance of athletic spaces?fields, pools, gyms?are shared by all of Duke's athletes. Card Gym, used as a dry-land training facility by the men's and women's diving teams in the morning, becomes an intramural gym at night and a haven for the Duke Badminton Club on weekends. The combatives room in the Wilson Center accommodates the wrestling team, various martial arts clubs, and a variety of PE courses. The track at Wallace Wade Stadium and the running trail around the golf course not only serve varsity teams and members of the Duke community, but the larger Durham community, as well. The list of such shared facilities is long and includes the turf fields on East and West Campuses, grass fields on West Campus, pools on both campuses, the Intramural Building, the outdoor tennis courts on West Campus, the Duke Golf Course, and the rowing facility at Lake Michie.
We believe that one of the keys to success for both intercollegiate and club/intramural/recreation activity at Duke is to continue to think in terms of shared facilities. We can prudently build and sustain the kinds of facilities we believe are necessary to Duke only if we are able to make each of our serve multiple purposes.
Club Sports provide students the opportunity to compete against students from other universities. The lessons and friendships that these students gain from being members of these clubs is an important part of their Duke experience. Specific planning for the future of the club and intramural programs revolves around facility and personnel needs. The growth in interest in fitness and such competition has not been matched by growth in our capacity to meet their needs.
Currently, Duke has three field turf fields, three grass fields, one indoor soccer field, nine basketball courts, two swimming pools, and three multi-purpose rooms to accommodate 850 club participants and 4,500 intramural players. We have no baseball/softball fields, and only one lighted tennis court. At present, Club teams are limited to two practices per week. In addition, there are no indoor facilities for outdoor clubs to use during the colder months.
The Intramural Program offers flag football, soccer, volleyball, basketball, indoor soccer, dodge ball, softball, and kickball. Because of limited space, football, soccer, indoor soccer, softball, and basketball are turning teams away; intramurals are capped at 2005 levels.
It is clear that these programs are currently operating at their maximum capacities in terms of facilities and personnel to operate them effectively. Their growth in the last five years has drastically altered the quality of the programming we can offer. Two key items must be addressed:
Develop and implement a program and facilities needs assessment of the student body. This will allow us to take a more systematic approach to improving intramurals, club sports, and recreation and to plan for development of recreation facilities on the new campus.
Increase the full-time staff that runs these programs. Currently, this area has one full-time and three part-time employees. All other duties are handled by students. This increase can be accomplished in two ways: 1) evaluate current staff responsibilities and reorganize to eliminate duplication of effort and to create a more efficient structure; 2) hire two interns devoted solely to club sports and intramurals.
HPER
The
mission of the Department of Health, Physical Education and
Recreation is to provide a strong physical activity program that
serves the entire university community through the courses we teach,
the recreation programs we offer in club sports and intramurals, and
personal training services. There are three essential components of
our program:
Classes. The courses we offer are designed to meet the needs of the student population. In addition to the activity course curriculum, we offer a variety of theory courses. The overwhelming majority of our classes are full each semester. The average total enrollment for our classes during an academic year is 2,600 students
Outdoor Program. The outdoor education program within the HPER Department has steadily grown over the past five years. All classes are consistently filled to capacity and we have added several new courses based on the needs of our student population. To enhance this program, it will be important to further develop the relationships of the various groups that participate in outdoor recreation or use the activities to facilitate their programs.
First Year Wellness Program. In cooperation with the Office of Student Affairs, we plan to develop in the next year a wellness program for first-year students on East Campus. This program would offer a comprehensive approach to each student's health, incorporating fitness, diet, drug and alcohol education, and mental health. Supervised by a full-time director and cooperating with other Duke resources, such as the Center for Integrative Medicine and the Faculty-in-Residence Program on East, the program could also employ recreational activity (e.g., intramural competition among houses) as an avenue to increase fitness and as a vehicle to encourage community spirit on East Campus.
The current Chair of the HPER Department will step down at the end of 2008-09. This will give us time to conduct a national search for an experienced HPER professional who can sustain our efforts to upgrade the entire program.
