The sign hangs modestly at Koskinen Stadium, unassumingly strapped to the chain-link fence on the far side of the field. The simplicity of the design-white words on a navy background-belies the grandeur of its text: NCAA Champions 1986.
Head coach John Rennie remembers when this was the only such sign on campus, back when national championships were a rarity instead of a regularity at Duke. 1986 was Rennie's eighth season at Duke, the same year that Mike Krzyzewski first led the Blue Devils into the Final Four behind a star guard named Johnny Dawkins, only to be upset by Louisville in the finals. That was the year the men's soccer team made history, becoming the first Duke team to win a national championship.
While Rennie and the Blue Devils didn't win the title until that '86 season, the seed had been planted years earlier, when Rennie became Duke's first full-time soccer coach in 1979.
"[Former President] Terry Sanford and [Former athletic director] Tom Butters had developed a strategy in scholarship allotment in figuring out where-demographically and in terms of our recruitment base-Duke had the best chance to be successful, and then identifying those sports and putting resources into those sports," said Chris Kennedy, Duke's senior associate athletic director and a member of Duke's athletic department for the last 29 years.
"Sports like tennis, soccer, and golf were inevitably going to be significantly better and were inevitably going to be competing for national championships," Kennedy added.
Rennie made the Blue Devils a championship contender almost immediately, leading them to the NCAA tournament in his second season and reaching the title game in 1982. Duke entered the 1982 championship bout against Indiana with a 22-1-2 record and without having lost a conference game, but lost in truly heartbreaking fashion, 2-1, in an astonishing eight overtimes.
"Certainly losing in '82 was very, very, very difficult to take," Rennie said, a hint of pain lingering in his voice.
A similarly talented team in 1983 lost in the second round of the tournament, and, following two average seasons, Duke entered the 1986 campaign with humble expectations. And while the sign in Koskinen commemorates the final achievement, it cannot accurately reflect the tumultuous and exhilarating journey that earned the Blue Devils immortality.
"Our goal was to do well enough to get into the NCAA tournament," Rennie said. "The team took almost the whole season to find its identity. We had to make a lot of changes. It was kind of a work in progress all season."
A rough start to a special year
A season-opening loss to Division II Catawba College in Raleigh didn't do much to raise those expectations.
"It was a tough pill to swallow," said John Kerr, a senior forward on that '86 team and the current head coach at Harvard. "It was a frustrating beginning to that season because we had so many high hopes."
The Blue Devils quickly responded, however, by running off four straight victories by a combined margin of 22-0.
In those four games-played against Vanderbilt, Connecticut, Hartwick and Davidson-Duke established the three-headed offensive monster of Kerr, junior Tom Stone and freshman Brian Benedict.
The left-footed Stone and the righty Benedict flanked Kerr-who went on to win the Hermann Trophy as the nation's best player that year. The trio combined for over 30 goals during the season.
The beginning of the conference season, however, brought the Blue Devils back down to earth. N.C. State defeated Duke, 4-3, in Raleigh. Shutout losses to Maryland (1-0) and Virginia (4-0) left the Blue Devils a modest 3-3 in the ACC.
"It was then the best league in the country, and it still is," Rennie said.
During the rigorous conference season, Duke was sustained by its stout defense. Senior sweeper Kelly Weadock, who started every game over his four years, teamed with the goalkeeping duo of Mark Dodd and Troy Erickson to pitch nine shutouts in the regular season.
"Kelly Weadock was to me the best defender in the country and a tremendous leader on the field," Rennie said. "Between the goalkeepers and Kelly, there was a lot of leadership back there and a lot of heart."
Erickson, however, broke his wrist during a practice before a late-season loss at UCLA, leaving Dodd as the surefire starter. The junior didn't waste the opportunity, shutting out North Carolina in the regular-season finale and gaining confidence with each game in goal.
Pieces fall into place for championship run
Duke's mediocre performance in the conference, when combined with the losses to Catawba and UCLA, left the Blue Devils precariously on the bubble for the NCAA tournament. But once they got in, they refused to leave quietly.
"It wasn't until the NCAA tournament itself that we really started to believe in ourselves, starting from the first game and all the way through," Rennie said.
Fortune was on Duke's side, as three of their first four games in the tournament were played at home. The Blue Devils opened the tournament with a 3-2 victory over South Carolina, which had ended Duke's season a year earlier.
Duke exacted some more revenge in round two, knocking off N.C. State in Raleigh, 2-0. Kerr said being sent on the road provided even more motivation for the surging Blue Devils.
Duke returned home for the quarterfinals with Loyola -a 2-1 win-and a memorable semifinal match with Harvard.
"I remember in particular that Harvard game we had about six or seven thousand people in the stands, and that gave us a lot of energy," Kerr said. "That was probably one of our best games in my career."
The 3-1 defeat of the Crimson sent the Blue Devils across the country to Tacoma, Wash. for a date in the championship game with the equally streaking Akron Zips.
But Rennie's first memory of the title game isn't what happened on the field-it's the field itself.
"It was played on what I call green sandpaper," Rennie said. "It was a carpet laid over a hockey rink in Tacoma, Washington. It was a terrible, terrible surface. It was not a great game because of that surface."
The hard, quick surface-which Kerr recalled was held in place in some parts by duct tape-didn't change Rennie's game plan, however, as the Blue Devils prepared for a defensive struggle with the Zips.
With Kerr facing constant pressure from the Akron defense and in particular the Zips' Grahame Evison, who committed 11 fouls in the match, it was up to Stone and the other Blue Devils to provide the offense.
Just two minutes into the second half, freshman Joey Valenti sent a cross to the far post for midfielder Carl Williamson. Williamson quickly redirected the ball to Stone at the near post, where the left-footed junior banged the ball into the back of the almost-open net for the 1-0 advantage.
The defense made Stone's goal stand up over the final 43 minutes, and Duke had finally claimed its first team title, and maybe, its most improbable one.
"That team was not as talented as the '82 and '83 teams," said Kennedy, who still has a picture of the 11 seniors from the '86 team hanging in his office. "This was a team where the talent level wasn't quite as high, but their chemistry and their work ethic was just absolutely outstanding."
Kerr echoed those sentiments, saying the team's camaraderie carried it through the tough games.
"At a time of my life 20 years after, it's one of the best years of my life," Kerr said. "As a person, as a student and as a soccer player, I'll never forget it. The memories and the camaraderie-we still share."
Kerr added that he still stays in touch with Stone and that he's looking forward to the reunion for the team planned for Alumni Weekend.
By that time, though, Rennie hopes his current Blue Devils can add another sign in Koskinen, right next to the one earned 20 years ago.
"It would be incredible to have a repeat of that-both for the players that are here now and for those guys," Rennie said. "It'd be something they'd be very proud of as well."
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