Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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UNDER THE DOME After five years as an NFL offensive lineman, Duke Preston joined Notre Dame's Student Welfare and Development office in 2013. He moved to the Irish football pro- gram this April, taking the lead on three of the five areas head coach Brian Kelly considers vital to developing complete student- athletes. Blue & Gold Illustrated: What has surprised you most in a role dealing solely with football play- ers rather than all the student- athletes at Notre Dame? Preston: "The task that has be- come a headache is, on a home game weekend, we have a Thurs- day night radio show, we have a Friday luncheon, and we have a Friday pep rally. It's my job to recommend and recruit guys to fulfill those speaking obligations … I'll kind of tease guys. One day I was joking with one of the guys, and he texted me the next morning panicked. I was just kidding with him. I didn't anticipate I'd be chasing guys around try- ing to get them to speak in front of a crowd. "It's indicative of the student-athlete we have here at Notre Dame. These guys are pretty well accom- plished in a lot of different areas, so they're not used to failing, looking uncomfortable or potentially look- ing stupid. They protect themselves pretty well. It's something that was an adjustment when I first got here to Notre Dame. … Here, it's a different character and class of guy that has just a different mindset." Blue & Gold Illustrated: What does developing players intellectually entail? Preston: "It involves some academic oversight. I don't have any authority academically, but more so staying on top of guys from a habit standpoint. "All their deficiencies, grades or absences come through me." Blue & Gold Illustrated: What about developing players so- cially? Preston: "We have a program called Irish Around the Bend. I seek different opportunities to hopefully seek out transforma- tional opportunities for our guys, not just transactional deals. "A lot of times guys are re- quested to come and sign autographs and do things like that, which is great, but I'm re- ally looking for things that our guys can sink their teeth into and grow just as much themselves as hopefully the population they are serving." Blue & Gold Illustrated: How do you develop play- ers spiritually? Preston: "I oversee our Thursday night fellowship … I'm not one that browbeats guys or pushes my beliefs or where I stand on things, but it definitely informs who I am as a man and as a professional." Blue & Gold Illustrated: How much involvement do you have with Kelly's other two core areas? Preston: "The other two are skill and physical. The skill piece is dual components of the actual technical side of football as well as the game from an X's-and- O's standpoint. The physical is more so the weight room with the strength staff. "With my background with both of those, I'm able to draw a lot of cross-correlations and analogies to the lessons I learned through the skill and the physi- cal that impact the intellectual, social and spiritual." — Douglas Farmer Five Questions With … DIRECTOR OF PLAYER DEVELOPMENT DUKE PRESTON Preston, a former offensive lineman at Illinois who played five years in the NFL, took over his current role at Notre Dame this past April. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS