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Information on Cost of Attendance As we move into the 2015-16 season, we enter a new era – one of unprecedented opportunities for Duke student-athletes. Earlier this year, NCAA legislation passed to allow member institutions to award full cost of attendance to scholarship student-athletes. Clearly, as demands on student-athletes’ time continue to increase, additional financial support is necessary to ensure the success of these students in their academic and athletic pursuits. As I like to say, Duke student-athletes are “double majoring” in the classroom and on the playing fields, leaving very little time for anything else, let alone a job to help pay for travel and other incidental expenses. Additionally, an unintended consequence of this legislation is how the full cost of attendance calculations will be utilized in recruiting. While it will be imperative to remain on a level playing field with our competitors, most importantly, supporting this new paradigm is the right thing to do for our student-athletes. We hope that we can count on your continued support for these great men and women. They are provided with amazing opportunities because of you. For this, we, and especially our student-athletes, are forever grateful. Thank you! Sincerely, Kevin M. White Vice President and Director of Athletics
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Where they stood in 2014-15 For the first time in 36 years — since the 1978-79 school year — Duke did not claim a single Atlantic Coast Conference team championship during 2014-15. But 19 of its 26 varsity sports programs were represented in NCAA national championship postseason competition and three reached final fours in their respective sports. And one of the few programs not to make NCAAs was, of course, football, where there is no NCAA tourney — although obviously coach David Cutcliffe’s Blue Devils enjoyed tremendous success with a 9-4 record and third straight bowl game. Here’s the capsulized glance at Duke’s NCAA national appearances this year:
of the school’s top national finishes, placing ninth at NCAAs in a rare postseason event that combines men’s and women’s results. Individually, freshman sabre Pascual Di Tella took fifth place for All-America honors, while Sarah Collins made her fourth straight trip and took 15th in epee. The Wrestling team sent a program-record five individuals to nationals in St. Louis, with 197-pounder Connor Hartman distinguishing himself by reaching the semifinals, placing sixth and earning All-America laurels for the second straight year.
Men’s Basketball led the way by defeating Wisconsin for its fifth NCAA title, and 16th national team title for all Blue Devil sports. Coach Mike Krzyzewski moved to second place all-time in NCAA titles, behind only John Wooden’s 10.
Women’s Tennis earned its 26th consecutive bid to the NCAAs but was eliminated in the second round by Georgia in Athens. Men’s Tennis won a pair of home matches to reach the round of 16 for the fifth time in six years, falling to No. 7 Southern Cal to end the season with a 24-7 record.
Women’s Golf took aim at its seventh NCAA crown by reaching the national semifinals in its sport’s new match play format, but fell to Baylor. (See more on page 34.)
A year after playing for the national title, Field Hockey reached the NCAA quarterfinals where it fell to North Carolina 3-0 to finish with a 13-7 record.
Men’s Golf took third at the Lubbock Regional to reach the national tournament. The Devils tied for 24th place in stroke play and thus did not make the match play rounds, but freshman Jake Shuman shot 69-78-70-71 to take 16th place overall.
The only other fall sport to qualify for NCAA national competition was Volleyball, which made its 19th all-time appearance. Ranked No. 21 in the country, the Blue Devils were dispatched to Seattle for their first round match and were defeated by No. 23 Hawaii to finish with a 22-8 record.
Women’s Lacrosse reached the NCAA semis for the seventh time in program history, before dropping a 16-7 decision to rival UNC. The Tar Heels and Blue Devils were the Nos. 2 and 3 seeds in the tourney. Duke ended with a 16-5 record.
Duke Swimming was represented at women’s nationals by freshman butterfly specialists Leah Goldman and Isabella Paez. Peter Kropp swam in three individual events at men’s nationals and also led the medley relay team to the consolation final. It was the first men’s relay squad ever to compete at NCAA nationals.
After appearing in eight straight final fours and claiming the last two NCAA titles, Men’s Lacrosse had a quiet Memorial Day weekend this year. The fifth-seeded Blue Devils were upset by Ohio State 16-11 at home in the opening round of the playoffs. Women’s Basketball battled through a season of adversity and a grueling schedule. Highlights included an exciting sweep of rival North Carolina and a 21st straight bid to March Madness. The Blue Devils won a pair of home tournament games to advance to the Sweet 16, where they fell to former ACC foe Maryland. As usual, the Duke Fencing program had one
Finally, the Track & Field team notched some major accomplishments at NCAA Indoors this year, paced by pole vaulter Megan Clark taking the silver medal. The women’s 4x400 relay team took sixth place and the men’s distance medley relay went seventh, both earning first-team All-America honors. Second team All-America plaques went to Shaun Thompson in the men’s 5K and Teddi Maslowski in the women’s long jump. Clark, Maslowski (heptathlon), Thomas Lang (javelin), Erica Brand (discus) and Madison Heath (pole vault) all qualified for this month’s NCAA Outdoors meet in Eugene, Ore., to close out the Duke sports year.
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> The Numbers Game 10:36.50
The current world track & field record in the women’s distance medley relay event, set on May 2 at the IAAF/BTC World Relays in the Bahamas by a quartet of U.S. runners with former Blue Devil and Olympian Shannon Rowbury serving as the anchor leg. The group broke the old record by over six seconds.
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161
Career points registered by Duke lacrosse star Myles Jones, making him the top scoring midfielder in school history. The old mark of 145 was held by Jim Gonnella (1994-97). Jones had 40 goals and 37 assists for 77 points this year to become the first Duke midfielder ever to top 70 points in one season. He was named first team All-America.
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Stolen bases this season for Duke senior second baseman Andy Perez, breaking the old school record of 33 set by former second baseman Quinton McCracken in 1992. The only Blue Devil to start every game, Perez earned second team All-ACC honors while batting .290 and leading all league second basemen in fielding with a .995 mark.
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Saves posted this season by Duke baseball relief pitcher Kenny Koplove, breaking the old school record of 10 held by three players. Koplove tossed 25.1 innings in 21 appearances, with a 2.13 earned run average. When he wasn’t closing games on the mound, Koplove served as Duke’s starting shortstop and batted .275 in 43 games.
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Three-pointers made this season by Duke women’s basketball player Rebecca Greenwell, setting a new school record for most threes by a freshman. The old mark was 50 by Abby Waner (2006). Greenwell averaged 14.0 points per game. This summer she will play for USA Basketball at the World University Games, July 4-13 in South Korea.
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Duke women swimmers who set school records and competed in the NCAA Championships as freshmen this season. Leah Goldman set the 100 butterfly record (52.28), took third in the ACC and swam three events at nationals. Rookie teammate Isabella Paez set the 200 butterfly mark (1:56.92) and competed in two events at nationals.
70.78
Leona Maguire’s stroke average during her freshman season on the Duke women’s golf team, the best in program history. The old school record was held by Amanda Blumenherst, who posted a 71.00 in both 2007 and 2008. Maguire won three tournaments, including the ACC and the NCAA regional, and tied for second at NCAA nationals.
Record-breaking performances from 2014-15 Jones was named national midfielder of the year
JON GARDINER ANNELISE HANSSON
4 x Fast: Kerpon, Price, Kopp, Hansson
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School records currently held by Duke women’s track sprinters Lauren Hansson, Elizabeth Kerpon, Madeline Kopp and Maddy Price. The unit set school marks in five relays this year (4x200 and 4x400 indoors, then outdoors in the 4x100, 4x200 and 4x400). They also hold seven individual school records between them, five of which were set this season. Indoors Kerpon holds the 200 and 300 meter marks while Kopp holds the 400 and 500 standards. Outdoors, Hansson owns the school record in the 100, Kerpon in the 200 and Kopp in the 400. As a group their top performances this year came in the 4x400 at the NCAA Indoor Championships, where they placed sixth to earn first team All-America honors, and in the ACC Outdoor Championships, where they placed second.
