July 2, 2003

DURHAM, N.C. - After two consecutive years of wall-to-wall basketball, Alana Beard called a timeout last summer and spent a relatively quiet offseason at home in Louisiana resting up for her junior campaign at Duke.

This summer, with her senior year now on the immediate horizon, Beard has resumed a pace as frenetic as the many fastbreaks she's led across Coach K Court.

After carrying Duke to a fourth straight ACC title and a spot in the Final Four, Beard again went home to Shreveport for some recovery time when the spring semester ended. But it didn't take long for her to start racking up more frequent flyer mileage: a trek to Colorado Springs for National Team trials in mid-May, a return to Durham to help her coaches recruit an AAU tourney in late May, a visit to Las Vegas for the Victor Awards in June, all sprinkled around appearances at several camps and clinics.

Next week she begins almost a month on the road with USA Basketball as a member of the World Championship for Young Women team, which trains in Colorado, New York and Boston before heading to its tournament in Croatia July 25 through Aug. 3. In the middle of all that, she's trying to arrange a cross-country flight to California July 16 to attend the ESPY Awards, for which she's received a nomination as the best female college athlete.

Regardless of how the ESPYs turn out, Beard is the obvious choice for one honor - Blue Devil Weekly's annual female Blue Devil of the Year award for 2003. Tennis player Michael Yani is the male winner. The announcement was made in the summer edition of Blue Devil Weekly.

During the past two years, Beard has developed into perhaps the most well-known woman athlete in Duke history. Only swimmer Nancy Hogshead could challenge that claim, and her glory days as a four-medal winner in the 1984 Olympics came after she'd finished competing at Duke, though she was still in school.

In three seasons for the Blue Devil women's basketball team, Beard has helped the school to records of 30-4, 31-4 and 35-2. Clearly 2003 was the best of those years, as Duke was ranked No. 1 or 2 in the nation all season. The only two losses came to eventual national champ Connecticut in a Durham sellout, and to Tennessee in the Final Four at Atlanta.

Beard led Duke and the ACC in scoring with 22.0 points per game, while also posting totals of 6.9 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 2.8 steals per game. She set new school records for most points in a game (41 against Virginia) and in a season, and she became just the second player in program history to pass the 2,000 career points mark. She should become Duke's all-time scoring leader early in her senior season.

Beard demonstrated virtually no weaknesses on the court, performing dynamically on both offense and defense. If there was any downside to her presence in the lineup, it's that occasionally her teammates would defer too much to her talents instead of joining in to complement them.

Beard became Duke's first-ever first team Associated Press All-America and made the prestigious Kodak team for the second time. Perhaps her most impressive accomplishment was making the ACC's 50th Anniversary Team, which was voted on after she'd played just two seasons, and then later making the list of top 10 women athletes in conference history. She was the only current collegian named to either the men's or women's top 10.

Beard, though, has always been much more enamored with her team's success than her own trophy case. The Blue Devils haven't lost to an ACC opponent since her freshman year, and Duke's 96-10 record during her career speaks volumes about her will to win. A national player of the year award might be nice, but her ultimate goal remains the national championship, which will be decided next year in her home state, in New Orleans.

Even this summer, winning is foremost on her mind as she tries to help the USA women claim a gold medal - something that eluded her during her last USA experience two summers ago when her squad was upset by the Czech Republic in the semifinals of the Junior Worlds.

"I want to play them again," she said recently. "They beat us and any time someone beats you, you want to get them. It's almost like getting revenge. It's like getting your shot blocked. When you get your shot blocked, you're going to take it hard and really want to score on them the next time. So I can't wait to play the Czech Republic."

The Czech Republic might want to note that so far Beard has had a chance to avenge five of her 10 losses at Duke and has been a perfect 5-0 in those payback games. For that matter, Tennessee and UConn might want to make the same notation - both are on Duke's schedule for Beard's upcoming senior year.

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When the Duke men's tennis team swept through the 50th ACC Tournament for the program's ninth championship in the last 11 years, senior Michael Yani was at the top of his game. The nation's 35th-ranked singles player won all three of his matches and was named the tournament most valuable player.

A few weeks later, Yani won twice more when the Blue Devils hosted an NCAA subregional, getting the clinching team points in both victories to help the Devils advance to the Sweet 16. The two-time All-ACC standout closed the year with a 21-10 singles record and a 20-4 doubles mark, and is BDW's choice for male Blue Devil of the Year for 2003.

Playing out of the No. 2 slot in the Duke lineup, Yani was one of the hottest players around during the stretch run of the season. Twice he was selected ACC player of the week as he helped his squad post a seventh straight undefeated conference regular season. He also teamed with junior Phillip King to form one of the top doubles duos in the nation. They were seeded third in the NCAA Tournament and earned All-America honors for the second straight year.

Yani, a Honolulu native, received the East region's John Van Nostrand Memorial Award, which is presented annually to an outstanding senior men's player who plans to pursue a professional career after college. He has already launched that career, playing in satellite and futures events on the pro circuit this summer.

"He really had a stellar second half of the season," said Duke coach Jay Lapidus, the ITA regional coach of the year. "He kept getting better and better throughout his career and had a stretch this season where he was almost unbeatable. Then he peaked at the ACC Tournament."

BDW's Blue Devils of the Year

2000 -- Ali Curtis, soccer
2001 -- Shane Battier, basketball; Candy Hannemann, golf
2002 -- Jason Williams, basketball; Virada Nirapathpongporn, golf
2003 -- Alana Beard, basketball; Michael Yani, tennis