Upcoming Event: Women's Golf versus ANNIKA Intercollegiate on September 8, 2025
Women's Golf
vs ANNIKA Intercollegiate
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Duke Athletics Hall of Fame
Cameron, Eddie
Eddie Cameron
- Induction:
- 1975
Make no mistake, football was the king of sports at Duke when Eddie Cameron first arrived on campus in 1926, and it still reigned supreme when he hung up his basketball whistle in 1942. A football standout at Washington & Lee, Cameron coached the freshman football team as his first job at Duke. During his 14-year career as head basketball coach, he was also the football backfield coach, chief scout, and recruiter extraordinaire. That’s just the way it was done in those days: most of the football assistants doubled as coaches in other sports. And for what position did Cameron eventually relinquish his basketball duties? The position of head football coach, when resident legend Wallace Wade went off to war.
But as closely aligned as Cameron always was with the university’s football fortunes, he will always be regarded as the person who elevated the profile of the basketball program beyond the borders of North Carolina, brought it its first taste of greatness, and constructed the foundation from which future glories sprang.
A native of Irwin, Pa., Cameron was less than five years removed from his college graduation when he took over the basketball coaching duties at Duke for the 1928–29 season. The program had enjoyed just one winning season in the previous four, and this was its initial foray in the Southern Conference. Relying on a core of players recruited from Washington, D.C., Cameron directed his first team to a 12–8 mark and a stunning march to the finals of the conference tournament. The next year the Devils had a 15-game winning streak, reached the finals once more, and finished 18–2. One of the early recruits, Bill Werber, was named the first basketball All-America in school history, and the die was cast. Duke would now be a player on the hoops scene.
Cameron led the program from 1929 to 1942, winning 226 games while losing only 99. He was the school’s winningest coach until Mike Krzyzewski surpassed his victory total in 1990. Duke reached the Southern Conference championship game eight times under Cameron’s guidance and claimed the title in 1938, 1941, and 1942. The 1938 championship, in the first year in which jump balls after every basket were eliminated, was one of the coach’s most unlikely success stories. The team, nicknamed the “never a dull moment boys,” was erratic all season and wouldn’t have been in the tourney were it not for an upset of UNC in the regular-season finale.
Cameron made the Indoor Stadium available for a wide range of civic and basketball events, including a popular prep tourney, the Southern Conference tourney when it outgrew Raleigh’s municipal auditorium, and even an NCAA game for Case’s Wolfpack when an opponent refused to play on State’s home floor. It was Cameron’s persistence that brought Bill Murray to Duke to continue the football tradition that Wade had established, and his vision that put an N.C. State alumnus, Vic Bubas, in Duke blue, emphatically driving the basketball program into powerhouse territory.
Duke Indoor Stadium was named in Cameron’s honor on January 22, 1972, just as he was about to retire after 46 years of service to Duke. Some consider the university’s prestigious golf course another memorial to Cameron, as he came up with the idea, raised the funds, and coddled the project to completion in the late 1950s. Cameron was enshrined as a charter member of the Duke Sports Hall of Fame in 1975 and was also inducted in the North Carolina, Virginia, and College Football halls of fame. He died on November 25, 1988, at the age of 86.
Darian Mensah Media Availability: Tulane
Tuesday, September 09
Josiah Green Media Availability: Tulane
Tuesday, September 09
Coach Patke Press Conference: Tulane
Monday, September 08
Coach Brewer Press Conference: Tulane
Monday, September 08
