Sept. 17, 2008

 

By Jim Sumner
theACC.com

Sometimes good things do come to those who wait. Just ask Anthony Dilweg.

Anthony Dilweg grew up in Bethesda, Md. Sports were a big part of his childhood. After all, his grandfather, Lavern Dilweg, had played eight seasons for the Green Bay Packers at the dawn of the National Football League and his paternal grandmother, Eleanor Coleman, was a world-class swimmer. His father Bob played football at William & Mary.

By the time Dilweg was finishing up at Walt Whitman High School, he was one of the nation’s top prep quarterbacks. Local favorite Maryland came calling and this was right after Boomer Esiason, so the Terps were an attractive option. Dilweg’s mother was a graduate of the University of North Carolina and the Tar Heels were hot after him.

But something happened. “I hurt my knee before my senior year,” Dilweg recalls. “That made me think of life without football. Suddenly, that scholarship offer from Duke seemed a lot more attractive.”

The knee injury was so severe that Dilweg was granted a rare high school red-shirt year by the local school board.

Dilweg arrived at Duke in the fall of 1984. Duke had another top quarterback recruit that year, Steve Slayden, but that didn’t worry Dilweg. “I was 19 and I wasn’t worried about the competition.”

Not that it figured to matter much that first year. Fifth-year senior Ron Sally was entrenched as the starting quarterback and Drew Walston was an experienced backup. Dilweg expected to not play and he was still being bothered by that knee injury. So the decision was made to sit out the year and rehab, take a medical red-shirt, and come back the next year ready to compete for playing time.

Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. Sally went down with a season-ending injury and Walston followed in short order. Suddenly, Duke coach Steve Sloan looked at his quarterback options and didn’t see much left except for Slayden.

Slayden suffered the tribulations one would expect from a true freshman at that position. But he played and learned and grew, while Dilweg sat. Dilweg was a year behind Slayden and he never did catch up.

Dilweg did find one way to contribute. He became the team’s punter in 1985 and kept the job for four years, averaging 39.6 yards per punt.

Dilweg thought that the combination of punter and back-up quarterback spelled fake punt but Sloan didn’t agree. In the season finale against North Carolina, Dilweg took matters into his own hands, trying an unauthorized fake punt. It didn’t work and the coaches were furious. One assistant told Dilweg he would never play for Duke again. “Now, I’ve done it,” thought Dilweg. “How do I get out of this mess?”

Duke lost that game to North Carolina, 42-35, bringing Sloan’s record at Duke to 13-31. He was replaced after the season by former Duke offensive coordinator Steve Spurrier.

Right before his fifth season started, Anthony was watching some film one day and I said, “What classes are you taking?” and he said, “I’ve already graduated and I’m taking an acting class, a drama class.” I said, “Let me tell you something, I want you to act like you’re the best quarterback in the nation, okay?” He looked at me and said “okay” and I’ll be dadgum, he did it. He strutted up to the line of scrimmage like he was in total control. And he was and he’d pick out his targets and he’d look guys off. He was a fun guy to coach and one of the best quarterbacks I’ve been fortunate enough to coach over the years. --Steve Spurrier

After spending some time looking at game film, Spurrier came up to Dilweg, put his arm around his shoulder and told Dilweg how much he admired the fake punt that went awry. “You were trying to make a play to help your team win. I like that.”

Dilweg says, “I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I had found my coach.”

Dilweg was still behind Slayden but got some quality time as backup, while continuing as punter.

Slayden graduated following the 1987 season, leaving Dilweg as the only experienced quarterback for 1988. The fifth-year senior wasn’t about to waste his opportunity. Clarkston Hines was one of Dilweg’s top targets. Hines says, “Tony had all the physical attributes, including a strong arm. But he worked so hard for his opportunity. He studied game film all the time, he picked Spurrier’s brain. The two would work together after practice all the time. Coach Spurrier would show Tony how to do something and Tony would pick it up right away.”

Dilweg says, “Coach Spurrier and I were always on the same page. He gave his quarterbacks free rein but with that freedom came responsibility. You knew you had to get the job done or he’d find somebody who could.”

Hines adds, “The key to making this work was Tony’s intelligence. ‘Take what the defense gives you’ seems easy but it’s not. He had lots of options but he had to make the right decisions and he had to make them quickly. He always made the right decisions. Combining Spurrier’s genius with Anthony’s intelligence gave us an offense that we thought was unstoppable.”

