Then came the COVID-19 pandemic, which put his rugby career on hold. In January 2021, Duke committed to Virginia’s football team as a preferred walk-on. He played rugby for the Strikers in the spring of his senior year at Godwin and then enrolled at UVA in the summer of 2021.
Football became his focus, but in the spring of 2022 his father let him know the EIRA was sending a team to Spain. He encouraged his son to get on the trip, “but I was kind of hesitant,” Duke said. “I was like, ‘I’m in football here, classes here, I don’t know.’ ”
After weighing his options, though, Duke decided the opportunity was good to pass up. He wasn’t at this best when he played in Europe that summer, “just because I had been out of the game for a while,” Duke said. But his high ceiling in the sport was apparent, and after UVA’s 2022 football season ended he flew to California to train with USA Rugby.
“I had a good showing at winter camp,” Duke said. “I was in really good shape.”
For that, Nathan Pototschnik deserved considerable credit, Duke said. Then the associate strength and conditioning coach for Cavalier football, Pototschnik had starred in rugby at the U.S. Military Academy. “He got me on a rugby conditioning plan,” Duke said, “and it worked, for sure.”
Rugby took Duke abroad last summer, too, this time to Kenya, where he played for the United States in a U20 tournament. The U.S. team played four games in Nairobi: defeating Hong Kong and losing to Uruguay, Scotland and Zimbabwe.
“It was pretty intense,” Duke said.
The losses to Uruguay and Zimbabwe were close, and Duke was disappointed the U.S. didn’t fare better in Kenya. Still, he said, it “was the experience of a lifetime.”
His rugby commitments caused Duke to miss much of the football team’s preseason conditioning program last summer as well as the first day of training camp. But his football coaches have been “super supportive of me,” Duke said. “I feel like they just understand the magnitude of the opportunities I’ve had.”
Duke made his debut for the Cavaliers in 2023, when he appeared in two games, and he’s a valuable member of the scout-team offense.
“He loves football, and all the guys in the room love him. I love him,” said Kitchings, who oversees Virginia’s tight ends. “He’s got a great personality. Kind of a sneaky humor about him, which I appreciate, because it keeps the room a little lively when we’re in meetings….