WBB at a Crossroads

[diablesseblu]

I continue to be astonished by this situation. ( I could elaborate on all the Duke degrees/ties in my family, but that would be tiresome.) Simply put, McCallie's hire and continued employment is one of the most dispiriting things I've seen in my 70+ years. Duke's former baseball coach Hiller is close (another Alleva choice), but at least his tenure was short lived. Every day that Duke retains McCallie is a testament to their not valuing competitive women's sports. Simple breaks my heart

[burnspbesq]

In fairness, it should be noted that Duke women’s athletics is in decline pretty much across the board.

Women’s lacrosse has gone from being a consistent Final Four threat to an entertaining bubble team, and lost its best player to an intra-ACC transfer.

No Duke women’s soccer player has stepped onto a field at any level wearing a USA jersey since Mollie Pathman in 2012. Kudos to Coach Church and his staff for continuing to win without elite talent, but ...

Duke hasn’t had world-class track and field athletes or fencers since Shannon Rowbury and Ibby Muhammad.

Volleyball and field hockey are hit or miss. Tennis is competitive but not a threat to win titles. Crew is largely irrelevant on the ACC and NCAA levels.

Softball and swimming appear to be on upticks, but have some way yet to go.

Only golf is at a consistently high level.

Whoever and whenever, the next AD has a tough row to hoe.

[diablesseblu]

I am so grateful you posted this. My history with DBR goes back to their nascent days in the early history of the Internet. That said, I have rarely felt the freedom to post my true feelings about the conundrum of Duke athletics and women's sports. I'm old (71 tomorrow). During the last many years, it's been heartbreaking to see UNC eclipse Duke in women's sports. I have always expected Duke to aspire to the Stanford model of excellence in terms of women's sports. How UNC can do so much more with so much less? I have no idea. To my mind, there's simply no adequate excuse.

[uh_no]

In fairness, it should be noted that Duke women’s athletics is in decline pretty much across the board.

Women’s lacrosse has gone from being a consistent Final Four threat to an entertaining bubble team, and lost its best player to an intra-ACC transfer.

No Duke women’s soccer player has stepped onto a field at any level wearing a USA jersey since Mollie Pathman in 2012. Kudos to Coach Church and his staff for continuing to win without elite talent, but ...

Duke hasn’t had world-class track and field athletes or fencers since Shannon Rowbury and Ibby Muhammad.

Volleyball and field hockey are hit or miss. Tennis is competitive but not a threat to win titles. Crew is largely irrelevant on the ACC and NCAA levels.

Softball and swimming appear to be on upticks, but have some way yet to go.

Only golf is at a consistently high level.

Whoever and whenever, the next AD has a tough row to hoe.

you might want to google Becca Ward. I hear she was pretty good.

[OldPhiKap]

I am so grateful you posted this. My history with DBR goes back to their nascent days in the early history of the Internet. That said, I have rarely felt the freedom to post my true feelings about the conundrum of Duke athletics and women's sports. I'm old (71 tomorrow). During the last many years, it's been heartbreaking to see UNC eclipse Duke in women's sports. I have always expected Duke to aspire to the Stanford model of excellence in terms of women's sports. How UNC can do so much more with so much less? I have no idea. To my mind, there's simply no adequate excuse.

Happy birthday!

And, sign my name to this as well.

[Sixthman]

In fairness, it should be noted that Duke women’s athletics is in decline pretty much across the board.

Women’s lacrosse has gone from being a consistent Final Four threat to an entertaining bubble team, and lost its best player to an intra-ACC transfer.

No Duke women’s soccer player has stepped onto a field at any level wearing a USA jersey since Mollie Pathman in 2012. Kudos to Coach Church and his staff for continuing to win without elite talent, but ...

Duke hasn’t had world-class track and field athletes or fencers since Shannon Rowbury and Ibby Muhammad.

Volleyball and field hockey are hit or miss. Tennis is competitive but not a threat to win titles. Crew is largely irrelevant on the ACC and NCAA levels.