Duke opened at Northwestern. Dilweg completed his first nine passes and passed for 262 yards in just the first half, giving Duke a 28-7 lead. Duke went cautious in the second half and Dilweg ended with 353 yards in a 31-21 win. Hines had eight catches for 131 yards.

Spurrier explained after the game, “We had scored enough points in the first half that if we didn’t do something stupid, we’d win the ballgame.”

Tennessee was next, a prohibitive favorite at home in front of 93,144 orange-clad partisans. Again Dilweg exploded out of the blocks, completing his first 10 passes. Dilweg hit Hines for a 26-yard touchdown to open the scoring. It was 14-0 when Tennessee’s Preston Warren picked off a Dilweg pass and returned it for a score. Duke marched right back for a touchdown; Dilweg again to Hines, this time from 18 yards.

Duke added a field goal for a 24-7 halftime lead. Dilweg and Hines connected for their third scoring pass, a 15-yarder and it was 31-7 with 2:42 left in the third period. Duke again tried to sit on its lead and again saw it almost melt away. The Vols scored three late touchdowns and Duke didn’t secure its 31-26 win until a Tennessee onside kick in the final minute failed to go the required 10 yards.

Dilweg completed 21 of 32 passes for 311 yards, with Hines accounting for 145 yards on eight receptions.

Duke came home for a 41-17 win over the Citadel. Dilweg passed for 410 yards and threw three scoring passes, none to Hines, who sprained an ankle early. True freshman Walter Jones caught seven passes for 139 yards and one touchdown.

The conference opener was at home against Virginia. The great-start/slow-finish pattern continued. Dilweg passed for an astonishing 300 yards in the first half. At one point Duke converted eight consecutive third-down plays. A 19-yard touchdown pass to Hines with eight seconds left in the half gave Duke a 31-7 lead.

Again, Duke hit the wall after intermission. “I don’t know why,” says Dilweg. “We seemed to lose some intensity.”

Virginia’s Shawn Moore hit Tim Finkleston with a pair of long touchdown passes and Dilweg ended a promising Duke drive with a lost fumble. But Dilweg the punter came through, pinning Virginia at its five. Minutes later, that led to seven Blue Devil points when a Wyatt Smith interception gave Duke a short field. Duke held on 38-34, with Dilweg throwing for 397 yards.

Another trip to Tennessee was next, this time to visit Vanderbilt. Duke moved the ball at will but a penalty nullified a touchdown and three turnovers stopped scoring drives. The Blue Devils led 14-7 at the half, fell behind 15-14 and regained the lead on a 44-yard Doug Peterson field goal with 3:47 left. Vanderbilt almost returned the favor but missed a 30-yard field goal and Duke won 17-15. Dilweg passed for 349 yards and running back Roger Boone set a school record with 15 receptions.

Duke was 5-0 for the first time since 1957 and getting some support in the national polls. But chinks started showing up, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Duke went to Death Valley and got toasted by Clemson, 49-17. Dilweg threw two interceptions and lost a fumble.

Duke came back home and jumped to a 16-0 lead over Maryland. But the Terps scored 34 unanswered points. A Dilweg to Boone touchdown and a two-point conversion made it 34-24. Duke got the ball back with minutes left and drove to the Maryland 28, where two potential touchdown passes were ruled to have been caught out of bounds. The final was 34-24. Dilweg passed for 379 yards and three touchdowns

Duke was reeling when it visited Georgia Tech in Atlanta. Again, the familiar pattern emerged. Duke led 14-7 at the half and extended the lead to 21-7 early in the third quarter. But Tech tied it with a pair of touchdowns. Duke regained the lead on a Peterson field goal but it was a precarious, three-point lead when a Tech punt pinned Duke back to its own five in the middle of the fourth quarter.

The smart money would have been on a Duke collapse. But Dilweg put together a time-consuming 95-yard masterpiece. Duke converted a trio of third-downs and Dilweg completed five of six passes. Three were to Hines; no surprise. But fullback John Rymiszewski caught the other two, both for first downs. “John bailed me out twice,” remembers Dilweg. “I was running out of time and all of a sudden, there he was. I still get goose bumps thinking about that drive.”

Duke won 31-21, with Dilweg passing for 228 yards against a team that went into the game allowing an NCAA-best 108 passing yards per game.

