DeMarcus Nelson stands at midcourt as the second half begins, the embodiment of the strong, silent type. Duke is battling Maryland in Cameron Indoor Stadium, and Nelson's got his game face on. This guy is not your friend-gone is the wide grin permanently affixed to his face when he's hanging with the guys.
Gone is his relaxed gait, that amble he takes on when he sings chart-toppers in the locker room. He's here now, guarding Terrapin point Greivis Vasquez, the cocksure sophomore with slicked hair who's constantly chirping in Nelson's ear. Vasquez isn't even trash-talking, his usual schtick-he's just trying to chit-chat with his opponent. Nelson isn't biting.
His game face doesn't change for anything-not when Kyle Singler knocks down a three to put the Blue Devils up 11, nor minutes later when the Terps cut that lead to three. And he's not about to waste his breath talking to a guy who's just another roadblock in the path of his goals. Hell, he doesn't waste his breath on much at all. Duke's lone senior is not into the "rah-rah," as some of his teammates call it, the constant cheering and instructing that's been the trademark of more than a few great Dukies. But on the rare occasion that the jacked guard pipes up, everyone listens.
Like early in the second half on this night, when Vazquez hits a three over Nelson, and it's clear Nelson wants immediate revenge. California's high school all-time scoring king takes off from the left wing and drives into a crowd, where the ball is slapped off his leg. Mike Krzyzewski jumps up off the bench, but Nelson holds out his fist toward the bench. "My bad, I got it," he mouths. That's good enough for Krzyzewski, who sits back down.
Two minutes later, Nelson rewards K's lenience, poking the ball away from Maryland forward James Gist at halfcourt and finishing the steal with a dunk that seems to release all the intensity he's bottled up the whole game.
Krzyzewski knows by now how Nelson operates. In College Park, Md., a few weeks before, when the Blue Devils trailed by nine at halftime, DeMarcus said little in the emotional locker room. But when they returned to warm up, Nelson took his shots muttering what Coach K said: "We're not losing this game," followed by his own quiet mantra, "By any means necessary."
In that game, "by any means necessary meant" dropping 19 in the second period and carrying Duke on his back to the win.
Last season sucked for everyone. But to understand why it really ate away at DeMarcus Nelson, why he took it so personally, you have to grasp a few things about him.
The first is that the 22-year old has always loved a challenge.
When Nelson got serious about basketball around sixth grade, his father Ron started him on specialized workouts-the type of intense training most kids don't encounter until high school varsity.
"From a young age, I was amazed by his appetite to work, and his ability to go beyond what you might think is too much work for him," Ron says. "Some people thought I was pushing him too hard, but he was the one doing all the work and making it look so easy. He never seemed to break a sweat."
Even his choice of sport came from a challenge. Nelson was an All-American quarterback and admits that football was the sport he was biologically meant to play. In the bowels of Cameron Indoor Stadium, the sacred chapel of basketball, Nelson looks up and says he could pick up a football today and be as good as he ever was.
"I loved basketball more because it was harder for me, I guess," Nelson says. "It was more of a challenge, whereas football, I was so naturally blessed that it was easier."
His father still teases him, telling him he picked the wrong sport. Ron claims that "football came as easily to him as basketball is to Kobe and LeBron." The story arc is familiar to DeMarcus' father-Ron himself was a talented, multi-sport athlete in high school, and like his son, preffed the hardwood over the gridiron.
"Basketball, for lack of a better word, is like a drug-it's a very addictive sport," Ron says. "You hear all the time about athletes in other sports that are avid basketball players or fans, and they play all the time and they go to the games whenever they can.. DeMarcus, he really got addicted, just like I did, he became obsessed with the game."
When it became clear that his addiction would carry over into college-and it became abundantly clear when he averaged 18 points and eight rebounds a game as a ninth-grader-nearly everyone assumed he would end up at Arizona, the team Nelson cheered for as a kid.
But the kid they call Markie wanted to up the ante.
And if going to a storied program 2,780 miles away from your home that already has a stable of All-Americans in the toughest conference in the nation isn't a way to push your limits, what is?