To accomplish these goals, we need to maintain our existing facilities (particularly, the Wilson Center and Brodie Gymnasium) and fields as well as developing a schedule for the replacement of aging equipment. We also need to add at least three turf playing fields, including a covered field as envisioned in the proposed field house, a new 50 meter swimming pool (to fully accommodate the demand for general swimming, to expand PE course offerings, and possibly to institute a lesson program for the local community), and several squash courts. In addition, the grass field immediately adjacent to Brodie should be widened, converted to turf, and made accessible only through the gym to increase security. Brodie Gym itself needs to be expanded to make room for two additional basketball courts and the Brodie weight room needs to be upgraded. Finally, we should study the possibility of establishing an exercise facility near the professional schools that also incorporates a Student Health satellite office, much like the one in the Murray Building.
These improvements can be classified as immediate, short-term projects, and long-term projects:
Immediate: Field house, turf fields, Brodie weight room
Short-term: Expansion of Brodie, replacement of Brodie grass field, Professional School satellite exercise/Student Health facility
Long-term: Recreation complex on new campus
In
enhancing our facilities and in rethinking our programming for the
future, we also need to be sensitive to concerns that arise from the
increasing diversity of our students and the ever-increasing
imperative to satisfy the recreation and exercise needs of women. The
Women's Initiative research of 2002-2003 told us that eating and
body image issues are significant among our undergraduate female
population, and ever-increasing among undergraduate men. Our
programs should encourage students to exercise for health and stress
relief, not to meet an unrealistic ideal of physical perfection.
Women report particular sensitivity to facilities; they may
experience intimidation in certain traditionally male-dominated
environments (such as the weight room) if care is not taken to make
them comfortable and knowledgeable. And as we attract more
students of diverse faiths, we will also need to consider religious
expectations of modesty. Providing some women-only hours in the
weight room and pool, for example, would attract Muslim women.
Facilities and programming work synergistically; we need enough
facilities to provide welcoming environments for women, and classes
to help them take advantage
of the space and to attract students not currently
taking advantage of recreational opportunities.
STUDENT-ATHLETE WELFARE
Student Development
In 2000, the NCAA mandated that all member institutions sponsor life
skills programs aimed at helping student-athlete's development
in their personal lives. The NCAA allows considerable leeway in the
design of such programs, recognizing that different institutions have
vastly different needs. At Duke, we have attempted to tailor our
program in ways that are most helpful to Duke student-athletes. Until
recently, the personnel who attended to this range of
student-life issues were housed in a number of offices throughout the
department.
In 2006, however, we hired the
first
full-time Director of Student-Athlete Development and brought all of
our
education and support programs under one roof. In 2007, we also hired a
full-time assistant who primarily coordinates community service.
Future efforts of the Student Development program will target three areas: personal development, community service, and career planning.
Personal Development. We will continue to improve our programs of alcohol education and Choices, the educational series focusing on safe sex, stress, nutrition, diversity and inclusion, depression, etc. This setting also presents an opportunity for open dialogue specific to team cultures and policies toward alcohol and substance abuse. Trained facilitators (Director of Student-Athlete Development, Director of Health Promotions, and the CAPS Coordinator of Alcohol/Substance Abuse), meet with all teams for one-hour education sessions during the Fall.
Leadership Program. We will continue to improve the Duke Athletics Leadership program, including the 1st Year Action Program, the Emerging Leaders Program, and the Captain's Leadership Program. The 1st Year Action Program helps first year student-athletes effectively handle all issues attendant upon the transition from high school to Duke. The Emerging Leaders Program focuses on preparing juniors and sophomores to take future leadership roles in their teams. The Captain's Leadership Program is designed to help current captains develop and enhance the skills necessary for effective team leadership.
Community Service. We will continue to sponsor community service already undertaken by student-athletes, ranging from department-wide programs such as "Read with the Blue Devils" and the Student-Athlete Play Day, to team-centered initiatives, such as Men's Lacrosse's relationship with the Ronald McDonald House. The Community Service Component has already been enhanced in three main ways: strengthening and building relationships across campus, centralizing communication and coordination of service involvement within the Athletic Department and publicizing efforts, events, and other positive commitments of Duke Athletics. In addition to developing these programs, we need to continue and broaden our involvement in the Durham community and to strengthen our partnerships with rival schools as we work together in our cities and communities.