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JOE FARAONI/ESPN IMAGES
Prim’s Time Former Duke tennis player takes path less traveled into broadcasting By Jim Sumner
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rim Siripipat worked and sweated for years in pursuit of her dream of tennis stardom. When the dream fell apart, the 2003 Duke graduate took a deep breath and re-invented herself as a television broadcaster who is now one of ESPN’s rising stars. Siripipat was born in 1981 in Mexico, Missouri. Her parents Pallop and Ampai were natives of Thailand who had relocated to Missouri after earning advanced degrees at the University of Oklahoma. Father Pallop was a physician, while Ampai earned a doctorate in education. Siripipat took up tennis at age seven. Both parents played, as did fiveyears-older brother Nick. She says playing against older family members enabled her to improve quickly. Within a few years she was defeating her instructors and even local high school players. She quickly outgrew the local competition. Siripipat and her mother moved to Tampa, Fla., when Prim was 12; her father and brother stayed in Missouri. She attended a public school and worked on her game at Saddlebrook Academy, where her peers included Andy Roddick and Jennifer Capriati. “Excited, really nervous, homesick,” Siripipat says of those days. “It was a big adjustment, a huge transition. I was the new kid on the block. It ended up being a good experience. I learned to adjust, to toughen up, to treat people with respect.” Her game thrived. She won tournaments, toured with national teams and became nationally ranked in her age group. Stardom beckoned. But education wasn’t just an abstract concept in the Siripipat family. Her parents cautioned her against putting all her eggs in the tennis bas-
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ket. She decided to forgo the pro tour and play at the collegiate level. Duke, Harvard, UCLA, Vanderbilt and William & Mary were her final choices. Like so many prep student-athletes, she was sold by Duke’s combination of athletics and academics, facilities and people. She joined a tennis powerhouse. Duke was a nationally-competitive program that made the NCAA Tournament each of her four years on the team and captured the 2000, 2001 and 2003 ACC titles. She compiled a 28-11 singles record as a freshman in 2000. Her victories at No. 6 singles helped Duke to NCAA Tournament wins over Winthrop and Arkansas. Through her first three seasons, her ACC singles mark stood at 17-2. But her body began to betray her. A rotator cuff injury made serving painful and both knees were sore. She decided to have three surgeries in short order in the summer of 2001 in order to reduce her time off the court. “I tried to come back but I kept getting other injuries,” she recalls. “I had been a scrappy, fast, hard-hitting player but my body kept falling apart. It was an eye-opening experience. I realized my body just couldn’t go anymore.” She became a doubles player and teamed with Katie Granson for two wins in the 2002 NCAA Tournament. Siripipat’s physical issues did not carry over to the classroom. She made the ACC Honor Roll all four years, majoring in sociology with a minor in biological anthropology and a certificate in markets and management. Professional tennis was off the table but she had lots of post-graduate
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options. Medical school, law school, perhaps an MBA. She had positioned herself well. But she chose the path less traveled. Siripipat knew she wanted to stay close to sports. Long-time Duke team physician and Hall of Famer Dr. Frank Bassett suggested she look at broadcasting and she liked the sound of that. She approached Duke women’s tennis sports information director Lindy Brown. “My first thought was that I wished she had asked me three years earlier,” Brown recalls. “But she had such a good personality that we were able to hook her up with a couple of local TV stations. Every place she went to, she impressed so many people. She was willing to do whatever it took.” Siripipat spent some time shadowing Linda Cohn at ESPN before earning an internship at Raleigh television station WRAL. Siripipat says that gave her a “foot in the door” and that was all she needed. Like the seven-year-old tennis player she had been only 15 years earlier, she was a quick learner who loved what she was doing. There were some bumps in the road. After a stint on camera for a Raleigh cable station, she moved to Miami, where she was a TV sportscaster for the CBS affiliate. She lost that job in 2010 — she remembers it as St. Patrick’s Day — when a series of cost-cutting layoffs left her jobless. Siripipat says the layoff would “make me or break me.” It made her. Her agent sent a tape to ESPN and they liked what they saw. She paid for a flight to Connecticut for the first of two interviews and was hired almost exactly a year after being laid off in Miami. She hit the ground running. “They want us to do a little of everything,” she says of her employer — and she may be understating the job description. She’s been a tennis sideline analyst, an anchor, a host, a video editor, a fantasy football expert; she works on radio, TV and the ESPN website and has more than 18,000 twitter followers. “Every single day is completely different,” she says. ESPN executive Laura Gentile also is a former Duke athlete, a 1994 grad who was named to the ACC’s 50th anniversary field hockey team. She says she and Siripipat bonded quickly over their common experiences. But Gentile says she just as quickly recognized Siripipat as “outgoing, aggressive and eager.” Siripipat’s most visible current role might be her Saturday radio show “Spain and Prim,” co-hosted by Siripipat and former Cornell athlete Sarah Spain. It broadcasts at noon. “There’s not a lot of diversity out there,” Siripipat says of what is one of the first national sports radio shows both produced and hosted by women. “I’m not sure I’m a pioneer. It’s such a big word. I do know that it is a rarity. It doesn’t have to be about gender but rather about breaking down barriers.” Much of Siripipat’s best work ends up on espnW, the network’s online platform “for women who love sports.” Gentile is vice-president of espnW. She calls Spain and Prim “really important. Sports radio is still a platform that
needs to be populated by more women. It’s time to add more voices, to discuss new topics. Prim is an example of a very talented and very knowledgeable woman. She’s a great host. She’s really good at getting people involved.” Siripipat is bright, articulate and engaging. But she also has a tough inner core. Early in her broadcasting career she was advised to Anglicize her last name, to cut her hair, to blend in. She dug in her heels. “Why am I not good enough?” she asked. “This is what I want to do. Judge me not on my looks but judge me on who I am.” The hair stayed. So did the name. Siripipat says there’s a lesson there. “It’s okay to go against the grain. It’s okay to go against the mainstream.” She doesn’t get back to Duke as often as she would like, but her affection is obvious. “Duke is very special, very supportive,” she says. “Duke gave me all sorts of skills to pursue my dreams.”
JOE FARAONI & DON JUAN MOORE/ESPN IMAGES
Siripipat covering Super Bowl XLVII in New Orleans (top) and the launch of ESPN’s “Nine for IX” in New York, with fellow Duke alum Laura Gentile.
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DUKE PHOTOGRAPHY
Mission: Rio With golf returning to the Olympics in 2016, former Duke national champion Candy Hannemann is returning to the game in hopes of representing Brazil on her home soil By Johnny Moore
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ormer Duke All-America and national champion golfer Candy Hannemann is on a mission and facing one of her toughest challenges. The native of Rio de Janeiro is on a quest to qualify for the Brazilian women’s golf team that will be participating in the 2016 Olympic Games in her hometown. “The fact that it is being played in my home, where I grew up, is the driving force,” Hannemann explained from her current home in Boston. “If it wasn’t in Brazil, I would not be trying to qualify. I feel that strongly about my country.” And qualifying for the team is a little tougher for Hannemann now than it may have been 10 years ago. She retired from the LPGA Tour in 2008 after turning professional in 2002 and earning nearly $500,000 in prize money. Her best finish came in 2004 when she finished tied for fifth at the State Farm Classic. But a wrist injury stalled her career. She underwent two surgeries to repair damaged cartilage in her right wrist.