Softball and swimming appear to be on upticks, but have some way yet to go.

Only golf is at a consistently high level.

Whoever and whenever, the next AD has a tough row to hoe.

You might want to take a closer look at women’s swimming.

[miramar]

Eh, I'm not sure I could tolerate her habit of referring to players by jersey number, particularly if there is overlap between teams.

"Number 10 in the dark uniform clearly fouled number 10 in the light uniform, so I can't understand how they could have called a charge on number 10 in the light uniform."

[budwom]

I was kind of hoping they had a third seat on that SpaceX rocket yesterday...

[sagegrouse]

In fairness, it should be noted that Duke women’s athletics is in decline pretty much across the board.

Women’s lacrosse has gone from being a consistent Final Four threat to an entertaining bubble team, and lost its best player to an intra-ACC transfer.

No Duke women’s soccer player has stepped onto a field at any level wearing a USA jersey since Mollie Pathman in 2012. Kudos to Coach Church and his staff for continuing to win without elite talent, but ...

Duke hasn’t had world-class track and field athletes or fencers since Shannon Rowbury and Ibby Muhammad.

Volleyball and field hockey are hit or miss. Tennis is competitive but not a threat to win titles. Crew is largely irrelevant on the ACC and NCAA levels.

Softball and swimming appear to be on upticks, but have some way yet to go.

Only golf is at a consistently high level.

Whoever and whenever, the next AD has a tough row to hoe.

Vive le golf des femmes!! Seven NCAA championships in 21 years since 1999 and four individual championships. From GoDuke.com:

In 2001, Candy Hannemann won Duke's first NCAA Individual title and then Virada Nirapathpongporn won the title in 2002 for back-to-back. Anna Grzebien won the individual crown in 2005 and then Virginia Elena Carta turned in a record breaking performance in 2016 for another individual title.

[chrishoke]

Vive le golf des femmes!! Seven NCAA championships in 21 years since 1999 and four individual championships. From GoDuke.com:

I had the absolute pleasure of watching the back nine of the 2019 NCAA Championship final match play round against Wake Forest. It was replayed this week on the Golf channel. Three of the matches were tied after 18 holes and went into sudden death. Duke ultimately won 3-2. Great theater.

[burnspbesq]

you might want to google Becca Ward. I hear she was pretty good.

Becca came before Ibby.

[TheTrain]

In fairness, it should be noted that Duke women’s athletics is in decline pretty much across the board.

Women’s lacrosse has gone from being a consistent Final Four threat to an entertaining bubble team, and lost its best player to an intra-ACC transfer.

No Duke women’s soccer player has stepped onto a field at any level wearing a USA jersey since Mollie Pathman in 2012. Kudos to Coach Church and his staff for continuing to win without elite talent, but ...

Duke hasn’t had world-class track and field athletes or fencers since Shannon Rowbury and Ibby Muhammad.

Volleyball and field hockey are hit or miss. Tennis is competitive but not a threat to win titles. Crew is largely irrelevant on the ACC and NCAA levels.

Softball and swimming appear to be on upticks, but have some way yet to go.

Only golf is at a consistently high level.

Whoever and whenever, the next AD has a tough row to hoe.

You are just flat out incorrect when it comes to women's soccer....Imani Dorsey was called up to the US National Team this fall. Rebecca Quinn is on the Canadian National Team. Brooke Heinsohn was a goalie for the US U-20 National Team. Five players in the NWSL. Nine straight years of having a top-10 recruiting class. This year's class ranked #3 in the nation. Five of the six recruits are ranked in the top 40. 2 trips to the Final Four in five years.

Sorry but respectfully your analysis on that topic is just incorrect

[TheTrain]

In fairness, it should be noted that Duke women’s athletics is in decline pretty much across the board.

Women’s lacrosse has gone from being a consistent Final Four threat to an entertaining bubble team, and lost its best player to an intra-ACC transfer.

