Athletic Honors

Reynolds: record holder

Duke Sports Information

In October, the Duke Sports Hall of Fame enshrined five new members. Their portraits were added to an already crowded wall in the lower level of the Schwartz-Butters Building.

The inductees, Robert Cox '34; Jason Kreis '95; Christian Laettner '92; Ellen Reynolds B.S.E. '86, M.S.E. '91; and Eric Steinhouse '80, were also honored at Duke's Homecoming football game.

Cox, who played football at Duke, earned All-Southern Conference honors as a fullback in 1933 after leading Duke in scoring with eleven touchdowns as the team went 9-1 for the year. He served the athletics department in a variety of capacities from 1942 until his death in 1978, including assistant football coach, men's tennis coach, and associate professor in the physical-education department.

Kreis is one of three Duke soccer players to have earned All-America honors in three separate seasons. He helped the Blue Devils to fifty-five wins in his four seasons with the team, finishing his career with thirty-nine goals and thirty-eight assists. A fifth-round pick of the Dallas Burn in the inaugural Major League Soccer Draft in 1996, he went on to become the first player in league history to score 100 goals and, in 1999, was the first American-born player to earn the league's MVP honor. This past spring, he was named head coach of the MLS franchise Real Salt Lake.

Laettner is one of the most decorated student-athletes in NCAA history, having guided the Duke men's basketball team to back-to-back national championships in 1991 and 1992. He was a three-time All-America selection and was named National Player of the Year in 1992. He is the NCAA Tournament's all-time leader in points, free throws made, free throws attempted, and games played. His jersey number, thirty-two, was retired by Duke in February of his senior year, the same year he played on the U.S. team that captured the gold medal at the Olympic Games in Barcelona, Spain. He went on to enjoy a thirteen-year professional career and was later named one of the ACC's top-fifty male athletes for the first fifty years of the conference.

Reynolds earned All-America honors in 1985 and 1986 in the 10,000 meters as a member of Duke's track and field squad. She holds the school record in the 10,000-meter run at 32:40:70 and claimed first place in the event at the prestigious Penn Relay Championships in 1985. In 2002, Reynolds, Duke's first two-time women's track All-America honoree, was named to the ACC's 50th Anniversary Team for outdoor track and field.

Steinhouse, a swimmer, was a three-time ACC champion in the breaststroke competition, winning the 200-yard event in both 1977 and 1980 and taking first place in the 100-yard race in 1980. In his final season, he was named the MVP of the ACC Championship meet and earned All-America honors after posting top-ten finishes at the NCAA Championships in the 200-yard breaststroke (fourth) and 100-yard breaststroke (ninth). In 2002, Steinhouse was named to the ACC's 50th Anniversary Team for men's swimming.

The Duke Sports Hall of Fame, which now has 117 members, inducted its first class in 1975.