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“It was painful to do everything,” she said. “I couldn’t push myself out of bed with my right hand.” Hannemann said it was just the wear and tear of golf that caused the injury. She said after the second surgery, scar tissue built up in the wrist and the pain vanished. She’s healthy now, but she faces new challenges on her Olympic mission — namely, the fact she has a very complicated life as she juggles being a wife, mother of two and a golfer. Hannemann now has to balance working on her game and staying in playing shape with changing diapers and reading bedtime stories. “There are a lot of moving parts in my life right now,” she said. “It is a very different perspective from my college and early professional years where I was totally focused on golf.” It was last May, while back home playing in Brazil, that she decided trying to make her native country’s team would be a good idea. There was just one thing she had to do first, and that was deliver her second child, Luiza, who was born in September. Hannemann and her husband,
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Adam Grossman, a 2002 Duke graduate, also have a 4-year old daughter Stella. Grossman works as the senior vice president for marketing and brand development for the Boston Red Sox. With her wrist healed Hannemann went back to work on the golf course and this spring joined the Symetra Tour, a developmental tour of the LPGA, where she first honed her professional skills. She plays in as many Symetra and LPGA events as she can obtain sponsor exemptions. On the course Hannemann has found she is still striking the ball well and feels very good about her driving and iron play. But it is the grinding part of the game that she has yet to recapture — the ability to make putts and get out of trouble, to turn a probable bogey into a solid par. Playing in the LPGA ShopRite Classic in late May, she was even par in the middle of the tournament and needed to make some things happen, but ended up with more bogeys than birdies. “Scoring is the toughest part of my game right now, and trying to focus,” said Hannemann. “When I was in college and first on the tour, being focused and As a freshman, making good things happen on Hannemann led the course came a lot easier than Duke to the 1999 they do now. There is a lot going NCAA team title on with being a working mom and and took second a golfer. place individually. “The golfing part has gotten In 2001 she won tougher because you always have medalist honors to plan things in advance. Where in a playoff and are we staying at this tournament, helped her team making sure everything is okay to a second-place with the kids, practice time and finish. As a senior then playing. You have to look in 2002 she was ahead for travel and work out instrumental in windows in your day for working another NCAA team out and practicing while taking championship care of the kids. for Duke. “I just need to keep playing,” she added. “Playing in tournaments will be the best way I can improve my game.” Hannemann began her golfing career at the age of 8 in the small town of Santa Cruz do Sul in the south of Brazil. “I liked it better than other sports because it appealed to the perfectionist in me,” she explained. “That characteristic can hurt your game sometimes, but I was persistent. I won a few local tournaments, then graduated to junior national tournaments.” In the junior national and AJGA events she burst on the scene as a winner, earning AJGA first team All-American honors three times, 19951997. She won five individual tournament titles during that three-year stretch, including the Women’s Western Junior Championship in 1995, 1996 and 1997; the AJGA Las Vegas Legacy Founders Junior Classic in 1996; and the AJGA Grand Geneva Junior Classic in 1995. She also became part of the IMG Academy in 1997. Following her junior success, Hannemann came to Duke and helped her Blue Devils win the school’s first-ever women’s national championship in 1999. She played incredible golf during her years as a Blue Devil, capturing
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the Brazilian Amateur and North-South Amateur Championship in 2000. She was the low amateur at the 2001 U.S. Women’s Open and also captured the 2001 Honda Award given to the top female athlete in her sport, as well as ACC player of the year honors. Hannemann left Duke as one of the winningest women’s golfers in the history of the program, concluding her career with two NCAA team titles, 33 team victories, five individual tournament victories, one NCAA individual championship and 23 top-10 finishes. “My days at Duke were so great,” said the four-time All-ACC performer. “We had so many amazing players on the team that qualifying for the tournaments was harder than the tournaments. And Coach Brooks knew exactly how to handle each of us and get the best golf out of each one of us.” Hannemann’s mission now is to be high enough in the Rolex Women’s World Golf rankings by June 16, 2016, to be named to the Brazilian team. There are several other Brazilian golfers she will need to better, but most of those can be challenged with good solid play. The current top two Brazilian golfers are listed at 745 and 811 in the world. Golf at the Olympics will be played at a course just recently built for the Olympic Games, in the Reserva de Marapendi in the Barra da Tijuca zone southwest of the city of Rio de Janeiro. It will be the first time since 1904 that golf has been a part of the Olympics and the first time since 1900 that women have participated. The 1900 Olympics in Paris were the first to feature women competitors, and Margaret Abbott of the Chicago Golf Club won the event by shooting a 47. That made her the first ever American female to win a gold medal in the Olympic Games and second overall female. She never actually obtained a gold medal; instead she was awarded a porcelain bowl, as the 1900 Games were the only Olympics in which the winners received valuable artifacts instead of medals. Abbott’s mother also competed in this Olympic event and finished tied for seventh, shooting a 65. They were the first and only mother and daughter tandem that has ever competed in the same Olympic event and at the same exact time. For Hannemann, the goal of making her country’s Olympic team has brought back a feel for the game she hadn’t possessed in a long time. “Looking back, it became a job and I lost some of my love for the game when I retired in 2008 with the injury,” she explained. “Since coming back I have found that I truly love the game and love being out here playing once again.” You can follow Candy’s mission to make the Olympic team on her blog at http://candyhannemannblogspot.com.
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TEAMWORKS PHOTO
Team Efficiency There’s An App For That
A class project provided the impetus for a successful business venture for former Duke football lineman Zach Maurides
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By Bradley Amersbach
n the fast-paced world of collegiate athletics, communication and organization are two of the most integral components that lead to a team’s success on the playing field. These two skills serve just as important of a role in a program’s execution off the field, in its dayto-day operations. Zach Maurides, co-founder and president of Teamworks, a collaboration-based software, as well as a former left guard on Duke’s football team during the mid-2000s, recognized the importance of efficiency during his time as a student-athlete, and set about to create a system that would not only help others manage these components of the game, but also help himself. During his freshman season at Duke, Maurides struggled with the challenges that often accompany the transition from high school to college. He felt overwhelmed by the myriad demands that come along with being a student-athlete: class, treatment, workouts, practice, mandatory study halls. Maurides’ struggles with properly managing his time led to numerous mornings spent familiarizing himself with the 1,140 some-odd steps of Wallace Wade Stadium, as punishment for tardiness at practice. Although he was unaware of it at the time, his frustrations and missteps with time management would eventually serve as the creation of Teamworks as it is known today. While taking an Information Science + Information Studies course
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during his sophomore year, Maurides and his classmates were tasked with creating a web application. At this point in his college career, Maurides had established a routine and system that allowed him to better manage his time, but considering his own experiences from the previous year, he wanted to help those incoming freshmen who might face similar frustrations and difficulties during their first year in Durham. Maurides reflected on his freshman year to create a program that served as the beginnings of today’s Teamworks application. He created a simple program that allowed an individual to organize dates and help maintain appointments. After submitting the assignment, a conversation with his dad led Maurides to think that the application he created could be formed into more than just a grade for his class. “If you’re having this problem, and Duke is having this problem, I bet everyone is having this problem,” Maurides recalls his father saying in the conversation. “You should make it into a business and build it to see if it’s something you can bring to these other groups.” Using one of the greatest resources Duke could provide, a large network of support staff in the athletic department, Maurides was able to schedule meetings with a number of constituents surrounding the football program to pull ideas, needs, suggestions and a slew of other useful pieces of information that helped lay the foundation for an expansion of
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his original application. Maurides increased the pool of individuals he spoke with to those in the Fuqua School of Business and in the computer science department at Duke. The information that Maurides gleaned from these conversations allowed him to create an application that established a much more in-depth platform. “I was around great athletes, but I was also around easily some of the best people in the industry,” Maurides says. “You look at our athletic department, and each one of the people I was reaching out to are not only exceptional at what they do here at Duke, but they’re exceptional at what they do across the community. Speaking with a lot of these individuals, I wasn’t just getting a lot of perspective on Duke, I was getting perspective on the industry and best practices that they had either established or grown from their wealth of experience from other campuses. I was surrounded not only by great athletic peers, but also great academic peers that were able to provide me with the mentoring and guidance that I needed to grow.” Those early conversations allowed Maurides to expand on the original application he created for his class, while also developing a better understanding of the business side of the process, allowing him to create a program that was usable for Duke’s football program one year later, in 2005. The growth continued for the Teamworks platform, as Duke’s lacrosse team embraced the program in 2006. The real-world application of the system allowed Maurides to then use the feedback that he received from the two teams to continue perfecting and expanding upon the program beyond Duke. “What we ended up building, beyond just scheduling, was the groundwork for an athletic collaboration platform,” Maurides explains. “Not only to collaborate on schedules, but also to share files and documents, to push out communication, to track data points on your apps like athletic performance and strength and conditioning.” Since those early years of development and growth, Teamworks has reached considerable new heights to assist in the streamlining of dayto-day operations for 844 separate teams and organizations across the country. One of the many benefits to using the Teamworks system is the adaptability of the program, which allows its users to select and utilize services which best meet the needs of each individual organization. For example, many of the clients that Teamworks serves are affiliated with collegiate athletics, including the Big Ten Conference. The conference utilizes the platform to communicate and schedule with football and men’s basketball officials. Teamworks centralizes and simplifies the myriad financial records that the conference maintains in order to compensate the officials working games throughout a season. Using Big Ten Conference officials as an example, Maurides explains how the application’s use on smart phones makes the process of completing a tax form much more efficient through the use of Teamworks. Rather than requir-