No Duke women’s soccer player has stepped onto a field at any level wearing a USA jersey since Mollie Pathman in 2012. Kudos to Coach Church and his staff for continuing to win without elite talent, but ...

Duke hasn’t had world-class track and field athletes or fencers since Shannon Rowbury and Ibby Muhammad.

Volleyball and field hockey are hit or miss. Tennis is competitive but not a threat to win titles. Crew is largely irrelevant on the ACC and NCAA levels.

Softball and swimming appear to be on upticks, but have some way yet to go.

Only golf is at a consistently high level.

Whoever and whenever, the next AD has a tough row to hoe.

My friend....not sure how I overlooked this one as well...last year, Duke wen to the Final Four and lost to the eventual national champion, went 24-3, went 13-1 in the ACC, lost in the ACC Tournament Final
Since 1997, Duke Women's Tennis has reached the NCAA Final Four 10 times
Seriously....you just whiffed big time here

[uh_no]

Becca came before Ibby.

Ibby was class of 2007 https://www.dukechronicle.com/articl...omach-clenched
Becca was class of 2012 https://goduke.com/sports/fencing/ro...ecca-ward/5770

[TheTrain]

As for field hockey being hit or miss
They were ranked 8th in the country this year
Prior to this year, 6 consecutive trips to the Elite 8
Sounds like a lot of hits to me

[TheTrain]

Bottom line...if you want to want to say McCallie must go, you won't get much argument from me. If you want to say that Kimel has slipped in recent years, that is fair. Heck, if you want to say that Kevin White is not your cup of tea, I get it.
But to insinuate that Duke's women's programs in general are a massive dumpster fire is just egregiously offensive. You posted statements that simply are not supported by facts that my 6th grader could have researched. Honestly, this board deserves better.

[1991 duke law]

In the past 30 years I have closely followed Duke basketball (men and women) and football. In the past 5 years or so, men’s lacrosse. I take notice when the men’s or women’s team are succeeding (such as baseball last year and women’s soccer) but I am not particularly vested in these other sports.

Which leads to a question for Duke grads (and not for those who did not attend Duke) - do you really care that much if Duke does not win at many of these sports - such as men’s tennis, women’s field hockey, softball and volleyball. I have recently attended women’s softball, field hockey and volleyball games. The attendance is pretty inconsequential to the point that you can say that there is very limited interest. I have not attended Duke men’s baseball, soccer, swimming or track events - but I understand that their attendance is also very limited.

So my question is why should anyone be terribly concerned if Duke is not winning at soccer, track, softball, swimming etc? Personally, my perspective is that I would like Duke to win at everything but I do not care if they do not - and I have zero interest in devoting meaningful financial resources to these pursuits. Moreover I have little interest in having more qualified students rejected in order to accommodate student athletes who have inferior academic credentials. Now, to be clear - I believe that every applicant has to be viewed through a broader lens than just academics. So the student athlete often brings other valuable traits that may override a lower academic profile. But there is a limit to how far I would take this. I acknowledge an element of hypocrisy in allocating greater emphasis for ‘valued’ sports so that we can accept a huge academic discount for a basketball player but not for a swimmer. And arguably this may be part of the explanation why the tertiary sports do not succeed at the same level at Duke, because the school is not allocating as much of a academic discount in order to get the better athletes in those sports.

At the end of the day, my greatest pride regarding Duke University is its academic profile. While I love Zion Williamson and I am very pleased that he attended Duke University, he cannot hold a candle to Grant Hill who represented Duke both athletically and academically. Or even Taymon Domzolsky (apologies for any spelling error) (not a athletic success but a great academic success). When Wendell Carter was considering Harvard and Duke (I have no idea how serious he was about Harvard) I took pleasure in seeing a young man who looked at Duke not simply as a path to the NBA - but as an academic institution.

