Our guest speaker for this meeting will be Chris Pollard, Head Baseball Coach at Duke. Pollard became Duke’s 25th head baseball coach in June of 2012, taking over the reins of the Blue Devil program after successful stints at Pfeiffer University and Appalachian State University.
Under Pollard’s guidance, Duke put together a historic 2018 campaign. Ranked in the preseason for the first time in program history, the 2018 team lived up to early season hype, recording the first 40-win season in program history while also earning a program-record 18 ACC wins and advancing to the first NCAA Super Regional in school history.
Baseball America ranked Duke in its top 25 for 13 weeks during the regular season, more than doubling the total number of weeks the Blue Devils were ranked in the first 36 years of the publication’s rankings (6). With a 45-18 overall record, Duke not only set a program record for wins in a season but also reached 30 wins for the fifth straight year, the program’s longest such stretch since the Blue Devils compiled a run of seven-straight 30-win campaigns from 1992-98.
Just two years earlier, Pollard led Duke to an at-large bid to the 2016 NCAA Tournament, ending the program’s 55-year drought without making the postseason event. After beginning the season 10-13 (1-7 ACC), the Blue Devils went 23-9 over their final 32 regular season games, including a 13-8 ACC record. During that span, Duke went 9-7 against Top 20 RPI teams, collected series victories over Georgia Tech, Clemson, Virginia Tech, Florida State and Pitt, and posted a perfect 10-0 mark in non-conference play.
The first head coach to lead Duke to the NCAA Tournament since the Kennedy administration, Pollard is also the fastest Blue Devil head coach to reach 100 wins at Duke. In over 110 seasons before his arrival, Duke totaled 10, 30-win seasons. Since taking over the program, Pollard has guided the Blue Devils to five seasons of 30 or more wins.
thanks, www.GoDuke.com
Mark Your Calendar
2/6/19 – David Wyant, Director of Scouting, National Football League
2/20/19 – Special Guest Speaker
3/6/19 – Special Guest Speaker