Career Planning
We will continue to expand our alumni career network, initiate a career development series with the Career Center, and continue the CD resume program.
The existing relationship with the Career Center will be enhanced through referrals, co-facilitating workshops around student-athletes? schedules, and communicating campus events to student-athletes. Nurturing this relationship has resulted in the continuation of already established programming for athletes as well as plans for the following projects:
Additional resume and career assistance through individual meetings with the Director of SA Development.
Co-facilitating a Resume and Career Fair as well as Internship educational sessions for student-athletes with the Career Center Staff
Hosting and helping coordinate alumni career info sessions
Increasing awareness among student-athletes and coaches of current campus programs and resources as well as how to access them.
Sharing with Career Center and student-athletes additional outside "athlete specific" internship and recruiting programs to encourage them to share with athletes when working with them (i.e., Alumni Athlete, NCAA Career Coach). This has resulted in a handful of student-athletes applying for Wall Street Internship programs and ACC Futures Internships as well as NCAA post-grad internships
Networking students individually with alumni who have offered to be resources for current student-athletes
Our Academic Support program has recently moved into its new home in the Center for Athletic Excellence. This will allow us to expand some of our academic support services to all of our students and enable us to attract and retain the best student-athletes:
Hire a Tutorial Coordinator. Student-athlete evaluations show that we have to do a better job of meeting the tutorial needs of some student-athletes. In the next eighteen months we ideally will be able to hire a graduate student or intern to serve as a Tutorial Coordinator
Increase Support Because of Missed Class Time. As the time demands on student-athletes have increased over the years and as seasons have expanded beyond their traditional boundaries, we have had to adjust our support to account for missed class time, especially in quantitative, engineering, and language courses. In addition, coaches need to continue to be cognizant of the need to plan travel schedules to minimize missed class time. The difficulty in evaluating the impact of missing class for competition, however, is illustrated by the fact that the teams that routinely miss the most class?tennis and golf?are also routinely among our most successful academically.
Continue to maintain positive relationships and expand collaboration with various administrative support offices on campus: the Registrar, Admissions, Financial Aid, the Academic Deans, and Student Affairs.
Continue to build trust between the athletic department and faculty through collaboration on committees and open dialogue with senior academic officials. It is important to continue to provide statistical evidence of the academic performance of our student-athletes at Duke and evaluate our athletic admission standards on a regular basis.
Enhancement of the Academic Experience of Student-Athletes. It is crucial that we be concerned not just with graduation rates but with the quality of the academic experience of the student athlete. In conjunction with the Academic Committee of the Athletic Council, we want to explore ways of enhancing and/or deepening the academic experiences of student-athletes. These include investigating ways for athletes to study abroad, ways of involving athletes in research projects, expanding and deepening the faculty associates program, regularizing meetings among coaches, faculty, DUS's, and academic support personnel that we have begun this year to work on scheduling courses and practices.
FOOTBALL
While the plan to produce a consistently winning football program involves a certain level of financial investment, what is most needed has nothing to do with bricks and mortar or with increasing staff size and salaries but with attitude and focus, with a daily commitment to excellence on the part of players, coaches, and staff. That said, we need to focus our attention on four areas: culture, personnel, scheduling, and facilities.
Culture of the Program.
The immediate task facing the new coaching staff is to change the entire culture of the program. No team can be successful without a winning attitude. In every area which touches the player's daily lives, they need to perceive a heightened level of attention to detail, of intensity, of determination to do things right. This is true for strength and conditioning, medical care and rehabilitation, academic support, coaching, and practice. The intensity level of the entire program needs to increase.