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ing an official to receive, print off, sign, scan and e-mail a document, the five-step process is reduced to a few simple clicks on a smart phone. In addition to the conference level, entire athletic departments and specific sports programs, including over 60 Football Bowl Series (FBS) teams, also employ the Teamworks platform to help efficiently run the programs. The Big Ten’s usage of the Teamworks platform is just one of the many benefits of utilizing the system, as Teamworks also establishes easier forms of communication and scheduling. Imagine the logistical nightmare of trying to relay the message of a scheduling change to upwards of 100 players on an NCAA football team. With the click of just a few buttons, the information is passed along to all pertinent parties so time can be dedicated to the game they each love. “We built a system that takes that large, mobile workforce that spans several generations and keeps them all connected, while providing them with the means to effortlessly stay on the same page for a variety of tasks every day,” Maurides explains. “As we built it, we started finding that there are other, similar organizations that have the same kind of problems, just different titles.” This realization allowed Teamworks to grow beyond the realm of athletics and into the commercial world. In Illinois, for example, a school bus company uses the Teamworks system to help organize a fleet of over 1,000 drivers to assist in the communication needs on a daily basis. Maurides acknowledges the continued and consistent growth in the number of athletic organizations, but cites the increased usage among commercial organizations as another indication of the program’s continued success and development. The application does more than just save time. It also saves money. In a case study with Duke’s athletic department, one of the four schools to utilize Teamworks department-wide, the results indicated the university’s return on investment was 345 percent, saving the department an estimated $244,305 in its first year of implementation. Other programs, organizations and departments are taking notice of these eye-opening savings, and are looking to get on board with the program. The sky is the limit for Maurides and Teamworks. The organization recently served as the Official Team Collaboration Software Provider to the first annual College Football Playoff, a major partnership that Maurides believes is a showcase of the system’s versatility and applicability for his organization, and conveys what the future holds for Teamworks. “The great thing about this whole journey is that our customers have constantly revealed to us new opportunities where our tools can be applied,” Maurides says. “We’re finding that if we build great tools that help large groups of people communicate better, those groups will find us and continue to find applications. In the long-term, I see Teamworks as a platform that millions of people can be on for work purposes. Sports teams, club sports, fire and police departments, all communicating with their constituents. There are really an endless number of applications.”
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Enjoying The Ride As a trip leader for an active travel company, former Duke trackster Sophia Treakle experiences France from the seat of a bike
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By John Roth
ne week following her May 2013 graduation, Sophia Treakle boarded a flight bound for France to begin her first job as a Duke alum. It was a job she had been coveting for three years, ever since a serendipitous encounter with an employee of the active travel company Backroads had painted her an irresistible portrait of life in their rapidly growing slice of the tourism industry. Treakle’s parents had instilled in her the value of travel as life experience, and now her entrance to the work force would revolve around helping others enjoy unforgettable experiences through active destination vacations. Could there have been a better job match for a 22-year-old athlete with a cultural anthropology degree and a penchant for adventure? Treakle envisions graduate school in her future, probably in the field of public health, but so far the urgency to change gears on her career has not materialized. Her gear changes are relegated to the bike she rides as a trip leader for cycling excursions across the French countryside — a position she still finds quite appealing as her third season in the saddle proceeds.
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Sports @ Work
Treakle relaxing with co-workers in Saint-Emilion and on her bike in Dordogne, one of her favorite destinations “I love my community, my co-workers — they are quickly becoming some of my closest friends,” she said during a recent break between trips. “I do think about grad school, but then I go, ‘Gosh, why would I leave a job where I love everybody I get to work with and I get to live in France?’” As a trip leader for Backroads, Treakle is constantly on the go from mid-May through mid-October, guiding weeklong all-inclusive vacation tours in the Normandy and Brittany regions of northern France, for mostly American clientele. Backroads offers trip packages across the world, so when the prime vacation season ends in France, Treakle has the opportunity to work elsewhere during some of the winter months, which she did last year in Costa Rica. Backroads arranges every trip detail for its customers, from meals and lodging to daily itineraries, travel routes and local tour guides. Trip leaders such as Treakle are charged with bringing all those details together. They spend virtually every waking moment trying to ensure that their guests can relax and enjoy the week as it unfolds before them. “In a nutshell we are hosts, cultural ambassadors, cooks, bike mechanics, logistical geniuses and even cheerleaders,” noted Treakle. “A lot of people describe our job like, when you see a duck gliding across a pond and it all looks really smooth, but underneath their feet are kicking a hundred miles an hour. It’s a lot about making logistics meet up and having smooth transition points, so for the guests they show up and things just sort of magically happen.” For a typical one-week trip across northern France, the magic begins on Sunday when the guests arrive in Normandy and check into a premier hotel. The first three days feature several point-to-point biking trips to an assortment of World War II sites such as Omaha Beach (where Treakle or one of her colleagues is likely to have a gourmet picnic waiting), the American Military Cemetery and Pointe du Hoc, a strategic post that American rangers captured from the Germans on D-Day. Picturesque Mont Saint-Michel, the ancient island monastery and cathedral that ranks as one of France’s top tourist stops, is certain to be included on the itinerary, along with the Mulberry harbor at Arromanches, before the second half of the week transitions from the farmland, cliffs and historic beaches of Normandy to the Emerald Coast of Brittany and its quaint stone villages and fishing towns. Tour groups include a maximum of 25 guests accompanied by three leaders. One of the leaders cycles with the group and the other two drive support vans. Daily biking mileage for the guests ranges from 25 to 55 miles, depending on their preference and fitness. “Usually there are three options every day,” Treakle said. “Some people ride the long option, every single kilometer every day, and some people just ride to lunch. People can choose how rigorous they want it to be.” Ironically, Treakle did no serious cycling before joining the Backroads team. There was no time for that as a track and field athlete who
won multiple state championships and All-America honors for Asheville (N.C.) High School, then ran hurdles and sprints for the Blue Devil program. “I started racing track when I was nine years old, and it was love at first sight,” Treakle said. “From 16 until I graduated from Duke it was track, track, track. When you had a rest day, it was for a reason. I had a bike for commuting in college but I never went on rides. But I love it. I still prefer running for exercise, but I love going on social rides. I just went on a 50-mile ride the other day that was great. It was my favorite way to do it — leisurely.” Treakle is a regional support specialist, or manager, for Backroads’ operations in the Brittany and Normandy regions, and she has also led trips in The Netherlands and Belgium, which she will do again this summer. One of her favorite adventures is a trek across southwest France from Dordogne to Bordeaux. “Dordogne is like the French countryside even for the French,” she said. “It’s very rural, beautiful green countryside with little farms and walnut groves. The trip begins there and then you cycle into Bordeaux. So you go from these dark heavy woods into vineyards as far as the eye can see. I’ve been there a couple of times now when it was harvest. All the vineyards are just heavy with grapes and then boom, one day the fields are filled with workers and everybody is picking by hand. That’s pretty special to be a part of.” Just a little farther south, in the Pyrenees, is where Treakle first heard about Backroads. The summer after her freshman year at Duke she went to Spain with a friend from high school and they had a chance encounter with a Backroads guide while they were hitchhiking into the Pyrenees. They ended up backpacking together for a few days and by the time they parted ways, Treakle was determined to work for Backroads when she finished college. She learned French in a two-month intensive language program the summer after her junior year, applied for the job during her senior year, asked her backpacking buddy to write a recommendation and headed off for training a week after graduation. She typically spends November and parts of February and March in the U.S. visiting her family and friends. She admits that it’s difficult being so far from home the rest of the year, living mostly out of a suitcase and rarely sleeping in the same bed three nights in a row. And the hours can be exhausting, such as a recent stint of six straight weeks of 10- to 16-hour days with only two days off. But when someone mentions that she appears to be living the dream with an ideal job, Treakle doesn’t disagree. “I grew up seeing my parents’ (travel) slides projected on the living room wall when I was a little kid, and we were lucky enough to be able to travel some when I was younger, so I always liked it,” she said. “This seemed like a pretty great way to be paid to travel some and experience new cultures. That was the main appeal.”
