Giving. Caring. Passionate
Greg Dale leaves a legacy of sharing his many unique gifts
Meredith Rieder, GoDuke The Magazine
This story originally appeared in the 14.5 Issue of GoDuke the Magazine – December 2022
SELFLESS. Be where your feet are. LOYAL. Be the sail, not the anchor. LEADER. Appreciate the moments, not the things. CARING. Be the and, not the but. FRIEND. Finish what you started. HUSBAND. Treat others how you want to be treated. FATHER.
These words are synonymous with Greg Dale, but still fall well short of describing all he did for the people of Duke Athletics. He embodied each of those words, yet he was so much more.
“A lot of words come to mind when I think of Greg,” said Jacki Silar, Duke’s first Senior Woman Administrator, member of the 2022 Duke Athletics Hall of Fame and dear friend of Greg Dale. “It’s almost impossible to describe him in one word. I can probably describe him in three words and it’s giving, caring and passionate. That’s what I think about Greg Dale.”
The phrases of wisdom, of which they are a sliver of the countless he provided, are the “Greg-isms” that inspired the thousands of people with whom he crossed paths during his lifetime.
“I don’t want to say one Greg-ism because then I’ll remember another one and say that’s the best one,” said senior women’s tennis player Chloe Beck who was one of the countless Duke student-athletes whose life was deeply impacted by Greg. “I would say they are all just in (my heart). All of them. Nothing I say will ever be able to truly reflect what he’s done for me and how what he’s taught me continues to do for me because it’s so big and so important to me.”
Dale, a member of the Duke Athletics staff for more than two decades, passed away Thanksgiving Day following a courageous year-long battle with gastric cancer. One of the nation's foremost experts in sports leadership and psychology, he had a unique role at Duke. He provided training for athletes, coaches and staff within the department — as well as to a number of professional sports franchises and coaches — through various educational programs. He is survived by his wife of 28 years, Cammie, and their children, Abbey, Graham, Charles and Lucas.
He had regular meetings with current and former student-athletes to talk about their sport, leadership, life or whatever was on their mind that day. Dale’s calendar was always packed, but his door was always open as he was forever making time for others. Even if you were on the other side of the globe, he’d be there to take a call. He eased fears or anxieties and constantly reminded them of their strengths and to embrace the struggles.
“I think he made me realize that I could be both more than a tennis player and also be so invested in tennis at the same time and be able to accept that tennis isn’t all that I am, but it’s such a huge part of my life,” Beck said. “He made me realize my own strengths and learn to love the struggles of Duke and embrace it and kind of just go for it with tennis and be free on court. I just love him.”
For Jordan Tucker, who graduated from Duke in 2017 after a stellar career on the volleyball court, Dale was just the person she needed as she was figuring out how to transition from the volleyball court to the corporate world. Tucker, after playing professional volleyball in Austria immediately after graduation, had come to the “what’s next?” moment. And who did she lean on? The steady, trustworthy and wise Greg Dale.
“After I graduated and I was (in Austria) trying to figure out what I wanted to do, he was still advising and mentoring me (despite) the eight-hour time difference,” Tucker said. “(He helped me) understand my own identity and learn to translate my confidence. I can sell myself as an athlete every day of the week, but to be able to translate that into being a corporate person and someone who wants to be an executive one day was something I didn’t see the bridges for. So having someone who I felt like really knew me and trusted me and cared about me deeply saying ‘Hey you can do these things. These are things I think you would be great at.’ Just to have that soundboard. Truly just the friendship of being able to figure that out with someone else was so impactful.”
These are only two individuals. Everybody had a story about how Dale inspired and helped them in their journey to being the best athlete, coach, staff member and overall human being they could be. You felt seen and heard when you spent time with him — something in the eulogy his oldest son Graham noted he heard all the time from others.
“He was a person with a very special gift and that gift was making you feel like you are the only person in the room because when you spoke, he focused totally on you,” Silar said. “He made that eye contact with you. So you did feel like you were the only person in the room. And because, whether giving, loyal, caring or passionate, he cared so much about what you had to say. He had a gift, a special gift, more so than any other person I’ve been around.
Nothing was more evident when nearly a week after Greg’s death, 1,500 people — current and former Duke athletes, coaches and staff members and all those who loved Dale — streamed into the Duke Chapel for a ceremony to honor and reflect upon him as a sports psychologist, a mentor, a friend, a father, a husband and a human being. Hundreds of others not in attendance watched the live stream of the service on the Duke Chapel YouTube channel.
On social media, Duke Athletics posted pictures of Dale with his kind and comfortable smile at Duke Athletics events, doing exactly what he loved. The Instagram post honoring him received 6,792 likes, was shared 1,138 times and reached 44,822 accounts, of which nearly half of those accounts were unique to Duke Athletics. His impact was felt far and wide.