Duke didn’t respond well to prosperity. The Blue Devils returned home for a match against Wake Forest. Dilweg says, “We just didn’t show up,” a claim supported by Wake’s 35-16 win. Playing from behind, Dilweg set a school record with 475 passing yards on 30 completions. But three interceptions, two lost fumbles, and 16 penalties for 131 yards doomed Duke.

Duke was 6-3 when they visited NC State, with a Peach Bowl bid on the line. The game was one of the ACC’s epic shootouts. State’s Shane Montgomery matched Dilweg bomb-for-bomb, as the two clubs combined for almost 1,000 yards of total offense.

State led 26-25 at intermission and extended the lead to 33-25 in the third Montgomery to Naz Worthen touchdown pass. Charles Davenport made it 40-25 with a 33-yard run and the Wolfpack faithful started making bowl plans.

But Duke fought back. Dilweg was briefly shaken up and backup quarterback Kenny Hull scored on a short run and hit Hines for the two-point conversion. It was 40-33. Dilweg came back and led Duke to a field goal; 40-36, with 7:07 left.

State drove to the Duke 44 but couldn’t convert a fourth-and-two. Dilweg drove Duke 56 yards in eight plays, culminating the drive with an eight-yard pass to Hines.

Duke led 43-40, with 57 seconds left. Montgomery completed passes of 15 and 11 yards and Duke was penalized 15 yards for illegal participation. It came down to a fourth-down pass, which was intercepted by Duke. But the Blue Devils were penalized for defensive holding. State kicked a field goal as time expired and the game ended 43-43 (in the days before overtime).

The Wolfpack got the Peach Bowl bid.

Dilweg says, “In one sense it was a lot of fun. But not getting a bowl bid was very disappointing. Emotionally, it felt like a loss.”

Duke still had its season finale against North Carolina and a slight chance for a bowl bid. Spurrier had been suspended for the game because of his harsh criticism of the crucial penalty. Duke led 14-0 and 28-14 but another late-game defensive swoon forced Dilweg to lead another late-game comeback. Boone scored from six yards out with 23 seconds left to give Duke the 35-29.

Duke ended the season at 7-3-1, the most wins since the 1962 team went 8-2. Despite the record and despite the appeal of the high-powered offense, only Clemson and NC State represented the ACC in the much smaller bowl universe.

Dilweg shook up the ACC and Duke record books. He was voted ACC Player of the Year, while his 3,824 passing yards shattered the existing ACC record of 3,086 set by Duke’s Ben Bennett in 1983. Twenty-one years later it remains the Duke record and the highest ACC mark for an 11-game season. Dilweg says he’s “amazed that these records are still standing. That means something.”

Following the 1988 season, he was offensive MVP of the Hula Bowl and played in the Japan Bowl and the Senior Bowl.

Dilweg was drafted in the third round by Green Bay and had his moments in the NFL. He was even NFL Player of the Week once, while regular quarterback Don Majkowski, a former Virginia Cavalier, was holding out. But Majkowski came back and Dilweg struggled for playing time. He spent some time in the minors, suffered another knee injury, and retired, having thrown for 1,274 yards in the NFL. He thinks he would have done better if not for impatience. “I had sat so much at Duke, I wanted it all right now (in the NFL). I had a career of extremes and I couldn’t handle it.”

Dilweg had majored in psychology and drama at Duke but he was “always intrigued by finance.” He spent summers working for the Chicago Board of Trade before coming back to North Carolina and getting into commercial real estate, ironically working at first with former UNC and NFL quarterback Scott Stankavage.

Dilweg founded the Durham-based The Dilweg Companies in 1997 and is CEO of the successful commercial real estate investment firm. He is a star among people who have no idea he ever picked up a football. “There’s a lot of carryover from football,” he says. “You learn time management, risk assessment, how to work with people.”

He also stays close to his alma mater as the sideline reporter for the Duke football radio network. “I’m a terrible spectator. I just want to watch the games and this is a great way to be able to do that.” His three children (ages 12, 8, and 3) keep him busy with a diet of basketball and soccer.

Dilweg isn’t complaining. After all, he spent enough time waiting for his turn.

 

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Jim Sumner's articles on southern sports history have appeared in the ACC Handbook, the ACC Area Sports Journal, Blue Devil Weekly, Inside Carolina, the Wolfpacker, Baseball America, Basketball America, and other publications. His latest book, Tales From the Duke Blue Devils Hardwood, was published in 2005. In his bimonthly column "Looking Back... by Jim Sumner", he will examine the rich history of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

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