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Behind the Scenes of Duke Athletic Events

Bob Weiseman oversees hundreds of events each year at Duke

Bob Weiseman, assistant athletic director for athletic facilities, game operations, and championships, drives an injured Florida State University football player off the field at Wallace Wade Stadium. Weiseman serves a variety of roles to oversee athleti
Bob Weiseman, assistant athletic director for athletic facilities, game operations, and championships, drives an injured Florida State University football player off the field at Wallace Wade Stadium. Weiseman serves a variety of roles to oversee athletic events on campus. Photo courtesy of Bob Weiseman.

Name: Bob WeisemanPosition: Assistant athletic director for athletic facilities, game operations, and championshipsYears at Duke: 6

What I do at Duke: I touch almost all aspects of our athletic department through facility construction and maintenance, operation of varsity home events and NCAA/ACC Championships. This has been a crazy year with the start of $150 million worth of construction on athletic facilities, and over 200 plus varsity events and championships.

If I had $5 million, I would: Pay off any outstanding debt, then invest the money. As the money grew I would help out family and save to set my kids up for success in the future. Also, I would make a nice donation to the Iron Dukes to help their Building Champions campaign.

My dream job: I feel like I have my dream job at Duke. But if I were truly dreaming, I would love to be the general manager of the Philadelphia Eagles and bring the first Super Bowl back to a city of diehard fans.

If someone wanted to start a conversation with me they should ask me about: If you ask about any of Duke Athletics’ on-going projects, you will probably get an earful. If you really want to get me yapping, just ask me about the LED stadium lighting project at Williams Field on East Campus – the first Division I outdoor venue to be lit with LED stadium lighting.

What I love about Duke: I really love that Duke tries to build the complete student-athlete. I love that our student-athletes are winning national championships and also winning in the classroom.

If I could have one superpower, it would be: I would like to be able to extend the amount of time in a day whenever I just needed a couple more hours to get work done or be with family and friends.

Something most people don’t know about me: Most people know I am an obsessed Philadelphia sports fan. What few people know is that if a Philadelphia sports team won a championship, I would drop what I was doing and go to the parade – no matter how old or how busy I was at the time.

An interesting/memorable day at work for me: In 2010, about four months after we partnered with Duke Pre-Hospital and Disaster Medicine to handle our game day medical operations, we experienced four separate fans going into cardiac arrest on separate game days over a four month span. It is fairly rare for this happen once a year in a sporting venue, so four separate times over four months was crazy. It is a stretch in my career I will never forget, and I am extremely proud of how we prepared and handled those very difficult situations.

A Book I like: My college friend's older brother, Matthew Quick, wrote the Silver Linings Playbook, so I am partial to that book and the rest of his books. After college, I was lucky enough to get a season ticket for Philadelphia Eagles games with my college friend, his brother (Quick) and sister. I like to tell people that some of the tailgating scenes in the book were loosely based on our antics.