They say Duke athletes bleed blue, but these days, some are repping a shade closer to green.
At least, that’s what members of Duke Sustainable Athletics Group are aiming for. Founded by student-athletes from all across the University’s Division I teams, DSAG has made waves on the national scene as a pioneer in bridging the gap between sports and sustainability.
In July, recent Duke graduates Alayna Burns and Brandon Hersh were named recipients of the Billie Jean King Youth Leadership Award, which celebrates “young people who are using the power of sport as a catalyst for change.” The field hockey forward and former football cornerback were recognized at the 2024 ESPYs and each received a $2,500 charitable grant, which they donated to the EcoAthletes nonprofit.
Later that month, junior volleyball player Sydney Tomlak traveled to Los Angeles with Burns for the 14th annual Green Sports Alliance Summit, a gathering advertised as the “premier event in sports and entertainment sustainability” that brings together hundreds of athletes and sports management leaders from across the globe.
Although it was Burns’ second year attending the summit, Duke was represented as an official member school for the first time. There, Texas A&M bestowed a baton upon the Blue Devils — a metaphorical charge to “keep up the leadership in sustainable athletics master planning.”
Closer to home, the group was honored a few months later at Duke’s 2024 Climate Commitment awards in October. Eleven student-athletes from nine sports were represented at the ceremony.
With all the accolades, it’s hard to fathom that only two years ago, DSAG still hadn’t held its first meeting. But for a group of student-athletes used to being a step above the competition, that fast-paced rise to prominence is in their nature.
Breaking ground
DSAG was founded in spring 2023 by Burns, who was looking for an outlet to get involved in environmental work on campus during her junior year. Although Duke had recently become more vocal about the priority it placed on climate-forward thinking with the announcement of its Climate Commitment just a few months prior, there didn’t seem to be any existing spaces that really aligned with the student-athlete experience. So, Burns decided to create her own.
She met with Duke athletics leadership including Bob Weiseman, deputy director of athletics/operations and capital projects, to get the ball rolling and figure out where athletes interested in sustainability efforts could initiate change. By April 2023, DSAG had already completed its first project: the Devils Doing Good Shoe Drive.
“It started with us putting bins in locker rooms,” Burns recalled.
Members of the fledgling organization set up and advertised the initiative themselves, calling on their fellow students to donate their athletic shoes and help reduce landfill waste.
New and lightly worn shoes were sent to the MORE Foundation Group, a nonprofit that repurposes footwear and supports reforestation efforts and farming co-ops with the proceeds. Sneakers that were deemed too worn out to be reused were given to Nike Grind, which recycles the materials into new products like basketball courts, turf fields and fitness gear.
By the end of the 12-day collection period, DSAG had sorted 591 pairs of shoes.
“It’s exciting to see the beginning of our long-term vision whereby Duke athletics never wastes a shoe,” DSAG’s leaders wrote in an Instagram post announcing the successful venture.
They have since repeated the initiative three more times, and so far, Duke student-athletes have diverted over 1,500 shoes from landfills through the project.
The most recent installment, which was rebranded the “Devils Doing Good Gear Drive” after expanding to include clothes and other equipment, concluded Jan. 13. Over three weeks, DSAG collected 326 pairs of shoes, 459 articles of clothing and over 70 pieces of athletic equipment.
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Branching out
Burns stressed that the support DSAG received from the athletics department and other administrative offices was crucial in getting the organization up and running.
“What helped us so much was that we had the resources from athletics, we had our platform as a student-athlete that we hadn’t really discovered until we started doing this stuff, and we also had support from the University sustainability side,” she said.
With that support, DSAG was able to become a formally recognized student organization, providing the group with University funding to support several new initiatives.
In September 2023, Burns led the effort to host a “Bleed Blue Live Green” field hockey game — paying homage to the motto of Sustainable Duke — sponsored by Duke athletics. The event featured environmental trivia, a zero-waste tailgate that included composting lessons from the players themselves and an athletic equipment drive where fans could donate items to the Boys and Girls Club of Durham. Afterwards, the initiative was celebrated for giving the Blue Devils a space to center climate and sustainability in the conversation. On the field, Duke shut out Wake Forest 3-0.
The University took a cue from the students, and less than two months later, Duke football partnered with the new Office of Climate and Sustainability to host Wake Forest for a “Climate Commitment Game,” which saw the Blue Devils take down the Demon Deacons once more as they promoted sustainability initiatives on campus.
