Duke will open the season on the road this year, as scheduling shifts will prevent the Blue Devils from playing at home during Orientation Week, breaking what has become a tradition in recent years.
For the past two years, the Blue Devils opened their season at Cameron Indoor Stadium, hosting the Duke Invitational. The beginning of the weekend tournament coincided with the Friday of Orientation Week, giving the incoming freshman class the opportunity to attend its first Duke sporting event together in one of the most historic venues in all of college sports.
“We love to be home during orientation week,” Duke head coach Jolene Nagel said. “Unfortunately, even the best-made plans run into obstacles.”
In this case, the obstacle was the NCAA volleyball schedule. Nagel’s Blue Devils–and all other volleyball teams–aren’t officially allowed to play their first match of the year until Aug. 30, the first weekend of the school year. That date, which falls later than usual, didn’t mesh well with Tuesday’s arrival of the Class of 2017 for orientation.
Scheduling a home game for the first weekend of the school year turned out to be too difficult as well, as Duke will host the Bull City Classic, competing against N.C. Central in both football and cross country.
“We try hard not to host on weekends that the football team is home,” Nagel said. “That way we can avoid the stress that doing so puts on all our facilities.”
Nagel said the team is always fired up to play during Orientation Week. In addition to playing for a larger crowd, many of whom are the team’s new freshman peers, the Duke Invitational has marked the beginning of a new season.
“It’s just a really special time,” Nagel said. “It’s a wonderful, exciting night for our freshmen. It’s their first time being in Cameron and so there’s always a lot of energy.”
Playing during Orientation Week has also allowed one of Duke’s smaller athletic programs to attract a student fan base from the onset of their college experience. During Orientation Week in 2011, junior Conor Quinn was one of many freshmen who attended the Duke Invitational with his friends. He painted himself for the occasion and has remained a strong supporter of the volleyball program ever since.
“I think it was the most excited the people I was with ever got for a Duke sporting event, because it was our first one as a group,” Quinn said. “One of the things that’s great about Duke is our longstanding athletic tradition, and I think sports is a great way to bring us all together. We come from all over the place but we can all paint ourselves blue and go root on our Blue Devils.”
Instead of opening its season in Cameron Indoor Stadium, Duke will hit the road for its season-opener Aug. 30 in Gainesville, Fla., at the Campus USA Credit Union Invitational. The team then travels to Minnesota for the Diet Coke Classic the following weekend, before its home-opener Sept. 13 against Liberty in the Duke Invitational.
Nagel said the team may try to find a way to welcome the freshmen for that first home weekend of the season to make up for this year’s missing Orientation Week game.
This year’s squad, young and inexperienced, will be tested early in the season. The Blue Devils will take on two NCAA Tournament teams in their opening weekend, facing off against LIU-Brooklyn and Florida. Though not the rousing opening home tournament of the past few years, the Gainesville tournament will enable the team to take senior libero Ali McCurdy home. The Tampa, Fla. native is the ACC’s two-time reigning Defensive Player of the Year.
Instead of the volleyball match, Duke’s incoming freshmen will have the opportunity to attend another game during Orientation Week when the men’s soccer team takes on Old Dominion in an exhibition match at Koskinen Stadium Friday at 7 p.m.
Nagel said she does not expect this year’s scheduling blip to be a permanent change, and that the volleyball program would be thrilled to host a tournament during Orientation Week in the future, should the NCAA schedule permit.
“Any time when we can, we absolutely love to play at home, especially during Orientation Week,” Nagel said.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.