For me, Duke not having great success at these sports is not causing me any consternation. Would I like the women’s basketball team to win – yes I would (I have watched a boatload of their games). Would I be happy if the women’s soccer team won, sure. Would I prefer that the softball team win - of course. Would I like the men’s soccer, track and baseball teams to win - absolutely. But will I lose any sleep if they do not, none at all. But if Duke academic reputation significantly dropped, that would cause me some sleepless nights.

[sagegrouse]

In the past 30 years I have closely followed Duke basketball (men and women) and football. In the past 5 years or so, men’s lacrosse. I take notice when the men’s or women’s team are succeeding (such as baseball last year and women’s soccer) but I am not particularly vested in these other sports.

Which leads to a question for Duke grads (and not for those who did not attend Duke) - do you really care that much if Duke does not win at many of these sports - such as men’s tennis, women’s field hockey, softball and volleyball. I have recently attended women’s softball, field hockey and volleyball games. The attendance is pretty inconsequential to the point that you can say that there is very limited interest. I have not attended Duke men’s baseball, soccer, swimming or track events - but I understand that their attendance is also very limited.

So my question is why should anyone be terribly concerned if Duke is not winning at soccer, track, softball, swimming etc? Personally, my perspective is that I would like Duke to win at everything but I do not care if they do not - and I have zero interest in devoting meaningful financial resources to these pursuits. Moreover I have little interest in having more qualified students rejected in order to accommodate student athletes who have inferior academic credentials. Now, to be clear - I believe that every applicant has to be viewed through a broader lens than just academics. So the student athlete often brings other valuable traits that may override a lower academic profile. But there is a limit to how far I would take this. I acknowledge an element of hypocrisy in allocating greater emphasis for ‘valued’ sports so that we can accept a huge academic discount for a basketball player but not for a swimmer. And arguably this may be part of the explanation why the tertiary sports do not succeed at the same level at Duke, because the school is not allocating as much of a academic discount in order to get the better athletes in those sports.

At the end of the day, my greatest pride regarding Duke University is its academic profile. While I love Zion Williamson and I am very pleased that he attended Duke University, he cannot hold a candle to Grant Hill who represented Duke both athletically and academically. Or even Taymon Domzolsky (apologies for any spelling error) (not a athletic success but a great academic success). When Wendell Carter was considering Harvard and Duke (I have no idea how serious he was about Harvard) I took pleasure in seeing a young man who looked at Duke not simply as a path to the NBA - but as an academic institution.

For me, Duke not having great success at these sports is not causing me any consternation. Would I like the women’s basketball team to win – yes I would (I have watched a boatload of their games). Would I be happy if the women’s soccer team won, sure. Would I prefer that the softball team win - of course. Would I like the men’s soccer, track and baseball teams to win - absolutely. But will I lose any sleep if they do not, none at all. But if Duke academic reputation significantly dropped, that would cause me some sleepless nights.

Your position is quite defensible, and you have done a good job of presenting it. My question to you -- to which I do not have an answer -- is, "Why do all the Ivy League colleges and universities give admission preference to athletes -- and not just in football and basketball?"

I have two observations -- one factual, the other hearsay. From my era in the 1960's, most who became major company CEOs were Duke football players. Second, I hear that many if not most of the women who have ascended to the top of the corporate and government world were college athletes. Sue Gordon, the principal deputy DNI, was on the first Duke women's basketball team.

[Indoor66]

Back in the day (when China's population was measured in millions) the Dean of Duke Law School was Elvin R. (Jack) Latty. He, like many University administrators of his era, placed a great belief in the scholar-athlete and the Law School population reflected that belief. IMO the scholar-athlete model fell out of favor in the 1960's.

[TheTrain]

I care about all of the teams and all of the students. I would rather have the University filled with more than just kids who only spend their lives in the stacks. I chose Duke for a reason. It was the perfect mix of Ivy Education, big time sports, nice climate and good social life. If I only cared about the education, I would have attended Princeton. Duke has its own culture and that includes a wide variety of sports at the highest levels