 Laura Ann Howard is now in her 18th season as administrative assistant in the Duke Basketball office. She works closely with the Blue Devil assistant coaches, coordinates player autographing, keeps tabs on former players, staff and managers, and lifts the spirits of each team member who visits our offices on the fifth floor of the Schwartz-Butters Center. The Roxboro, NC native shares one of her former player updates each month in LA’s Corner.
Hello Duke fans! Welcome to another month of LA’s Corner. For this month, I decided to do a little Q&A with my good friend Kim Collins, wife of Associate Head Coach Chris Collins, to give our readers an idea of life behind the scenes for a coach’s family. Thanks for sharing Kim and GO DEVILS! How do you handle the grueling schedule he has as a coach? What is the most bizarre encounter you have had in public? What is the proudest moment you have shared together? What do you do as a family to relax? How is Ryan’s hoops career going?  Kim and Coach Collins |
Our players unveiled state-of-the-art new threads at our home game against Wake Forest, sporting uniforms unique to college hoops. Using Nike Aerographics technology, the new uniforms feature an embedded design on the back inspired by some of Duke’s iconic buildings and Gothic architecture. We were the first college program to wear jerseys with our own signature graphic on the back and also the first school to utilize the new Nike technology. The jerseys, 31 percent lighter than the typical college hoops uniforms, will be worn again in our last home game of the year against FSU and on the road at North Carolina. The alternate new uniforms have similarities to Team USA’s jerseys worn during the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, creating a nice link between Coach K’s Duke squad and his National Team.
“The aerographic design on the USA Basketball Senior National team uniform became one of the symbols that Coach K used to help the team feel the importance of their journey and all that it represented,” said Eric Lautenbach, Nike’s Director of College Basketball. “Similarly, the graphic on the Duke version allows the student-athletes to represent the university’s unique heritage. Rather than doing a strictly basketball-inspired symbol, Coach K asked us to create a graphic that represented Duke University, not just Duke Basketball.” Lautenbach also stated, “Duke is a prestigious university and we are thrilled to unveil this innovation with this program.”
After the game in the locker room, our players were still excited about the new look, describing the uniforms as “hot”, “fresh,” and “nice”. Also, most of the guys commented that they enjoyed the lighter feel. Said Elliot Williams, “I love them. I know most of the guys really liked the look and feel. For me personally, I like them because they are a lot lighter, you can really feel it. I like the design too, the graphic on the back of the jersey is nice.”
“I think the look is really cool and being the first college team to wear something like this is pretty special,” said Gerald Henderson. “Plus, Jon and I both got career highs in these and obviously our team played really well. I think we should run with them the rest of the year!”
At halftime of the 2009 All-Star game, Team USA’s gold-medal winners in attendance received their rings. A special message from Coach K on the scoreboard followed the ring presentation. Click HERE to watch video of the proceedings…