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Smart Strides Mechanical engineer and former rower Ivonna Dumanyan shows off device to detect abnormalities in running form
How a former rower in engineering and a runner in statistics have collaborated in the sports technology sector
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By Ken Kingery
Special from the Pratt School of Engineering
f you asked Ivonna Dumanyan just five years ago where she’d be today, starting a running tech company at Duke would never have crossed her mind. But thanks to a lot of hard work and the entrepreneurial resources provided across Duke’s campus, her present-day reality has outstripped her imagination. Born in the Ukraine, Dumanyan immigrated to the United States with her family when she was 5 years old. She spent the next 12 years growing up in the southern New Jersey city of Vineland, attending a large but academically challenged school district. Without expecting much to come of her dedicated hard work, Dumanyan envisioned starting out at the local community college for two years or following her passion for rowing to an athletic scholarship at a larger university. “I honestly didn’t think that I’d ever be coming to such a prestigious university, but Duke has proven me wrong in a really good way,” says Dumanyan, who received a full academic scholarship to attend the university. “Duke has given me everything I need to make it here, and as soon as I got here all the doors just seemed to open for anything that I tried to do.” Dumanyan joined the rowing team her freshman year and began pursuing a degree in mechanical engineering in Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering. But just a year into her education, her path took yet another
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detour when she befriended Gabrielle Levac. A statistics major, Levac was two years ahead of Dumanyan and an accomplished athlete on Duke’s track and cross country teams. She also had a history of injuries, having had multiple surgeries before she even turned 21. The two lamented that there were few — if any — resources outside of the training room for athletes to monitor their form. So they decided to do something about it. “At the beginning of last summer, I thought to myself, ‘Why not go for it? Let’s give it a try,’” recalls Dumanyan, now a rising senior. “We decided to build a device to detect abnormalities in running form.” Levac, who graduated from Duke in 2014, had plenty of experience running and knew what competitive athletes could use in such a sensor. But as statistics and mechanics buffs, neither had any experience at all with electrical and computer engineering. The pair would have to look outside of their own curriculum to pursue their ambitions — a prospect that proved to be no problem at all. Dumanyan applied for a fellowship through Duke’s Smart Home Program, which enables students to do project-based design research in their engineering major and receive independent study course credit. With the fellowship’s support, she began testing different ways of tracking heel stability through pressure sensors, accelerometers and gyroscopes.
Sports @ Work
She also received financial and technical support through Duke’s Innovation Co-Lab, which offers a grant program for building the next wave of technology for the Duke community. Her grant provided funding for materials like sensors and batteries for prototyping, and the CoLab’s office hours provided vital technical help. She also knocked on a lot of doors. “Quite honestly, I just popped into office hours for some of the electrical and computer engineering classes and asked questions,” says Dumanyan. “I’ve been warmly received everywhere I’ve asked for help, which has been a fantastic experience.” The device that has evolved from the project uses gyroscopes and accelerometers adhered directly to the skin of a runner’s heel to measure its displacement, which is a metric for measuring pronation. Pronation is the inward or outward motion of the heel that causes a collapse or outward bowing of the foot’s arch. Since pronation is an inherent instability, it causes a lot of problems elsewhere in the body — in the knees, hips, ankles and back. And over pronating or under pronating can be quite painful on the foot. It’s been linked to plantar fasciitis, one of the most common causes of heel pain involving inflammation of a thick band of tissue. The goal of the sensor system is to detect when a runner’s foot is pronating incorrectly and warn the athlete so that he or she can correct their form or even stop and strengthen before an injury occurs. By mid-March 2015, Dumanyan and Levac were ready to formally test their working prototype by putting it on some actual athletes and gathering real data. Their plan is to compare their data with traditional running mechanics analytics taken from video to prove their device is accurate. “We have received positive results in testing our prototypes and have since realized the greater potential of these sensors as a powerful training and coaching tool,” Dumanyan noted. “We are currently working with professional firms to develop a set of innovative data visualizations which would allow the athlete, coach or trainer to monitor an athlete’s form from anywhere and spot asymmetries or weaknesses at a glance.
Former distance runner Gabby Levac, (‘14)
We are expecting to finish a set of scaled, manufactured pilots by mid to late July, which will be field-tested by Duke track & field and local professionals.” Once the data and device are independently certified by two separate physical therapists, an angel has already committed to shepherd the budding company through the manufacturing of beta devices, the development of an integrated app, and the launching of a Kickstarter campaign. If all goes to plan, the company they’ve dubbed BioMetrix could have its funding campaign launched by November 2015. “The whole process has raised my self-confidence quite a bit,” says Dumanyan, who left rowing during her sophomore year and has since become more serious about running with Levac’s support and training. “I’ve realized that, while we’re getting a degree from Pratt, we’re not confined to the major we’re in. We’re not in a box — we’re in a fluid system where the exchange of ideas and talents is free-flowing.”
