Senior Student-Athletes of the Year Share Their Journeys
From Academic Excellence to Athletic Awards, Chloe Beck and Terence Lee Discuss Their Duke Experiences
David Shumate, GoDuke The Magazine
These interviews with Duke Senior Student-Athletes of the Year Chloe Beck and Terence Lee originally appeared in the 14.10 Issue of GoDuke The Magazine – May 2023
Chloe Beck, Women's Tennis
David Shumate: Let’s start with the academic side before we get into athletics, as obviously they both played into your decision to come to Duke. Tell us about your major and what you’ve been studying here at Duke.
CB: Yeah, so I’m majoring in psychology, and I definitely didn’t know that that would be my major coming into school. I think a lot of people have a better idea of what they want to study or know that they want to go to med school, they want to study economics and they knew that in high school. I definitely didn’t know that. I just got really lucky when I came to school, I took an Abnormal Psychology class, Psych 105, my first semester which led me to take psychology classes every semester and always loved them.
The sports side of psychology has been something that I’ve been super interested in since high school, and I always worked with a sports psychologist and just think that the mental side of sport and the mental side of just getting through academic life and managing social life just is so interesting to me.
DS: It’s interesting because it feels like sports science and sports psychology, you said you dealt with it a little bit in high school, but it feels like it’s a relatively new field in the grand scheme of things. How does that interface for you, particularly when you think about tennis. I know there’s doubles, and you’re a part of a team here at Duke, but in many ways it’s a very individual sport. It’s kind of you and your thoughts while you’re out there playing. How do you approach that side of it?
CB: Yeah, that’s something that is huge for me. I would say I honestly value the mental side of tennis more. If I had to rank the mental and physical side, I would probably rank the mental side higher because I think that that is what’s given me the edge in college. I’ve worked with sports psychologists since I’ve been at Duke, like I did in high school. All of the behavioral health and sports psychologists in Duke Athletics have really helped me with figuring out how to manage my nerves, not push them away, and deal with the stress of academics and social life and everything when you’re walking onto the court, and you have to only think about tennis.
It’s been really good to learn more about how my own brain works and how the brain works in general. I think that’s helped me win the really tough matches and, you know, stay on the court at 10:30 p.m. and still finish playing tennis when I’d much rather probably be asleep.
DS: I don’t want you to give away all of your secrets, but now I’m curious. Take me through what the internal dialogue is like when you’ve got a third set coming up or you’re an hour into a match. Do you give yourself pep talks or what’s going through your mind when you’re in those moments?
CB: The one thing that I realized about myself is the more I actually think about myself and what I’m doing, the worse off I am. Two things that I always come back to when I’m in those really long matches or really tight moments that can cause you to be overwhelmed are just trying to remind myself of what’s actually going on and where I’m at. If it’s a dual match, I’m looking around at my teammates trying to direct my attention outward. For example, I might tell myself, “Let’s cheer for Ellie right now” or “Let’s go look at my grandparents who are up in the stands and think about how lucky I am to have them here.”
The other thing I like to do is just get a lot of my energy out. So, I’m yelling, I’m screaming for Duke. I’m just trying to get it all out versus thinking I need to do this little thing for my next point because it’s so important. It’s kind of more just like taking my brain and saying, “Okay, let’s put it over here right now (laughing).”
DS: Well, I think it’s fair to say it works. Last year you went undefeated in singles and this year just one blip. I mean, it’s an absurd record. How were you able to do that? I know it is a simple question with maybe not a simple answer, but you just dominated the competition.
CB: To say that I don’t care about winning would be the grossest understatement of my life, but I think when I have had goals other than winning and focused on little day-to-day things...like, every day I have to work my hardest and I have to give everything. Then thinking about how much I care about my teammates and my parents and everyone who’s here supporting me and everything they’ve done for me and everything they keep doing for me — that’s what I think gets me through those tough ones. I put a lot of pressure on myself in juniors and I think that I was my own worst enemy then. I think the fact that I’ve been able to win those tough matches since I’ve been here has to do with that team aspect that I was always missing out on. I never had that other source of motivation propelling me to want to win. It was all just about yourself then and now it’s not, not that at all.
DS: I know you got NCAA nationals this month, but beyond that on the horizon into the summer, what’s on deck for you on the tennis front?
CB: When it comes to this summer, I honestly have no clue. My coaches keep asking me that as well (laughing). I always like to take a good break after the NCAA individuals because it’s a long season. It’s mentally taxing, balancing school and tennis. I think your body just needs to hibernate for a few weeks once you say it’s over. But I do know that I’m coming back next year for a fifth year and I’m super excited about that. Honestly, covid was a blessing because I’m not ready to say goodbye to Duke Tennis, so I’ll do that for my fifth year regardless of if I play tournaments this summer or not. Then after next year, after my fifth year playing for Duke, I hope to play pro. That’s the goal.