"When you think about it, he committed to Duke when they already had Luol Deng, Daniel Ewing, J.J. Redick and Sean Dockery. And then they had a commitment from Shaun Livingston," Ron says. "No way you walk into a situation like that unless, you know the kind of player you are. But he stuck with his decision, because he looked forward to the challenge."
The other thing you've gotta know about DeMarcus Nelson is that he is a results guy. He rarely exuded much confidence his first two years in Durham, not because he didn't think he could produce, but simply because he hadn't.
After Nelson dropped 16 points and helped to shut down fellow freshman Marvin Williams, USA Today observed, "The finest moment of a young college career had happened despite a nagging weeklong cold, which raised a potentially scary question: What can DeMarcus Nelson accomplish when he's healthy?"
Over the next year, the question became more frustrating than scary, proving all too prognostic. After rupturing a ligament in his shooting hand in his first ever appearance in front of Duke fans-the intrasquad Blue-White game his freshman year-DeMarcus broke his ankle midway through his sophomore year.
Finally healthy, Nelson led his team to the un-Duke record of 22-11. He knows some of the reasons why it happened. "My junior year was really my first full year of playing," he acknowledges," so even though mentally I prepared to be ready for what I had to go through, I had never been through it before."
Even after a disappointing regular season, Nelson was sure his team could make a surprise run in the Tourney and shut up all the Duke haters. But VCU was no patsy, and Nelson got in foul trouble. When it mattered most, he contributed a measly eight points-his second-lowest mark of the year.
Nelson isn't afraid to talk about last season. In fact, when reporters need a sense of how much of a letdown 2007 was, they don't go to head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who focuses on a the fact that a young and only sporadically healthy team won 22 games. Rather, they head to Nelson, who will readily discuss how angry and embarrassed the year made him.
"He absolutely took it personal," Ron says. "You have to understand that the legacy and history of Duke basketball, and realize that the continued greatness of the program fell short when he was in control. And that stunned him to no end. Now, was he moping and whining? He wasn't doing that, but there was a determination in his eyes I hadn't seen before."
That personal sense of failure is why Nelson changed his workouts, why he trained with Arron Afflalo, Nick Young and Gabe Pruitt as they prepped for the NBA Draft, and why he went after them so hard in the workouts that they told him he was ready to enter the draft right then.
It's why after last season, when the Blue Devils had three captains and little leadership, he never asked Coach K to change it up and make him the clear leader of the team-he forced him to. Nelson spent all preseason serving as what he likes to call "the rabbit," a reference to the mechanical hare that stays ever so slightly ahead of racing greyhounds. When the Blue Devils had to run a sprint in 24 seconds, Nelson would turn to his teammates. "I'm gonna run it in 18," he'd dare. "Who's gonna keep up with me?"
"Since I've been here, he's the best model, as far as one guy could be, for what coach wants in a captain," says junior guard Jordan Davidson. "He epitomizes that."
But Nelson has also learned that being a good leader doesn't mean having his game face on at all times. Off the court, he's easy-going and always willing to crack, or be the butt of, a good joke.
Like, how'd he get so many battle scars? "I think somebody has been paying the other players to rough me up a little bit-somebody on our team. They don't like me being this cute."
He flashes that grin that's probably gotten him out of trouble more than once. But minutes later, when he steps out on to Coach K Court to shoot the photo gracing our cover, the smile disappears. It's just as Marty Pocius says, "When he steps on that court, it's all business."
It's not hard to understand why. "I'm 6-3, I'm not a freak of nature," Nelson says. "Everything that I've been able to accomplish in basketball has been through extreme and intense hard work."
Nelson has two three-inch screws in his ankle to remind him of his sophomore year, a still-recovering shooting form to remind him of his freshman year and a huge burden on his back to remind him of his junior year. But if his senior year memento is a national title ring, that's all he'll have to remember.
"I've been on some good teams here, but this has just been the most fun year for me," the senior says. "And what better way than to have that in your senior year, and what better way to go out than to be a champion?"
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