Austin Da Luz's Chance Encounter With Tim Duncan

Photo credit: Carolina RailHawks

In the spring of 1997, Tony da Luz had moved his family from San Diego to Winston-Salem, NC, to take over as the coach of the women’s soccer team at Wake Forest University.

From time to time he would take one of his sons, Austin, to work with him. While the coach worked up in his office, Austin would take up residence on the nearby field hockey field, which had a running track draped around it.

“I would shoot on the field at the field-hockey goals for hours while my dad, who’s still the coach,  was working in his office,” Austin da Luz, who played in college at Wake and is now a midfielder for the Carolina RailHawks, told NASL.com. “One day Tim [Duncan] was out there working out on the track. As he was leaving he hopped in the goal. He didn’t say anything and just let me shoot on him for awhile. It really was standard Tim Duncan. We played and then he walked off. It’s something I’ve never really forgotten.”

Duncan, who began his professional basketball career in the 1997-98 season, announced his retirement on Monday after 19 NBA seasons – all with the San Antonio Spurs – and five championships. He was finishing up his All-America tenure at Wake Forest and stood in front a field-hockey net, daring a budding soccer player to put the ball behind him. Da Luz said he could not remember scoring, not once.

“He was just such a presence on campus,” da Luz said. “He’s one of the greatest Demon Deacons, along with Arnold Palmer. Being a Wake Forest guy he’s always been a personal favorite of mine. Just the way he carried himself throughout his career, he’s the antithesis of the modern superstar. A lot of guys could take a page from his book. That’s something I’ve always admired about him. It makes me proud to be a Demon Deacon.”

Da Luz and the RailHawks are coming off an emphatic 4-1 win over Tampa Bay on Saturday and face West Ham United of England’s Premier League in an international exhibition at WakeMed Soccer Park on Tuesday night. Da Luz said that he and his teammates are relieved to put a game in the win column for the first time since late April. And he conceded that news of Duncan’s retirement did not come as a huge surprise, but still left him “kind of sad.”

“He was always fun to watch, from the way he played and how he dressed,” da Luz said. “He’s just a different kind of dude. He will be missed.”