When All-ACC defender Christina Gibbons dribbles down the field, you’ll notice something peculiar on her left arm.
The Raleigh native carries on a longstanding tradition for the Blue Devils—drawing an X for each shutout the team has recorded up to that point in the season on her fellow defenders’ arms.
She draws them on sunny days, rainy days and even cold ones when they wear long sleeves and no one can see the marks—with one exception.
“I don’t draw Chelsea [Burns’] because apparently Olivia [Erlbeck] draws Chelsea,” the senior co-captain said. “If someone drew it the first time, then they have to keep drawing it the rest of the time.”
College sports have traditions of highlighting performance with symbols, with perhaps the most famous example being the decals on each Ohio State football player’s helmet.
Duke’s tradition is not as dated, but is perhaps even more meaningful given that it is player-driven.
“I kind of took it over this year,” Gibbons said. “I guess, otherwise, it doesn’t really happen.”
‘I do shower’
Gibbons was first introduced to the ritual as a freshman, when she said she was just told to stick out her arm, and her teammate did the rest. As it turns out, a similar interaction likely took place when that senior was a freshman in 2010, when the seniors on her freshmen team were also rookies in 2007 and so on dating years back.
A dozen years, to be exact.
In 2004, Carolyn Ford—an All-American defender like Gibbons—began celebrating the defense’s accomplishments by writing “Pride in Zeros” on their arms. The team set a program record with seven straight shutouts and finished the year with 12—one shy of a school record.
Ford was surprised to see a similar tradition alive and well seven years later.
“I was watching the game and you could see the writing on their arms,” she told The Chronicle in 2011 after the Blue Devils fell 1-0 to Stanford in the national championship game. “I was thinking to myself, ‘I wonder if that has actually continued since when we were there.’”
None of the players or coaches on this year’s team knew just how far back it dated, even though head coach Robbie Church and assistant coach Carla Overbeck have been with the squad the whole time.
Photos from the team’s past years show a change from “Pride in Zeros” to X’s beginning in about 2007. But this year, the team has bought into the X’s perhaps more than ever, with the majority of players displaying them at some point this season. The practice has not just included defenders, either.
“Which I like more,” Church noted. “A shutout—everybody’s involved with it…. We give up a goal, everybody gives up a goal.”
In fact, the tradition has become so popular that last year, midfielders and forwards decided to leave their own mark, writing “O-line” on their right wrists. Junior Imani Dorsey and senior Toni Payne take the lead on that end, senior co-captain Lizzy Raben said.
As an unintended consequence, the Sharpie-to-skin combination can be a little tricky. Gibbons said the X’s take about three days to disappear, and by that time the team is likely playing the second of its weekend games thanks to a Thursday-Sunday turnaround. She noted that it’s easier to just retrace the marks.
“[It] makes it seem like I never shower, but I do shower,” Raben said.
Due to last year’s success—Duke finished tied for seventh in the country with 14 shutouts—players also wound up drawing on their arms heavily. For much of last season through the championship game, players had to get creative.
“Pyramid-style is usually the most common… as we start to get more,” Gibbons said.
Others, like junior defender Morgan Reid, just employed a straight line of X’s, which wound up spanning the entire length of her forearm.
Hurricanes and apples
It is clear sometimes from what a coach says whether or not they believe a team has chemistry. For Duke, Church does not even have to say anything. From spontaneous videos on Twitter to laughter on and around the field before games, the Blue Devils appear as close-knit as teams get.
“I was walking… to the new [athletics] cafeteria, and we were all really concerned that people were going to intermix sports,” Gibbons said. “We just wanted to sit with each other.”
Before each game, the team goes around in a wave-like motion and starts what Gibbons refers to as a “hurricane” of some sort. She also runs ahead of the team for the first warmup and high-fives everyone in a particular order, and the team places its gear in certain spots.
The quirks seemed rational last year, when Duke stayed together after a rough start to the season, beat North Carolina for just the third time ever and won five games in the NCAA tournament before falling in the national championship 1-0 to Penn State.
