Check out the brief GoDuke press release:
http://www.goduke.com/ViewArticle.db...DB_OEM_ID=4200
Duke adds one more varsity sport and more scholarships in a number of other women's sports. It would appear that the ACC's tv money is enough to grow an athletic department in the midst of renovating numerous facilities (eyeroll directed at any departing ACC schools). Where will a softball field go? Wait and see.
There is a not-very-hidden message here to BC, GaTech, Pitt, Clemson, VaTech, and Louisville about their claimed inability to add men's lacrosse.
Just start ACC hockey with BC and Notre Dame, and invite all the other members of Hockey East to join as one-sport affiliate members.
Well, except UConn of course.
The increased scholarship count sounds like good news and a positive reflection on the University's ability to sustain such a commitment. We certainly don't appear to be heading toward a D-2 model for athletics; indeed, looks we are pushing all our chips in.
From the goduke article:
Here is a link to the maximum allowable scholarships by sport (believe this info is correct, though I don't see a mention of fencing---maybe 4.5? as shown for D-2)DURHAM, N.C. – Duke University will add softball as a varsity sport, announced on Monday by Vice President and Director of Athletics Dr. Kevin White. In addition, Duke will increase the number of available scholarships for women’s fencing, rowing, women’s swimming and diving and women’s track and field to provide each program with the maximum limit allowed by the NCAA.
Scholarships by sport
As a fan of track and field, that scholarship commitment (18) looks pretty significant and welcome. If Duke is going to max. scholarships in a given sport, seems likely they will want to be in contention for national championships in those sports. Interesting times.
Not unless we're talking women's hockey. Pretty clear that all the money is going to women's sports. Not a hint of restoring the cuts made to men's programs.
Louisville is still holding out for polo. Doesn't every school have multiple stables of polo ponies within walking distance of campus?
Positively thrilled with this news.
Fencing gets 4 more schollys, Track gets one more, rowing gets like 8 and swimming gets like 7 or something like that.
Good news.
I would love to see a ACC hockey conference with Duke, but I assume thats years away, if ever.
As an alum whose daughter is now playing college softball I am ecstatic about this...I only wish it came sooner.
I teach and coach softball and can't wait to start dispensing unabashedly biased advice. This is great news.
This is great news. We have often joked with my daughter about going to Duke on a Softball Scholarship. Only problem was Duke had no Official Softball program. Now its actually a possibility.. She graduates in '17. If the Softball season starts in '18 as I've read then the planning couldn't be better. Great Great news.. Go Duke!
From the women's bball thread: "Big game on Tues night vs UConn. It would be great to have a full house. General admission tickets are only $4 and reserved seats are $9 is you buy at goduke.com using the promo code DukePERQ (you may have to have a valid Dukecard for this price - not sure)."
In other words, the most popular woman's sport is #2 in the country and hosting #1, and tickets are still available for $4?
How much clearer could be the gap between The two revenue sports and all the rest?
Undergraduate enrollment is presumably a zero sum game. Almost all of those athletes will displace non-athletes; maybe a few of those women would have come to duke to play at the club level or without a scholarship or as the only elite athlete on the team, but it basically means duke will accept an additional 20 athletes and reject 20 non-athletes.
This move might be necessary to fulfill title IX (with football's huge numbers weighing down the men's side). It might be useful to bring in another 20 athletes who are likely to be excellent students. It might be fun to have an ACC network that allows me to watch another cluster of duke-clad athletes play a sport. But there's always a price, and, in this case, it's likely to be the continued focus on the focally hypertrophied applicant who has devoted herself to the single activity of, say, swimming. As I said, I think I like it overall, but just take a look at, say, our tennis or golf teams and look at their high school experiences, and you'll see that most were either homeschooled or attended a sports high school, often in another country; the idea that the average excellent high school athlete will make one of our teams is just not true. We're a powerhouse in college athletics, and that strikes me as mostly but not completely a good thing.
I've always looked at athletics as being a way for high-performing kids to go to Duke, high-performing being applicable to nearly any pursuit. Being homeschooled or foreign does not matter one bit. I doubt that softball or rowing or cross country is going to have the leeway to let in lower caliber academic students the way that a basketball or football program might (and to be clear, I have no clue what kind of leeway K and Cut get with recruits). All that said, I don't see how a few more scholarship athletes might hurt Duke. You couldn't easily separate my Duke friends by whether or not they played on a non-revenue team based on their current life success.
On the flip side, if Duke is able to pay for a few more kids to come to school who are focused, are driven, and have already demonstrated excellence, I am on board. That says nothing about how much money women's basketball brings to Duke.
You mentioned the 'average excellent high school athlete.' I'm not sure what that means, but I don't think that Duke is looking for anything called 'average.'
Interesting point. My rough calculation (and feel free to provide more precise figures) is that Duke will be approaching 300 scholarship athletes (and that would be a number of full scholarships, which doesn't take into account partial scholarships, often done in sports other than basketball and football) vs an undergraduate enrollment of 6500 or so. So, somewhat less than 5% of the students are on athletic scholarships. To what degree does that influence campus culture or diminish opportunities for applicants that lack top-level athletic talent? Don't know, but I'd guess we have one of the higher percentage of students on athletic scholarships in the country. Duke -- a jock school?