Increase roster size. In order to prepare properly for games, we need at least 105 players on the roster. This will necessitate some consideration in admissions for non-scholarship prospects. We simply cannot afford to have more than three specialists (kicker, punter, long snapper) on scholarship. Depth and eventual participation in this area needs to be developed from among non-scholarship players. We do not believe we need to lower admissions standards to succeed in football, but we do need to find and recruit more top players who are academically qualified to play at Duke.
A Student-Assistant Program. Finally, we need to develop a student-assistant program to assist in conducting efficient and productive practices. Virtually every institution with which we compete sponsors such a program.
We need to ensure that our non-conference schedule?which we control?puts us in a position to be bowl-eligible every year. To this end, we need to play a FCS (formerly 1-AA) opponent every year, preferably early in the season. We need to avoid "money games" for the foreseeable future. We can and should continue to play institutions that are like us?Vanderbilt, Stanford, Northwestern, the service academies?but we should also look beyond these traditional games to others that offer the opportunity for success.
Facilities
While
the facilities needs of the football program are detailed in the
facilities section of this report, we need a field house with a
covered practice field that will be shared by HPER and Olympic
sports, we need to upgrade Wallace Wade Stadium in several ways over
the next five to ten years to improve the fan experience, and we need
to address the appearance of the practice area to improve team morale
and cohesion.
BASKETBALL
Over the course of the last decade, the men's and women's basketball programs at Duke have been among the most successful in the nation. Our basketball student-athletes not only win on the court, they graduate, they perform extensive community service, and they are highly visible ambassadors for the university. The image of Duke that they project has been invaluable in creating pride among alumni and fans and positive feelings internationally about the university as a whole. Men's basketball, in particular, has also been a crucial factor in providing revenue to help support the efforts of all 600 of Duke's student-athletes. Clearly, it is incumbent upon us to ensure that both of these programs continue to operate at the highest level. To do so, we need to constantly evaluate the state of the programs, the facilities, and personnel needs.
Restoring Cameron Indoor Stadium. Cameron Indoor Stadium has repeatedly been identified as one of the best athletic arenas in the world; the experience of attending a game in Cameron is internationally famous. The natural tendency is to assume that Cameron needs no further attention or improvement. And with the completion of the new Krzyzewski Center, one might also assume that the needs of the basketball programs are answered for the foreseeable future. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, a number of needs should be addressed over the next five years, ranging from maintenance to major projects.
We need to study the possibility of adding suites to Cameron as a way to generate additional income.
We need to fully outfit the Duke Sports Hall of Fame and the way in which we honor past great teams and players.
Along these lines, we need to continue the fan friendly improvements to Cameron, particularly in the concourse.
We need a new scoreboard and a new sound system.
As a matter of routine maintenance, the bleachers will need to be replaced in the near future.
Program
Endowment. We need to continue to actively and aggressively
pursue the goal of endowing, not only scholarships, but the entire
men's and women's basketball programs. On the men's
side, the Legacy Fund has made great strides in this direction.
Attainment of this goal should be a major focus in the next five
years.
OLYMPIC SPORTS
Olympic Sports at Duke have traditionally included all sports other than Men's and Women's Basketball and Football. Within this group there are sports that offer the maximum number of scholarships allowed by the NCAA (Baseball, Field Hockey, Men's and Women's Golf, Men's and Women's Tennis, Men's and Women's Lacrosse, Men's and Women's Soccer, and Women's Volleyball), sports that offer a significant number of scholarships, but not the NCAA maximum (Women's Track/Cross Country and Women's Rowing), those that offer limited athletic financial aid (Women's Swimming and Diving and Women's Fencing), and those that offer none (Men's Fencing, Men's Track and Cross Country, Men's Swimming and Diving, and Wrestling).
In nearly every Olympic sport that has its full complement of scholarships we have been very successful. Men's Soccer and Women's Golf have both won national championships. Men's Lacrosse played in the national championship game twice in the last three years and is currently ranked among the top teams in the country. Women's Lacrosse has been to the final four four times in its short history and is also currently ranked among the top teams in the country. Women's Cross Country finished second in the NCAA championships in 2006 and has produced a number of all-Americans over the years. Women's Soccer, Women's Field Hockey, Men's Tennis, and Women's Tennis have also regularly been ranked in the top 10 in the country. Men's Golf and Women's Volleyball have been top twenty programs. We feel confident that with improvement in our facilities and the addition of support staff we will not only be able to maintain these sports at their current level but also see a significant increase in their success.
