|
History repeated itself in overtime, as, again with under two minutes on the clock, the Blue Devils scored—this time when Mike Grella beat Giallombardo low and left. The tally sent Duke into a frenzy, a month of frustration released with one cathartic goal.
"Wow, just wow," Rennie said, his eyes taking in the scene of jubilant Blue Devils celebrating in the left corner of the field, the once-driving rain reduced to a drizzle. "This is unbelievable."
In the huddle, he thanked his team for giving him a win in his last trip to Charlottesville and for making the three-and-a-half-hour bus ride home—the aspect of his job he dislikes the most—a whole lot more enjoyable. That trip home started riotously with pizza and Gatorade—the two staples of the Duke soccer diet—and karaoke provided by Medcalf and Germanese as entertainment. The two seniors, former teammates at Vanderbilt, performed as punishment for being late to practice earlier that week.
That kind of punishment isn't unusual for the typically laid-back Rennie. During games, the coach spends much of his time sitting on the bench or standing tranquilly on the sidelines, his hands tucked into his pockets. There's little yelling, gesturing, or posturing. He does most of his work on the practice field, and even then he lets Jeffries run the majority of the drills. Rennie tends to take over at the end of each practice session, his favorite refrain of "once more" pushing his team to finish the day strong. The practice field is also where Rennie handles most of his team's off-the-field issues, pulling players aside during water breaks to speak one-on-one.
"I generally talk to players alone out here—before practice, during a session—instead of calling them to the head coach's office, where they're thinking, 'What did I do?' " Rennie explained. "Out here, they're thinking about soccer."
That's how Rennie handled a complaint from goalkeeper Justin Papadakis earlier in the season about the coach's quotes in The Chronicle. Rennie, who is known for being candid with the press, had told a reporter that the Blue Devils didn't "have a leader back there [on defense]" with Jepson out, and Papadakis didn't take kindly to the perceived slight. The day before the South Carolina game, Rennie took his goalie aside and talked to him. "It came out in a way I didn't want it to," he explained to his assistants later, adding that it's easier to be critical after wins than losses.
"Memories are short when you win and long when you lose," Clerihew responded.
Momentum is a pretty abstract thing: You can't see it or hear it or touch it. But as far as abstract things go, momentum is about as tangible as it gets. Because you can always sense momentum. Any player on the field or coach on the sidelines or fan in the stands can sense momentum shifts—they sense them and respond as a falling leaf responds to a change in the breeze.
When Duke boarded that bus in Charlottesville, it brought along an extra passenger: momentum. And that welcome addition to the team carried the Blue Devils through non-conference wins against Cleveland State University and Davidson College. But in the team's Halloween night victory over Davidson, fickle momentum made a hasty and premature exit from the Duke sidelines; Videira, the senior star and midfield anchor, suffered a serious quadriceps injury. Rennie called it an "Oh no, here we go again" moment.
Videira's absence was felt that weekend in a stunning 4-3 loss to Alabama A&M University—the game that would prove to be the final unexpected twist on the roller coaster of the season. Rennie pulled the goalie, Papadakis, at halftime in favor of backup Brendan Fitzgerald after the senior let a ball slip away for an easy Bulldogs' goal. Rennie was hard on Papadakis after the game, telling reporters that his miscue was "an awful mistake" and a "devastating point in the game." The senior would not see the field the rest of the season.
"It's pretty close between the keepers," Rennie said, "and this time of year you can't make mistakes like that."
The Blue Devils handled ACC cellar-dweller North Carolina State University in the regular season finale before dropping their much-desired rematch with North Carolina, 1-0, in the first round of the ACC tournament.
Despite the setbacks, Duke took the chilly and choppy field at Cardinal Park against the University of Louisville the day after Thanksgiving for the first round of the NCAA tournament oddly confident. Videira, who had returned at half-strength in the loss to UNC, said his teammates saw themselves as the talented underdog nobody wanted to play. Even with their pedestrian 11-7-1 record and without the high seed they had expected at the start of the season, the Blue Devils felt they could still make a run into December.
"At that point in our season more than ever, we felt like we could turn it on," said Jepson, the senior defender. "We knew everything else that had happened in the year didn't matter; we just threw it out the window. Once it's tournament time, it's a whole new season."
The Blue Devils' new season, however, reflected the flaws of the old one, ultimately flatlining in a 1-0 loss to Louisville. Despite outshooting the Cardinals, Duke was shut out for the sixth time in the season.
After the game, the Blue Devils lingered on the field, unable to comprehend that their season—a year of could-haves and should-haves and supposed-tos—was over.
It wasn't the first time this group of Duke players had remained on the field well after the game was over. They had done it to collect the last two ACC tournament championships; they had done it in Charlottesville a month earlier. This time, the mood was distinctly different.
"It was just a big letdown. With so much potential with the team we've had this year, it was hard to swallow," Jepson said. "Aside from that, just the culmination of all the years playing here and having it boil down to that point—it was hard. It hasn't really hit you just yet, but at the same time, you know it's the end."
Three days after the loss, Rennie has recovered from the last bus ride of his career—as mixed as blessings get. He glances out the window of his office in the Murray Building for that partial view of Koskinen Stadium. Neither structure existed twenty-nine years ago, and the same could be said of the elite Duke soccer program he built.
But as the coach sifts through files and files of old papers and wonders where he's going to store all those jerseys and frames and pictures, he isn't thinking twice about his decision to retire now, even after a final season he admits was "very disappointing."
"Time and timing is a big factor in everybody's life," he says. He crouches forward in his chair and clasps his hands. "Time is a very precious commodity, and as you get a little bit older, it's becoming more precious. So you decide, what do you want to do with your time? Do you want to do the same thing, or do you want to change?"
As he sits there, surrounded by the mementos of his past, Rennie's eye is set firmly on the future. A future blank and open-ended and amorphous.
"I do not have any set plans at this point," he says. "I don't want any."
And why should he? After all, the best-laid plans….
—Britton '09 is sports managing editor of The Chronicle.
• return to page
one of this article. |