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Making A Difference Duke’s leadership programs for student-athletes get a boost from unique Heidrick Scholarships By Leslie Gaber Wrestler Immanuel Kerr-Brown and lacrosse player Angel Thompson congratulated by Duke athletics director Dr. Kevin White as the inaugural recipients of the Heidrick Family Leadership Post-Graduate Scholarships
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hen Robert “Bob” Heidrick (’63) sought out an opportunity to give back to the athletic department at his alma mater, he had a vision. That vision involved more than simply signing a check and having something named after him. He wanted to form relationships with student-athletes and to have an impact on their experiences both during their collegiate careers and after graduation. Although he has since passed away, Heidrick’s vision has already touched the lives of many Duke student-athletes in the form of the department’s leadership programs. Established in the fall of 2006, the Student-Athlete Leadership Programs have provided opportunities for more and more Blue Devils in each year of their existence. A team that includes senior associate director of athletics and senior women’s administrator Jacki Silar, assistant director of athletics for student-athlete welfare Leslie Barnes, director of sport psychology and leadership programs Dr. Greg Dale and chair of health, wellness & physical education Scott Yakola oversees Duke’s leadership initiatives. Each program targets a different year of the student-athlete experience and aims to enrich their athletic and academic careers while also preparing them for life after graduation. With the generosity of Heidrick, who was a successful and well-respected leader in the business industry and an active volunteer in his community and within the Duke Alumni Association, the department has been able to greatly enhance each initiative, which in turn has increased participation among the student-athlete community. Though the programs are always evolving, Silar says she believes Heidrick’s impact has helped make the leadership programs one of the best among all athletics departments nationwide. “Bob wanted to make a difference,” she says. “We’ll continue to do that in his honor.” Duke’s ACTION (Accountability, Commitment, Teamwork, Integrity, Opportunity, Now) program pairs all first-year student-athletes with older mentors who serve as a resource throughout their transition from
high school to college. In their second year, student-athletes have the opportunity to attend the Sophomore Outdoor Leadership Experience (SOLE), a weekend of leadership building through activities such as ropes courses, service and discussions around a campfire. Heidrick’s gift enabled increased participation among the student-athletes, as well as the addition of a Junior Leader component, which allowed juniors who attended SOLE as sophomores to come back and lead activities the following year. While the Advancing Leaders Program, an initiative focused on preparing junior student-athletes to take leadership roles on their respective teams, touched student-athletes in their third year, Silar and her colleagues were looking for a way to extend the influence of the leadership programs into the senior year. Heidrick helped meet that challenge with the establishment of the Heidrick Family Leadership Post Graduate Scholarships. Scholarship recipients are selected based upon demonstrated growth in the area of leadership and how they have used those skills to enhance the community around them. The scholarships — among the first of their kind in college athletics — are viewed “as an investment in the excellence of his/her character, in the qualities of leadership possessed by the individual, commitment to others and the potential for service through outstanding leadership in the future,” as noted on the application. Applicants for the scholarship are required to be active participants in the ACTION program. The Heidrick Scholarship applicants are evaluated not on athletic talent, but on their leadership and service as demonstrated on their résumé and transcript, as well as in a personal statement and recommendation letters from coaches and professors. The recipients — one male and one female — were chosen following an interview process, with the scholarship designated to go toward future academic pursuits at the graduate or professional level. The two Duke student-athletes selected for the inaugural year of the scholarship crossed paths many times over the course of their careers, not only as peers on campus but as leaders in the ACTION and Stu-
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dent-Athlete Advisory Council (SAAC) programs and as supporters of many Duke athletic teams. Immanuel Kerr-Brown of the wrestling team and Angelita “Angel” Thompson of the women’s lacrosse program were announced as the 2015 recipients at the third annual Student-Athlete Talent and Recognition Show (STARS) in early May. Both had the opportunity to meet Heidrick’s wife, Raynelle, and daughter, Lindsay, that evening and plan to keep in touch during their postgraduate pursuits. Kerr-Brown, who earned his degree in mechanical engineering, was just as dedicated on the mat as he was on campus and in the community. The Rome, Ga., native capped his senior campaign with a 25-13 mark and second consecutive at-large berth in the NCAA Championships. The Duke captain concluded his career with an overall record of 80-56 after wrestling primarily in the 157-pound division. “I’m not surprised how his career turned out because he put in the work,” head coach Glen Lanham said. “He was always the first one in and the last one out … He’s a leader on and off the mat. He does what he’s supposed to do, he’s a hard worker. I take being a team captain very seriously, and he obviously fits the bill.”
also played a role in shaping her leadership skills. Noted by her women’s lacrosse teammates and coaches as an outstanding role model both on and off the field, she worked her way back to playing form after suffering a torn ACL as a sophomore. She excelled as the Blue Devils’ back-up goalie, earning the moniker of the team’s “unsung hero.” As one of eight seniors this season, she helped guide Duke to the program’s seventh NCAA semifinals trip and first since 2011. “Angel is mature, focused, driven and motivated to excel,” said head coach Kerstin Kimel. “I continue to be impressed with her confidence as a walk-on playing for an elite Division I program. As she has gained more experience and grown as a player, she has developed into a dependable leader for our program.” A recipient of a 2014 ACC Top Six for Service Award, Thompson took part in outreach efforts both on campus and in the Durham community. She represented the women’s lacrosse team on SAAC, participated in the Advancing Leaders Program and served as an ACTION member. The Woodlands, Tex., native also led a Duke student-athlete bible study called “Time Out” and spent time volunteering with the Friends of Jaclyn
Kerr-Brown, Thompson and the late Bob Heidrick
JON GARDINER
Better known as IKB or Manny by his teammates and peers, he received the team’s Total Student-Athlete Award at the year-end banquet this spring. “This young engineer is smart, hard-working, articulate and hugely respected by faculty and students alike,” said Edward J. Shaughnessy, a professor of mechanical engineering and materials science. “We are blessed to have a student-athlete like Manny among us because he shows us all that simultaneous excellence is possible in different facets of life.” Kerr-Brown’s dedication was also evident off the mat, as he regularly joined teammates at the Durham Rescue Mission in addition to several other volunteering ventures in the local community. He was nominated to represent the wrestling program on SAAC and quickly became an active leader within the organization. Time spent working alongside fellow student-athletes to plan events such as STARS helped him develop an interest in working in athletic administration. Aided by the Heidrick Scholarship, Kerr-Brown will pursue a master’s degree in athletic administration at Ohio University beginning in the fall. “I believe, as I am sure most college seniors do, that the biggest part of the ‘college experience’ is the experience,” Kerr-Brown has said. “For myself in particular, I believe that the various events, opportunities, and experiences have been just as valuable as the education I have received here at Duke. Luckily, I chose to attend Duke, where the extracurricular opportunities are abundant; in particular, those provided by athletics.” Thompson’s time as an active participant in the athletic community
PETER LAZAROFF
Foundation, the Ronald McDonald House of Durham and the Read with the Blue Devils initiative. She previously traveled to Nairobi, Kenya, on a mission trip while serving as a youth ministry intern with her church in Texas the summer before her sophomore year. A psychology major with minors in chemistry and biology, Thompson has her sights set on medical school. She plans to take the MCAT this summer before returning to Durham to begin a clinical internship under the guidance of Duke’s Dr. Sarah Armstrong. During the course of the year, Thompson will also research sickle cell anemia or heart disease and pharmaceutical drugs with Dr. Charmaine Royal, an associate professor in Duke’s African and African American Studies department, and apply to medical schools. “It’s crazy to think that four years ago, I was a high school student in awe of even being able to go to Duke,” Thompson says. “Here I am receiving a postgraduate scholarship from the athletic department to go and do things with my life. I just would have never expected this. Seeing that hard work and sticking to what I wanted playing out to my benefit has just been really, really cool.” Through the generosity of Heidrick, moving forward even more Duke student-athletes will be provided with opportunities to make the most of their collegiate experiences like Kerr-Brown and Thompson. From the time they set foot on campus to when they graduate and move on to continue academic endeavors at the next level, these student-athletes will be empowered to develop as well-rounded individuals and to make their mark as leaders, much as Bob Heidrick did throughout his life.
