Four filmmakers, three of them former top level college soccer players, set off on a journey to connect with the world through pickup soccer. I had the chance to interview Gwendolyn Oxenham, one of the filmmakers and a former Duke soccer star, after a Duke showing of the film, Pelada. It is still a work in progress. Go to TheSoccerProject.com for more information about the film. Below is the trailer for the film.

I spoke with Duke Professor Negar Mottahedeh (@negaratduke on Twitter) about her integration of social media tools into her classes, especially her Intro to Film Studies class. Her class is holding a Twitter film festival where they will screen film clips all day Saturday and tweet their criticism about the films to the world. Or at least the Twittersphere. Everyone is encouraged to follow the class on Twitter @twitfilm and the hashtag #twitfilm to participate in the film conversation Saturday, April 4, 2009. The schedule is posted on this Facebook event.

She also mentions her academic collaborators Cathy Davidson, @catinstack, and @jenmyronuk in the interview.

Photo by News&Observer’s Chuck Liddy

At last night’s Duke Football game, a new Duke Mascot made his first appearance. I didn’t even know a new one was in development, but I am sure the current suit was pretty ratty. When I was in school, I considered trying out to be the Devil, but one of the requirements was that you needed to be six-feet tall. I am not.

Blue Devil 1930
Duke University Archives. Durham, North Carolina, USA.

Blue Devil 1970s
Duke University Archives. Durham, North Carolina, USA.

Blue Devil 1995 (large foam head appeared in 1981)
Duke University Archives. Durham, North Carolina, USA.

Former Duke Player and Duke Associate Head Coach, Johnny Dawkins has been named head basketball coach at Stanford. Another Krzyzewski protege is moving into the ranks of head coaching. He was part of Coach K’s first recruiting class at Duke that begin the string of successful seasons for Duke. He was also one year ahead of me in school. So when Johnny went to Dallas for the Final Four in 1986, I went too. I was also in attendance when his jersey was retired.

This also meant that as my academic schedule swerved between rigorous (pre-med) and not so much (pick a major, meet requirements and move on to graduate school in the future), I shared several classes with Johnny. The most memorable was an additional science requirement for non-science majors which used a book that was actually called Physics for Poets.

The non-basketball memory of Johnny that has always stayed with me was that he was someone who referred to himself in the third person. It was a bit disconcerting to have a conversation with him, and he would say something like, Johnny has a busy day today. I would assume that after all these years he has dropped this practice.

Read more about the coaching announcement here

According to Duke Alumni Magazine:

19,206 Total Applicants
1,701 Freshman Enrolled
33 Countries Represented
38 Freshman from Korea, most from another country
220 Freshman from North Carolina, most from any state
18 Freshman from East Chapel Hill HS, most from any HS
28 Freshman named Michael, most common male first name
21 Freshman named Sarah, most common female first name
29 Freshman with the last name Lee, most common in the class
406 Freshman enrolled in Chem 211, most popular elective
1989 Year in which most Freshman were born

from WRAL:

Duke fans so accustomed to seeing the Blue Devils win basketball games at Cameron Indoor Stadium saw something more surprising than home losses last season – empty seats in the student sections.

This year, Duke is trying to reverse that with a new ticketing system that allows students to reserve seats online.

Continue to rest of article

The Duke Football Program (one of the worst in the nation) is utilizing resources from the Fuqua Business School (one of the best in the nation) to create a strategic plan for winning. It is actually an economic model, because Duke is in the red due to the high cost of running a football program. One way to increase revenue is to win and bring the fans back.

Read about it in the News & Observer

Here’s a good 5-part series from the Raleigh News & Observer. The reporter has gone back and reviewed documents and conducted interviews to reconstruct the events at the beginning of the case. The N&O has a lot to atone for, due to their early indictment of the 3 players.

Sometimes there is a convergence of events, like this week:
Duke lacrosse players innocent of charges
Kurt Vonnegut Dies
Joe Walsh to go on the road with Kenny Chesney

Former Duke basketball player and ESPN commentator Jay Bilas appears in the College Game Day promo. Bilas was one year ahead of me in school, so played for Duke while I was a Cameron Crazy.