For the Olympic sports in which we do not offer scholarships or offer fewer than the full complement of scholarships the first step toward excellence is to offer more scholarships. In the short run this will not be easy. If we maintain our current array of scholarship sports and if there is no infusion of university funds for this purpose, the addition of new scholarships will only be possible as a result of increased fund raising, and/or the generation of increased revenue by the football program. In addition, there are other factors that impact our ability to augment scholarships. First, any increase in scholarships must be approved by the Board of Trustees. Second, any consideration of alterations in scholarship allotment by sport must account for compliance with Title IX. And finally, the Office of Undergraduate Admissions would have to agree to offer the prospects extra consideration.
With these considerations in mind, we plan to add scholarships as university funding, athletic fund-raising, and football revenue permit. The timing of adding scholarships is heavily dependent upon finances, but also, by its very nature needs to be spread out over at least a four year period. No coach would choose to award all of his or her athletic financial to a single recruiting class. Decisions concerning which programs will receive aid and when they will receive it will be based on the judgment of the likelihood of competitive success at the time. We do believe that with scholarship support and some improvement in facilities these programs, we could very quickly become nationally competitive
Facilities
The future success and improvement of our Olympic sports will depend in part on an improvement in essential facilities. The first and foremost of these is the renovation of Jack Coombs Field. We will also at some point need to upgrade the press box in Koskinen. Many of the facilities projects described elsewhere in this plan will, of course, have a direct impact on the Olympic Sports. Others will create a ?domino effect? that will benefit our entire program. For example, the construction of the field house will not only benefit intramurals, club sports, and football but the Olympic sports as well. Moreover, the benefits of this new facility will extend beyond its direct impact. Its construction will free up the speed and agility room in the Yoh Center, which can then be converted into a weight room for the Olympic Sports. At 10,000 square feet, it will more than triple the size of the Murray weight room. In turn, removing the weight room from Murray will allow the entire second floor to be converted to a training room/rehabilitation center for the Olympic Sports. Similarly, the construction of a New Aquatics Center to meet the needs of the Duke community will also have a positive impact on Men's and Women's swimming.
A consistent element that Olympic Sport coaches identify as a way to improve their programs has been better exploitation of resources which improve athletic performance. The most frequently cited services that would help to do this have been strength and conditioning, training and rehabilitation, nutrition education, sports psychology, and a training table. All of these services are currently available, but not always in a coordinated, efficient manner and not always to all programs. The answer to this need, we believe, lies in the creation of a Performance Enhancement Center. Although at first the Performance Center would involve better coordination of those services we already offer, eventually we plan for it to inhabit its own facility under the supervision of a full-time director, and to provide an organized, cutting edge approach to helping our students maximize their potential as athletes. We also envision the inclusion of an eating facility that would serve as a training table for athletes as well as a restaurant for the entire campus. We are convinced that such an eating facility would facilitate the interaction of student athletes, other students, faculty, and staff members.
A proposal for a complementary research-based Academic-Athletic Collaboration Initiative and Center for Performance Research is currently being submitted by a multi-disciplinary group of faculty to the Provost Common Fund for initial funding. The goal of the center would be to encourage and increase research efforts exploring the interface of athletics and academic scholarship at Duke, and to publicize collaborative research opportunities to Duke's academic community, facilitate and fund academic-athletic research projects, and publicize the results of such research. The center would foster interdisciplinary research into the physical and mental attributes of athletes (both on and off the sports venue), social dynamics and team building modalities and the degree to which these influence the academic side of athletes' development, and the business and economic aspects of collegiate athletics. The presence of elite athletics at Duke provides unique opportunities for this type of research.
The current system governing admissions has been in place for at least 15 years and has served us well, but in light of the dramatic changes in the landscape of college athletics, it is time to re-evaluate our procedures. We are not suggesting changes that in any way would affect the academic potential of our student-athletes; rather, we would like to consider measures that would give us greater certainty about likely success of the student-athletes we bring to Duke and increased flexibility in the admissions process.