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JON GARDINER
Multi
MANIA Teddi Maslowski has cleared her share of hurdles to take her place in Duke Track’s colony of standout multi-event athletes By John Roth
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eddi Maslowski had cleared literally thousands of hurdles during her burgeoning track and field career, and there was only one more to go. One more hurdle and her fall semester workouts would be complete. Then she would tackle her final exams, head home for winter break and take aim at her second season as a heptathlete for the Duke Blue Devils. Clearing that final hurdle on Dec. 4, 2012, proved problematic, however. Maslowski clipped it with her foot and in an instant she was reeling out of control, spiraling headfirst toward the ground at full speed. Her hands were trapped in an awkward position, unable to break or buffer the fall, so it was her temple that smacked first into the cold, hard Wallace Wade Stadium track. It was an abrupt, painful ending to Maslowski’s preseason training — and the start of several agonizing months of dealing with the concussion symptoms that emerged from her crash landing. A few days after the
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trauma, she tried to take her exams but failed them all. “We’re talking 15 percent when I had A’s in classes,” she recalled. When she returned to campus for the spring semester, she had trouble sitting through her classes, couldn’t remember her schedule and forgot where she lived, leading her to withdraw from school. “I couldn’t talk very well, I had slurred speech,” she said. “I couldn’t drive for a couple of months. I couldn’t touch my nose, couldn’t pick up a pen — I had no depth perception. I couldn’t look to the left. I had headaches for five months. It was pretty bad.” It was so bad that Maslowski, now a senior, refers to her sophomore year as the worst year of her life. “But in retrospect,” she says not five minutes later, “it was the best thing that could have possibly happened — not just for track but in general. I enjoy things way more. I think I have a lot more passion. And I bounce back quicker, because if that didn’t set me back, nothing can.”
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JON GARDINER
HEPTATHLON Day One 100 Hurdles High Jump Shot Put 200 meters
DUKE MULTI CHAMPS
Day Two Long Jump Javelin 800 meters
ACC DECATHLON Robert Rohner 2014 Tanner Johnson 2015
MASLOWSKI’S DUKE RECORDS 60 Hurdles (indoor) 100 Hurdles 400 Hurdles Long Jump Heptathlon Pentathlon (indoor)
ACC HEPTATHLON Curtis Beach 2012 Ian Rock 2013 Curtis Beach 2014
(Duke athletes placed 1-2-3 in 2014 and 1-3-5 in 2015)
ACC PENTATHLON Karli Johonnot 2012 NCAA HEPTATHLON Curtis Beach 2012 Curtis Beach 2014
Long jumps: Maslowski won the Penn Relays, took third at the ACC Outdoors and placed 10th at NCAA Indoors this season Indeed, just two seasons removed from the adversity of concussion, Maslowski’s career is trending decidedly upward. She is part of a subset of Blue Devil track and field athletes who compete in the multi-events — the heptathlon and pentathlon for women, the decathlon and heptathlon for men. Since director of track Norm Ogilvie brought in Shawn Wilbourn as his multis coach seven years ago, Duke’s program has gradually grown to championship caliber — and Maslowski may be poised to emerge as its next breakout performer. “She’s taken off, and I think she is going to continue to take off,” Wilbourn said. “There is so much more there. The sky’s the limit for her as far as what she can do at the NCAA level and beyond. I think she has a future beyond.” Wilbourn knows what that future looks like because he has both lived it and coached it. He was a U.S. Olympic Trials finalist in the decathlon in 1996 and competed in the 1997 World Championships. A year after he joined the Duke staff following the 2008 Olympic Trials, he was instrumental in recruiting the national high school decathlon record holder Curtis Beach, who went on to win a pair of NCAA heptathlon championships during his Blue Devil career. But Beach hasn’t been Duke’s only multi star in recent years. Wilbourn has cultivated a colony of standouts that has produced six ACC championships by five different athletes over the last four years. A Blue Devil has won the last three ACC titles in the men’s heptathlon (indoors) and the last two ACC crowns in the men’s decathlon (outdoors). This year’s roster includes four Blue Devils with ACC championships to their credit: senior Ian Rock, junior Robert Rohner and freshman Tanner Johnson for the men, and redshirt junior Karli Johonnot for the women. “Our guys and girls train together, we have multi dinners where we all get together and hang out, and we’re all like a family,” said Johonnot, who won the ACC pentathlon title as a freshman in 2012. “I think it’s a great culture. I think we’re well established throughout the nation. Because of Coach Wilbourn, our school is known for the multis. I think it’s a great environment. We have a great coach and athletes who are willing to work hard and have a passion for track. That makes going to practice every day so much fun. And we push each other, because everybody on our team has different strengths.” Maslowski does not yet have a championship on her resume, but she seems headed in that direction. During the 2015 indoor season she took third place in the ACC pentathlon and set a new Duke record in the event with 4,097 points. During the outdoor season she stood in second place in the ACC heptathlon after the first day of competition, with two of her
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best events still to come on day two. But she was unable to finish the job after injuring her ankle while competing in the open long jump. In between those ACC meets, though, Maslowski put together a performance indicative of that sky’s-the-limit potential Wilbourn sees. At the 57th annual Mt. SAC Relays in California, she obliterated the Duke heptathlon record by scoring 5,706 points while turning in personal bests in six of the seven events. That effort included new school records in the 100 hurdles and the long jump. Her score was good for eighth place in the field of collegiate, professional and international athletes — but it also proved to be one of the better point totals in the college ranks all season and qualified her for the NCAA Championships June 10-13 in Eugene, Ore. She was the only Duke multi to make NCAAs this summer, and if she’s healthy and on top of her game she’ll have a shot at qualifying for USA nationals later in June. It’s a position Maslowski never envisioned when she was growing up on her family’s farm in rural western Pennsylvania. She went to high school 30 minutes away in Ohio — driving through a sliver of West Virginia every day to get there — and won five state championships as a hurdler, but had no idea she was good enough to compete in college until she started getting recruited. When coaches mentioned they were looking at her for the heptathlon, she had to Google it to see what it entailed. Wilbourn thought her prep marks in the hurdles and long jump made her a multi candidate, along with her background of farming chores. “Throwing hay bales around, that can translate to throwing the shot put,” he told her. With medical school also on her radar, Maslowski decided Duke offered the best mix of academics and athletics. “I had almost no training compared to other recruits at the D-1 level,” she said. “But I had pretty good times, and then the way I competed was just all out, guts, like I have no idea what I’m doing, I’m just out of control competing. I think that’s what you need in the hep, a little bit of craziness. Because if you think about what you are about to do, you could almost not finish it because it’s overwhelming. Two days and 12 hours of competing. It’s unrealistic. So you have to take it one step at a time and compete in each event like it’s the only event you have.” Maslowski’s approach to her sport has evolved dramatically in the two years since her concussion. The first step was finding normalcy off the track. “I would take a day and just try to read a chapter of a book,” she said. “That’s how slow the process was. It was really scary because I saw a neurologist and they said whatever symptoms you still have three months out you may have to live with, and it was five months before I