“Before one game, Krysia [Sikora] offered everyone in our class a bite of a single apple,” Raben said. “It got started a little bit before the [NCAA] tournament, and that’s when we started doing well, so we’re like, ‘Oh my God, we have to keep doing this every game.’”
“I don’t like apples, so it was a really big deal for me to do this,” Raben added.
“And then it became this team thing where everyone started to chant the name of the next biter,” Gibbons said. “[Lizzy] was last, so everyone would like freak out, and.... it would be like the smallest bite ever.”
Church actually has some of his own superstitions. Most notably, before each game, whether home or away, he finds a concession stand and buys a beverage of some kind. Ideally he finds a Coke—not Diet—but he says he is willing to settle for a Pepsi.
“We’re all just like, ‘Yeah, we get it,’” Gibbons said. “And I guess if we were to be like, ‘Yeah we all take one bite of an apple,’ he’d be like, ‘Okay, whatever works.’”
A revamped culture
Two years ago, Duke had one of its worst seasons under Church. After All-Americans Natasha Anasi and Kaitlyn Kerr graduated, the Blue Devils missed the NCAA tournament for the first time in 12 years.
The following offseason, the team created mottos like “For each other” and “Be where your feet are,” which are displayed in the locker room. This year, players also have a team bracelet with three colors standing for the team’s values—heart, reliability and enjoyment.
Gibbons already wore a personal bracelet during her first three years with the Blue Devils, taping it around her left wrist during games. Now, she has added a second bracelet—the team’s—underneath the tape.
Another key change was one that is fairly unique. On most high school, college and professional teams, rookies are responsible for handling some equipment duties and menial tasks, either before or after practices and games.
But with the help of Greg Dale, Duke’s director of sports psychology and leadership programs, Raben and Gibbons live by a new motto.
“Service leadership,” Raben said, “where the leaders are serving the team.”
Before the Blue Devils’ most recent home game against Louisville, service leadership was on full display. Junior Casey Martinez and Gibbons picked up the cones after drills, and Raben brought back the case of Gatorade bottles from the middle of the field.
“We don’t acknowledge class,” Gibbons said. “We realized [freshmen duties] sucked.”
After scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win against Minnesota Sept. 4, freshman Ella Stevens said nearly the same thing.
“Our team is one, and I don’t think we look at it like freshman, sophomore, junior, senior,” she said.
New year, new expectations
This year’s Blue Devils came in with championship aspirations after returning 10 of 11 starters from their runner-up season and bringing in the No. 4 recruiting class in the country. And after their run last year and a week-long trip to China this summer, there was hope that the level of camaraderie would continue to climb heading into the season.
But the Blue Devils—facing one of the toughest schedules in the country—have not looked quite like themselves so far, with offensive inconsistency leading to a few early-season losses.
“People were saying, “Well, we’re not as close as we were in the Final Four,” Gibbons said. “When you go through the season—the ups and downs, tough losses and travel—all that brings you to eventually where we were.”
Duke was stunned 2-1 at Arkansas Aug. 26 in the team’s third game of the season. During the next two weeks, it tied then-No. 8 North Carolina 0-0 before falling to fourth-ranked West Virginia at home 3-1.
Still, the Blue Devils are 7-2-2 and 2-0-1 in the ACC, with wins against three top-20 teams and their best start in conference play since 2011.
A new year has also meant an influx of freshmen with different personalities and returning players growing into leaders. Before every game, junior Abby Pyne links arms with goalkeeper E.J. Proctor as the classmates talk at length, even though Pyne will not play again in her career due to a slew of injuries. Sophomore Kat McDonald gives handshakes to several starters even when she does not start, running off the field right before the opening whistle.
“How I always think of teams is, ‘Who’s the glue that’s holding everyone together?’” Gibbons said. “Abby has always been it for our team… but I think Kat has really come into that role this year.”
The Blue Devils hope their cohesion will help them weather a storm of tough opponents at the end of the regular season, including top-15 foes in Virginia, Florida State and Clemson.
If all goes well and the team sets itself up for another postseason run, perhaps Sikora will even bring back the apples.