When his oldest son Graham stood to give the eulogy, among the many things he spoke about was being the child of a sports psychologist and how he and his brothers, Charles and Lucas, and sister Abbey often heard what they called his “Greg-isms” at the dinner table or during family gatherings.
Remembering those themselves, the student-athletes in attendance nodded knowingly when one of the “Greg-isms” mentioned by Graham was — “You don’t HAVE to go practice. You GET to go to practice.” At that moment as people sat in the pews reflecting, it was not about having to say goodbye. It was about getting the opportunity to share their stories about the man who so selflessly shared his unique ability to everyone at Duke for the past two decades.
“He could engage with you around something you were working on or he could inspire a group or team or corporate board on the other side of the country,” the priest said during his sermon. “He had so many gifts and insights. The family told me about student-athletes who came out to him because they weren’t sure they could tell their own family just yet. That was the kind of safe space he could create.”
That sentiment is echoed by the thousands of student-athletes, coaches and staff members at Duke he interacted with over his career. Whether in a one-on-one meeting or in a team building exercise, you always knew if you were talking Dale was actively listening.
“I think what drew me to feeling comfortable to meet with him one-on-one was the fact that when we were in the group scenarios, he was able to hear every thought in the room and create a perspective that was unbiased and really identified the problem,” Tucker said. “When I was meeting with Greg one-on-one, we were already way past talking volleyball. I would go in — his ongoing joke with me was we never had a tear-free session — and I’d cry literally every time. I couldn’t help it.”
He encouraged individuals to show this kind of vulnerability. It made them better athletes, leaders and people. He never judged, rather he made people feel comfortable to be their authentic selves in his presence and that has allowed Duke student-athletes to thrive in their sport, but more importantly in their professional and personal lives.
Curiosity is the word that comes to mind for associate director of athletics for student-athlete development Leslie Barnes when thinking about how Dale managed to get people to open up to him. Barnes, who has been at Duke since 2006, collaborated with Dale on leadership initiatives with the student-athletes and over time Dale became her person — the person who challenged her, taught her to embrace her gifts, while also allowing her to challenge him.
“Greg, in the infamous words of Ted Lasso, he embodied curiosity versus judgement,” said Barnes. “Greg is the epitome of being curious and not judgmental. Even if he didn’t understand. He could add some judgmental stuff after he processed it a little bit like we all do as humans, but he would listen with a sense of curiosity because (he knew) there’s something more there so he’d be curious. He would ask questions and engage. He would make someone feel comfortable because he didn’t shut it down with a sense of judgement.”
Like Barnes, Dale had become a part of Tucker and Beck’s family over the years. Among the many lessons he taught them was what leadership looked like, which Tucker has since used in corporate America as well as mentoring young volleyball players and Beck has parlayed into an individual No. 3 national ranking for the perennial power Blue Devils.
Between Tucker’s tears and Beck’s occasional self-doubt, Dale always was able to unlock the tools within each of them to find the answers they need. There goes that curious, caring, selfless Greg Dale again making others feel good about the world and their place in it.
“Talk to Greg for five minutes and wow, the world is a beautiful place,” Beck said. “He had this effect on me and I don’t know many people who have that effect on people. He just always made you feel better about yourself, better about the people around you, better about your future. It’s wild.”
Even after his death, Dale was caring for Tucker. After learning of his death while she was visiting her boyfriend’s parents in Rhode Island, Tucker needed to be alone and snuck out of the house to go down to the water. While sitting there, which she has done hundreds of times, a great blue heron sits 10 feet in front of her. She’d never seen this bird, even though she’s tried relentlessly during her visits, but here was the majestic bird in her presence and she knew it had to be Dale.
“Even now, (Greg) is taking care of me,” Tucker thought to herself as she sat there crying. “The most selfless person. Just the absolute best person. I was very lucky that I got to have him as a mentor and later as a friend and really a confidant. I’ve been really lucky and feel so fortunate to have gotten so much of his time and to learn so much from him and I know his lessons are just going to be more true as I grow older.”
Greg Dale was LEGENDARY. He simply made people better.
“He was a light to so many of us, and although he wasn’t done influencing others, he was able to touch the lives of so many people while being here on this Earth,” Graham said. “As Babe Ruth said in one of his favorite movies The Sandlot — Remember kid, there’s heroes and there’s legends. Heroes get remembered, but legends never die. Follow your heart kid and you’ll never go wrong. Greg Dale, you’re a legend and legends never die.”
Dedicated to sharing the stories of Duke student-athletes, present and past, GoDuke The Magazine is published for Duke Athletics by LEARFIELD with editorial offices at 3100 Tower Blvd., Suite 404, Durham, NC 27707. To subscribe, join the Iron Dukes or call 336-831-0767.