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was fully recovered. When I came back to school in the fall nine months later, I wasn’t sure I’d be the same. But now I’m better than ever.” She had no trepidation about returning to the hurdles — “That hasn’t happened to anyone in the history of hurdling, so the chances of it happening to me twice are literally zero” — but after missing a whole season of competition she felt like every meet last year was a struggle to push herself and prove to herself that she belonged. She set school records in three events (100 hurdles, 400 hurdles, long jump) and ran in the NCAA Championships on the 4x400 relay team, but she still had a hard time finding satisfaction. “I never recognized my accomplishments,” Maslowski explained. “I focused so much on where I was missing from where I thought I should be. I feel like I could have done more, but I got in the way of myself last year. But that helped me. I’m kind of glad I saw it that way because this season I realized that my biggest competition on the track is myself. I just have fun now. No pressure. I know I can do it this year. I just relax and do it.” “Last year she was doing well but she was trying too hard,” Wilbourn noted. “This year it’s coming together to where she’ll say, ‘That felt easy.’ She also understands the ups and downs of the multi now, and that takes awhile for the multi athletes to understand. You’re not going to PR in every event in a multi. You’re going to have a bad event, but another event is going to be better than you thought it would be, so you have to wait for that. The mental patience it takes to understand that takes awhile, especially for someone who had never done one in high school. She’s getting to that point.” Embracing that philosophy, in fact, has altered Maslowski’s entire perspective. “It took me three years to realize that if I have one bad event, I don’t have to PR in three others,” she said. “That has really changed my overall outlook on life, like one event is not the worst thing that can happen, one bad grade on a test does not mean I’m going to get a bad grade in the class. I’ve been more relaxed and happier. I enjoy doing the heptathlon, but you have to be really resilient because something always happens. You will never have the perfect meet or the perfect multi, it’s impossible for anyone. You just have to take your losses and move on from them. It makes you really feel like you are in control when you do that.” Maslowski had to clear another hurdle at the start of the 2015 campaign. After getting her teeth cleaned at home during winter break, she apparently picked up a “super bacteria” and came down with a high fever that wouldn’t go away. She went to the hospital and ended up staying for a week in isolation, battling a kidney infection, pneumonia and a severe allergic reaction to antibiotics. Then she suffered withdrawal from the pain medications she was administered. After losing 15 pounds and being told she couldn’t work out for eight weeks, she was ready to give up on another season. “But when I started getting back into training, I realized how bad I wanted it,” she said. “Even if I couldn’t compete at 100 percent, I would compete at whatever level I could get to. I lost most of my lifting and sprint work by the time I got out of the hospital. It took me all the way to indoor ACCs to get back to where I was. I used competing as a workout during indoors, then unleashed it outdoors.” “No one will keep her off the track,” said Johonnot, Maslowski’s frequent training partner. “She can be hurt, she can be sick, but she will be out there working hard. I think she loves it and dedicates so much of her time to it, and she’s also very naturally gifted. People always say you can’t get far with just natural ability, but Teddi has both — natural ability and the work ethic — so she has the best of both worlds. She doesn’t take for granted her natural ability. She pushes it to the max and kills it every time.” With Maslowski missing a season due to concussion and Johonnot to an Achilles injury, both have fifth years of eligibility remaining for 201516. With the way they push each other in training and complement each other’s strengths, they give the Blue Devils two athletes capable of going one-two at ACCs — continuing their program’s recent run of multiple championships in the multis.
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Compliance
Quiz
The Duke Compliance Office is responsible for education and enforcement of NCAA rules. NCAA rules are vast and complex, and we hope you read the information below as an introduction to a few of the issues that could arise as you root for the Blue Devils. If you have any questions about NCAA rules, please contact the Compliance Office at 919-613-6214. We truly appreciate your continued support of Duke University and Duke Athletics. Always remember to ask before you act. QUESTION: Which of the following individuals is considered a Duke booster? (A) Jacki, a former Duke volleyball student-athlete. (B) Chris, a Duke alum who, during his senior year at Duke 10 years ago, was a Junior Iron Dukes member, but has not donated to Duke Athletics since graduation. (C) Mike, a Durham business owner, who has an agreement with Duke to provide free tailoring services to student-athletes in need of alterations for their Duke-provided clothing. Note: Mike is not an Iron Dukes member. (D) Tom, a retired Duke professor, who would often speak with recruits when they came on visits to campus. (E) All of the above ANSWER: (E) All of the above. A booster (i.e., a representative of athletics interest) is defined as an individual, independent agency, corporate entity, or other organization who is known (or who should have been known) by a member of the institution’s executive or athletics administration to: (1) Have participated in or to be a member of an agency or organization promoting the institution’s intercollegiate athletics program; (2) Have made financial contributions to the athletics department or to an athletics booster organization of that institution; (3) Be assisting or to have been requested (by the athletics department staff) to assist in the recruitment of prospects; (4) Be assisting or to have assisted in providing benefits to enrolled student-athletes or their families; or (5) Have been involved otherwise in promoting the institution’s athletics program. Any individual that falls into one or more of these categories would be deemed a booster by the NCAA and is, therefore, bound by NCAA regulations applicable to representatives of athletics interests. Once identified as a booster, the individual or business retains that identity for life.
Duke Compliance 919-613-6214
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> The Final Round
Of chips & putts and pick & rolls
TIM COWIE
National player and rookie of the year Leona Maguire
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Duke’s two most successful programs at the NCAA Tournament level — men’s basketball and women’s golf — shared more than a few similarities during the recently completed 2014-15 Blue Devil sports year. Each program is guided by the winningest coach in NCAA Division I history. Mike Krzyzewski ran his record total of basketball victories to 1,018 during this, his 35th year at Duke, while Dan Brooks boosted his all-time best mark of golf tournament wins to 122 during his 31st season guiding the Blue Devils. Both men did so with youthful lineups, as each typically utilized three freshmen among his five starters — former USA Basketball compatriots Tyus Jones, Jahlil Okafor and Justise Winslow in hoops, the international trio of Leona Maguire, Lisa Maguire and Gurbani Singh in golf. Both teams spent the season ranked among the best in the country and conference in their respective sports. At the conference level, both finished as ACC runnersup in postseason tournament play, Coach K’s team falling to first-time league champ Notre Dame in the finals and Brooks’ squad placing second to Virginia’s first-time champs in golf. Both teams then performed at their best in NCAA play. The basketball team charted four victories during the first two weekends of March Madness to claim the South Region championship and a spot in the Final Four for the 16th time in school history. Two months later, the golfers won the South Bend Region, topping a field of 18 teams and claiming one of the regional’s six tickets to the national championship tournament. These Blue Devils, too, earned a spot in their sport’s final four, but it took a few extra steps. First they had to place among the top eight after four days of stroke play at the nationals (which they did, coming in at No. 2). Then they had to defeat Texas Tech in a quarterfinal match play contest to move into the semis against Baylor. Once at the Final Four, the basketball team dispatched two teams it had beaten during the regular season — Michigan State and Wisconsin — to collect a fifth NCAA championship banner for Cameron Indoor Stadium. The golfers were pursuing a seventh NCAA trophy for their program (and second in a row) when they squared off with Baylor in the semifinals, a rematch of a contest that Duke won earlier in the year. But this time the Blue Devils fell 3-2, although they certainly went down swinging. Duke’s last player on the course, Lisa Maguire, rallied to tie her match on the 17th and 18th holes, then extended her opponent an extra six holes before succumbing. Baylor fell to Stanford in the national finals the following day. The most dominant player for each program this year was a freshman. Jahlil Okafor and Leona Maguire each were named ACC player and rookie of the year — a rare double-double — and both earned first team All-America honors as well as national freshman of the year accolades. While Okafor then went on to declare early for the NBA Draft and begin preparations for his professional career, Maguire swept up an impressive array of national honors. After placing second individually in stroke play at the NCAAs, she was presented with the ANNIKA Award, her first national player of the year honor. Then she won the PING national player of the year award from the Women’s Golf Coaches Association as well as the Golfstat Cup, which goes to the player who posted the best scoring average versus par with at least 20 full rounds played over the course of the season. She ended the year rated No. 1 in the Golfweek/ Sagarin rankings. Twenty-four of her 32 rounds this year were shot even or under par, with 10 in the 60s. Aside from the basic objective of putting the ball in the hole, there aren’t many similarities between the fast pace of hoops and the sport that acclaimed basketball writer Bob Ryan once described as “A passion, an obsession, a romance, a nice acquaintanceship with trees, sand and water.” But in 2014-15, at least, Blue Devils played these two games on par with just about anyone.
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