We must see that all marginal admits are given personal interviews. This will allow us to glean a better sense of their motivation to study and succeed at Duke. The Provost has already agreed to this and to the budget to hire admissions staff to conduct the interviews.
In cases where coaches do not need all of their admission spots in a given year, we would like to allow those spots to be assigned to other programs. Without increasing the total number of spots awarded, we can then make adjustments to help our teams react to the vagaries of recruiting.
We would like to reconsider the concepts of "reaches" and "stretches." The penalties associated with using these classifications are too severe and seriously impair our ability to compete. And the reality is that students who were admitted in these categories in the past have always succeeded academically. The risk is minimal.
We need to assign more admissions officers to Olympic Sports. The current arrangement whereby a single admissions officer handles all 23 Olympic Sports asks too much of this individual, who is also charged with other duties in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions
We need to revisit the whole issue of timing in evaluating prospects, making scholarship offers, and in offering places in the class. At the same time, we also need to explore other avenues, such as changes in NCAA legislation or initiatives by the bodies that govern each sport, to address this problem.
Salaries. We need to ensure that our salaries are competitive with our peers, particularly for assistant coaches. As with additional scholarships, this will be to some extent dependent upon increased funding either from development or from football. However, we need to be creative in seeking out ways to augment coaches' pay (e.g., a department-wide shoe and apparel contract with provisions for cash supplements for members of the coaching staff).
Video Coordinator. In an age in which coaches and players rely increasingly on visual media for game preparation and recruiting, the production of high quality media has become a competitive necessity. Currently, Olympic Sports coaches do much of the video editing and production themselves and are spending increasing amounts of time on it. Moreover, the rate at which technology changes and becomes more sophisticated taxes the coaches' ability to stay current. The hiring of an Olympic Sports video coordinator will allow the coaches to concentrate on coaching and recruiting and ensure the quality of the visual media that we use to prepare for competition, recruit, and promote our programs.
Support Personnel. As our programs, like those with which we compete, become larger and more complex, we need to continuously evaluate the logistical, administrative, and secretarial support available to them. While this is a lower priority than coaching salaries, it nonetheless will demand attention within the next five years or so.
CONCLUSION
The 1938 football squad--perhaps the greatest athletic team in Duke history?finished the regular season undefeated, untied, and unscored upon. In many ways, that team could not have been more different than the football teams of today. They were all white; the linemen averaged 190 pounds; they came to Duke from a relatively limited geographical area. They represented a young, regional university and an athletic department that was entirely composed of a limited number of men's sports. Much has changed in the intervening years, but it is surprising to reflect on how much has not. For all the differences between that team and today's, they would also have much in common. The student-athletes of today still believe in and aspire to many of the values and goals of Wallace Wade's greatest teams: excellence, hard work, perseverance, teamwork, sportsmanship, and the importance of academic as well as athletic achievement. As a department, we still strive to provide an experience which is competitive, exciting, and fun, but which is also an integral component of the educational mission of the university. However much the public face of Duke Athletics has changed, the fundamental faith in the value of athletic participation in an educational setting abides. Our challenge in developing this plan has been to adapt to change while maintaining our belief in, and adherence to, the immutable principles that reside at the core of the important enterprise in which we are engaged.
If we could bring Wallace Wade's great team back to Duke today, they would find much that is familiar and, if they could be diverted from their momentary wonder at the Yoh Center, they would in all probability agree with Miles Brand, the President of the NCAA, who recently said "there is long-term consistency in the principles underlying college sports, even as universities and the external environment change and evolve." Of course, as they did so, they would be standing, not on the grass on which they played so well, but on a monofilament polyethylene blend fiber tufted into a polypropylene backing with an infill of silica sand and cryogenic rubber. Our mission and guiding principles will never change but, as we embark upon the second century of Duke Athletics, our task is to remain steadfastly faithful to that mission and those principles while the very ground beneath our feet continues to evolve and change.