The fall 2023 season also kicked off a new effort aimed at improving the waste disposal habits of Wade Wackos; fans were asked to leave all waste products under their seats before leaving the stadium to allow professionals to sort trash, recycling and compost more accurately. From the Climate Commitment Game alone, 600 pounds of compost waste were diverted from landfills.
The following year, DSAG took center stage in Duke athletics’ climate efforts once more. Duke volleyball continued the tradition first kicked off by Burns and the field hockey squad with a “Green Game” of their own: a 3-1 victory against Clemson in November. Duke women’s basketball is set to hold a similar “Climate and Sustainability Game” Feb. 6, also against the Tigers.
Hersh pointed out that while these new events have started to make the intersection between sports and sustainability at Duke clearer for players and fans alike, the athletics department has been making strides in the space for years.
For example, when the field hockey squad sent the Demon Deacons packing at their 2023 Bleed Blue Live Green Game, they did so on newly installed turf that was designed for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics as a more sustainable alternative to existing models. According to Hersh, the new turf requires 60% less water to maintain while also capturing carbon dioxide — a “win-win.” Its installation at Williams Field earned developer AstroTurf the 2023 Single Field Sports Project of the Year award in October of that year.
The Blue Devils’ commitment to the climate traces back even further. In May 2012, the athletics department’s first “Bleed Blue, Live Green” spring cleaning event, where coaches and staff picked up litter from around their facilities, and in January 2008, the Cameron Crazies showed up to the men’s basketball team’s contest against N.C. State decked out in head-to-toe green paint in honor of the University’s “ongoing commitment to sustainable environmental practices.”
Even with these past efforts, DSAG has created a new space for student-athletes to take charge and lead the initiatives themselves. And as the organization’s goals have grown, so has its membership.
Tomlak, an environmental science and policy major, joined DSAG during her freshman year as a way to fill her time once the fall season had ended. She attended a meeting led by Burns and Hersh, who she remembered coming across as “super passionate” about DSAG, and was immediately hooked. Tomlak now serves as DSAG’s president, helping to develop initiatives and engage a new generation of students in the organization’s work.
The group’s most recent project sought to bring sustainability issues right to Blue Devils’ fingertips, literally. DSAG hosted a Sustainable Training Table Pilot project last spring, where members educated their fellow student-athletes about composting and other climate-conscious habits as they dined at Training Table, the official athletic dining hall in Blue Devil Tower.
DSAG conducted tests before, during and after the initiative to measure change in the athletes’ waste disposal behavior in response to the training. Leading up to the project, the facility’s average weekly compost measured at 681.8 pounds. However, during DSAG’s week of training and the week immediately following, 927 and 946 pounds of compost were collected from Training Table, respectively.
As a result of the project, the group was able to collect more than 500 pounds of additional “near 100% clean” compost. DSAG had also brought in extra composting containers for the event, which, in conjunction with the enhanced waste sorting, meant that even more waste was diverted from landfills.
“A lot of athletes got to learn a lot about what goes on behind the scenes,” Burns said about the experience. DSAG members learned about existing efforts to promote sustainability in the kitchen and met with cooks at Proof of the Pudding, which provides dining services for the athletes.
Room for growth
Tomlak has found it “inspiring” that the group has come so far in “such a short amount of time.”
“I feel like that has had a really positive impact in getting other students and student-athletes to be interested in DSAG and just sustainability and environmentalism more than before,” she said.
Although Burns, the founder, graduated from Duke last spring and has since moved on to continue her collegiate field hockey career at Stanford, she remains involved with DSAG to this day, helping to keep the sustainable spirit alive at Duke. She credits the group, which became a central part of her college experience, with opening the door to new professional opportunities and showing her that she didn’t have to give up one interest to pursue another.
“I never thought I could keep working in sports while following my passion of sustainability, but this work on campus that has exploded off of campus has shown me … a future beyond college for me or [other] people in DSAG to follow,” Burns said.
Hersh agreed and added that the attention the group has received has only incentivized them more to keep “pushing the needle” on climate work on campus. He now serves as Duke athletics’ climate and sustainability coordinator since graduating last spring, a newly established role meant to ensure that environmental issues are centered in the department’s operations.
“I think the greatest value to the recognition was just being able to expand our platform and validate that this space exists and that it’s something that Duke is proud of,” he said.
Today, DSAG’s members are looking toward the future, focusing on growing their reach and planning their next move. In the meantime, they’ll continue to show up for sustainability in sports, a goal that keeps the Devils — like their motto says — doing good, one step at a time.
Zoe Kolenovsky is a Trinity junior and news editor of The Chronicle's 120th volume.