Duke Football players go green

From The Charlotte Observer.

When it comes to littering, Duke football coach David Cutcliffe is an expert.

You have your “placers” – they carefully put bottles in bushes. Then there are “chuckers”- they catapult their trash into the air, unaware of where it will land. Don’t forget about the “gutterers and drainers”- they put their trash near drains in hopes of it getting washed away. And last, there is the “mid-stride” style – these offenders simply drop their trash while walking.

No matter the technique, Cutcliffe has no patience for littering. He has made it an annual tradition to have his players walk around the Duke campus with black trash bags, on a mission to pick up everything in sight.

“We have a beautiful campus, and we are very proud of it,” said Cutcliffe, who is entering his third season at Duke. “Unfortunately people tend to litter, and that bothers us. I want them to do a great job of picking up the trash.”

The players, decked out in matching gray Duke football T-shirts and black Duke shorts, dispersed all over Duke’s campus on Monday morning. They started at Wallace Wade Stadium and went as far as Duke Hospital. After a team breakfast, the cleanup was under way by 7:30 a.m. After an hour of work, their task was complete: a big dumpster full of new trash.

Cutcliffe has done this since his head coaching days at Mississippi. It’s an activity also used to build team chemistry and spirit, freshman cornerback Garett Patterson said.

“Doing this brings the whole team together early in the morning,” he said. “We are all working toward one goal, and it is a lot more than picking up garbage. It shows everyone we are out here trying to build a program together.”

Patterson, armed with a long stick to help him retrieve garbage hidden in bushes – courtesy of the “placers”- walked around the outskirts of the stadium with teammate Perry Simmons. Patterson found some caution tape, a cigarette box, cardboard and a Gatorade bottle, to name a few items.

Simmons, a 6-foot-5, 220-pound freshman offensive tackle, squeezed his body under a bush as he sifted through the leaves.

“I was wondering how people even get these things in here in the first place because I can’t even get some of the trash out,” Simmons said. “When you walk around campus you don’t even see much trash, and then you look closely and all of a sudden there is stuff everywhere. I have learned my lesson about littering, that’s for sure.”

This is all part of a larger message Cutcliffe learned from his family and continues to pass on to all his players.

“When you go somewhere you want to leave it better than how you found it,” Cutcliffe said. “I tell them that with Mother Earth. But also by the time they leave this Duke community it is certainly how I want our football program to be: improved and a better place.”

If his scouting report for each game is as detailed as his littering list, the program is in good shape.

rstern@nando.com or 919-829-8949