Former Duke University athletes are taking over the sports world in New York City, which include former members of the Duke Basketball, Football, and Baseball teams.
Daniel Jones, Marcus Stroman, and R.J. Barrett.
All former Duke superstars, all current New York superstars.
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In his first game of replacing Eli Manning as the starting quarterback of the New York Giants, all Daniel Jones did was something a Giants quarterback hasn’t done in 49 years and something Manning could do all season.
Jones erased a 28-10 second half deficit and led the Giants to a 32-31 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday afternoon and after much scrutiny and criticism by fans before stepping on the field he has been put on the fast track to the Giants Ring of Honor in just one game.
Marcus Stroman was traded from the Toronto Blue Jays to the New York Mets at the MLB Trading Deadline and all this former Blue Devil did was reinvigorate the lowly Mets en route to winning 15 out of 16 games and catapulting the Mets back in to the National League Playoff race.
Although it is not likely the Mets will make the playoffs, the former Blue Devil did his best to ensure Queens gets put back on the baseball map.
In his short time with the Mets thus far, Stroman is 3-2 with a 3.86 ERA and the Mets have won seven of his ten starts.
R.J. Barrett is the lone former Blue Devil that has yet to see playing action with his New York team, but minutes after being selected with the No. 3 overall pick of the Knicks in the 2019 NBA Draft, the weight of bringing the Knicks back to life was placed on the Canadian star.
As a rookie, Barrett will look to bring hope to a lifeless franchise who hasn’t seen the NBA Playoffs since the 2012-13 season.
Daniel Jones, Marcus Stroman, and R.J. Barrett have more in common than just being former Blue Devils, the ex-Dukies all shoulder the weight of the Big Apple and giving its fans something to latch onto for the foreseeable future.