DS: There’s really only a handful of sports that are like this. Barring international competitions and maybe some doubles action here or there, once you leave the collegiate space the team portion you’ve talked about previously, it is kind of over. It’s an individual career when you think about the professional ranks. How big of a piece is that for you, the team element, and how much does that drive you, being a part of something that’s bigger than yourself, so to speak?
CB: It’s literally everything. I have been told by others that they would describe me as a people person, so that’s how I start describing myself now. I just love being around people, talking to people, meeting new people, connecting with people. It’s just one of my favorite things and I feel like it gives me that sense of purpose and that’s something that is hard to tie into tennis in juniors and in pros. It’s also tough. But I do think once you can think about how you can take your parents into that piece and even your grandparents, your coaches, they are essentially your team. But at Duke, to actually be on the court playing with and for a team is so special for me.
Terence Lee, Fencing
David Shumate: Let’s start with this honor, senior scholar-athlete of the year. There’s two pieces to it — obviously there’s the academic side and then there’s the athletic side. What was your first reaction when you found out?
Terence Lee: Well, I was just extremely honored, and I think out of any award that I’ve won at Duke, I think this is the one that I’m the proudest of. I think this one is the award that is most representative of who I am. Being a scholar-athlete is something that I’ve always taken pride in, demonstrating my ability to be able to balance both academic and athletic performance. To have that recognized in this way makes me extremely happy.
DS: Last summer, you were coming off that incredible season, finishing second at nationals, and you knew what this year was going to be like with NCAAs on Duke’s campus for the first time in the program's history. Talk about your senior year, but also the totality of your career and everything that you’ve had a chance to experience with Duke fencing, including being an All-American yet again this year, but also the chance to do it on your own campus at NCAAs.
TL: Yeah, my career has definitely been quite strange in the sense that it was cut short. I’ve only really had three full seasons with Duke and my first one I was half-injured, so I don’t know if I would count that. So in some ways it’s just been two years competing at Duke. Obviously, as you said, my season last year was quite incredible, but this year I was hoping for more. I’m still quite disappointed with how I finished, I definitely could have done better. I did do better on the ACC front. Last year I finished in third place individually at the ACC Championships, but this year I got second, so I guess there was a step improvement there. But I would have enjoyed finishing my career off at Duke at NCAAs with a medal, which I wasn’t able to do.
I think my finish last year also put a lot of pressure on me this year, and the whole season I haven’t been performing as I would have hoped. But I think it was a really good challenge for me this year to have started off not so hot and then trying to push myself, force myself to get back into form, which is something that I’ve never had to do before.
DS: You’re hard on yourself. I mean, you’re still an All-American this year. Where does that competitive drive come from? What motivates you, because you’re beating yourself up even though you had a pretty good year.
TL: Well, I always have to compare my performance to what I think I can do, right? So, I think last year my second place finished just proves to me that I can win the NCAAs. I know I have the ability to do so and once I’ve set that goal for myself it’s somewhat upsetting to not have reached that at the end, especially knowing that I don’t have a another shot at it.
DS: If you don’t mind, I wanted to ask you about your coach Alex Beguinet, because obviously he retired at the end of the season. It was an emotional year with his wife Elizabeth passing away before the turn of the new year. There’s no good way to ask or I would think even answer these types of questions, but what was this year like for the team emotionally, particularly as it pertains to Elizabeth? How did you guys handle that as a team?
TL: It was obviously extremely sad for the entire team, especially coming in this semester because she passed right before break and we kind of had the whole winter break to try to take it in. But none of us can actually still accept what actually happened. Coming back and I guess just coming back to the team and having to witness what Alex has also been through has just been very sad for the entire team. I do think the team as a whole did a really good job trying to stay together and I think because of this unfortunate event, the team got closer than ever before because we all relied on each other for emotional support. I’m very proud of how our team handled this, obviously with the help of various support staff and also the coaches. I think Duke Athletics as a whole really came together to support us.
DS: And if you could just touch on your relationship with Alex. There is some symmetry in your careers at Duke both ending this spring and what you’ve both accomplished speaks for itself, but what sort of impact has he had on you? Not just as a fencer, but as a person as you’re getting ready to start your professional life.
TL: Well, he’s influenced me in various ways. There were many times in my freshman year that I can think about where I was struggling with academics and struggling between balancing between the two and him and Elizabeth were the people who helped me the most and directed me to resources that I didn’t know about. He definitely helped me with in those aspects directly, but I think most importantly just his passion about what he does, I think that’s what inspires me the most and something that I definitely learned from him and I want to have that same energy wherever I go in life and in whatever I do — to have that passion and energy that he does.
DS: What’s the next step for you in terms of your career as you get through graduation and into the summer?
TL: I’ll be doing a finance-related job in Hong Kong. I did my internship in Singapore last year, and I’ll be going to the Hong Kong office next year.
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.