Football Ticket Discounts to Cheer on Blue Devils

With two homes games left to play this season, Duke faculty and staff can buy special ticket packages for contests against ACC foes Clemson University and University of Miami at Wallace Wade Stadium.

Tickets can be purchased tickets by calling (919) 681-2583 for the following specials:

• For this Saturday's game against Clemson, employees can purchase four reserved seating tickets in sections 10 to 14 for $100, which is 50 percent off the normal ticket price.
• On Nov. 24, employees can "Be a Blue Devil" and sit in normal Duke student seating in section 22 since most students will be on Thanksgiving recess. Each ticket for the game against Miami is $25 and includes a commemorative Duke football T-shirt.
• For $50, employees can also purchase one reserved seating ticket to both the Clemson and Miami games.

"As we come down the stretch, we want to make sure to keep our stadium full for David Cutcliffe and our players," said Mike Sobb, associate athletic director for external affairs with Duke Athletics. "The crowd we hosted for the UNC game was the best I've seen in a long time so we hope people will keep coming out."

In the wake of Duke's dramatic, comeback home victory Oct. 20 over University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Malinda Whitson was feeling the reverberations last week.

Whitson, regional development director with University Development, was traveling in California last week after attending Duke's 33-30 win that gave the Blue Devils a sixth victory and made them eligible for a college football bowl game. As she went from meeting-to-meeting, she kept hearing the same thing.

"Everyone was first talking about the San Francisco Giants going to the World Series, but then they started talking about Duke football," Whitson said. "Everyone was so thrilled and excited about it. The win gave me a lot of good will."

While Duke fans in Durham and California were buzzing last week, so were Blue Devil supporters across the country. With Duke's win over UNC, the Duke Athletics' main Facebook page was pushed over 400,000 "likes," making it the most "liked" private school athletics page on the social networking site. Almost 400,400 people currently "like" the page.

That kind of enthusiasm is something Victor Strandberg can relate to. He's been attending Duke football games for nearly 50 years and said the dramatic end to the Duke-UNC game was among the best he's seen. With Duke needing a touchdown to win and only a few minutes left to play, Strandberg said he was heading toward stadium exits before cheers erupted and he returned in time to see Duke's game-winning touchdown.

"The touchdown signal in that circumstance was something that at my age, 77, I had never seen before and did not expect to see now," said Strandberg, professor in Duke's English Department. "So, it was the most spectacular, most incredible finish I have witnessed in my 47 football seasons at Duke."