Duke baseball coach Chris Pollard has new contract after Miami Hurricanes show interest

Having rejected overtures from ACC rival Miami to coach its baseball program, Duke’s Chris Pollard has a reworked contract and promises of further investment in the Blue Devils program.

Pollard put himself in position to draw attention from the Hurricanes and have Duke athletics director Nina King make moves to keep him by continuing the unprecedented success he’s brought to Duke baseball.

“The best advice I’ve gotten is don’t mess with happy,” Pollard told the News & Observer on Monday. “At the end of the day, that’s what it came down to. We’re very happy here and I don’t want to mess with that.”

This season, the Blue Devils reached the NCAA Tournament’s super regional round for the third time in the past five tournaments. Though Duke once again fell one win short of a trip to the College World Series, King made it clear she wanted to retain Pollard.

So Duke, without releasing specific details on Monday, has agreed to an enhanced and restructured contract to keep him coaching the Blue Devils.

“Chris Pollard has elevated Duke into the upper echelon of the national college baseball landscape, and we intend for him to be successful in Durham for years to come,” King said Monday. “Simply put, Chris and his family are treasured members of the Duke family.”

Pollard’s 11th season at Duke saw the Blue Devils go 39-24 overall. He’s compiled a 339-255 record (.570 winning percentage) with Duke since taking over the program following the 2012 season.

That includes NCAA Tournament regional titles in 2018 and 2019, plus the 2021 ACC championship. Following the first regional title season in 2018, Duke extended Pollard’s contract through the 2025 season.

He’s now taken Duke to five NCAA Tournaments after the Blue Devils hadn’t been to one since 1961.

After Gino DiMare resigned as its coach earlier this month, Miami contacted Pollard about replacing him.

Pollard had conversations about the job and kept King and Duke’s administration informed.

“They were nothing but supportive throughout the process but, candidly, it was my goal all along to stay in Durham,” Pollard said. “My family’s very happy in Durham. My two sons are having a great experience with their school and their sports and their social lives.”

The new contract and additional support for the program was agreed upon and Pollard told Miami officials Sunday night he’d be staying in Durham.

The Hurricanes countered Monday by promoting pitching coach J.D. Arteaga, a former Hurricanes pitcher who has been on staff for 21 years, to the head coaching job.

As for the on-campus improvements around Jack Coombs Field that will be coming for Duke baseball, both Pollard and King remained vague about what’s coming.

“We will continue to invest in the quality of the student-athlete experience, which includes facilities and staffing,” King said, “to ensure that Duke student-athletes have the opportunity to compete at the highest level both academically and athletically.”

Said Pollard, “We want to grow the things that matter to the student athlete experience. There’s a lot that goes into that. This project will undoubtedly be phased. There’s a lot still to be sorted out. But the biggest thing that I was hopeful for was assurances that we could get going sooner rather than later with investment in things at Coombs that we’re going to impact the day to day development of our players.”

Coombs needs upgrades

Duke splits its home games between Coombs and the Durham Bulls Athletic Park in downtown Durham. All parties involved intend for that to continue even with upgrades to Coombs.

“We’re always going to have a partnership with the Bulls and we’re always going to have a lot of gratitude for how good the Bulls have been to us,” Pollard said. “I don’t ever foresee a time that we’re not partners with the Bulls.”

In May, when Duke was ranked in the nation’s top 10, Duke planned a bid to host NCAA Tournament games at Coombs if the Blue Devils were awarded a national seed. That was because the Bulls had home games scheduled for the first weekend in June when NCAA regionals were played.

Because of the age and small size of the stadium, that meant building temporary camera wells so the game’s could be televised by ESPN, per contract, and working on other short-term improvements to accommodate NCAA Tournament games.

A slump down the stretch and a winless ACC Tournament caused Duke to be sent to Conway, South Carolina, where the Blue Devils upset No. 10 national seed Coastal Carolina to win the NCAA Tournament’s Conway regional.

After that, Duke beat Virginia, 5-4, in the first game of their best-of-three super regional series. The Cavaliers won the next two games, 14-4 and 12-2, to advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.

After deciding to stay at Duke rather than further pursue the Miami job on Sunday night, Pollard sent a tweet referencing “unfinished business” with a video of a man kicking down a door.

He’s intent on getting Duke to its first College World Series since 1961 and the school’s decision to invest in him and the program have him confident it can get done.