Duke Baseball Camp

Duke Camp Overview

Duke University Baseball, led by Chris Pollard, runs a weekend pitchers/catchers and hitting camp in December split across Saturday and Sunday respectively. It goes from 9 am to 4 pm each day and lunch is provided. The camp is open to youth through high school and takes place at Coombs Field in Durham. It is staffed by all of Duke’s coaches, local high school coaches and some current and former players. The day opens with Coach Pollard providing a brief overview of his coaching approach which emphasizes process over results, servant leadership, practicing gratitude, and having a growth mindset.

Hitting Camp Stations

Players are broken into groups by age and rotate through stations with a focus on establishing baseline metrics to see future growth. The hitting camp is more broad-based than hitting and players probably only take 25-35 swings during the day. The stations are 1) a lecture and video on hitting and brief introduction to scouting reports 2) weight room with an hour example workout that mostly focused on legs 3) fundamentals of base running along with metrics for the 30 yard, vertical and broad jump 4) cage time with Blast metrics taken.

Camp Summary

The camp focuses on baseball fundamentals for all ages. Like Vanderbilt’s camp, it’s open to players of all skills so stations have to be accessible to novice as well as advanced players. For the advanced players, don’t expect to much new development, but rather the opportunity to be exposed to Duke coaches and players.

To help you prepare for the camp and recruiting in general, read Play College Baseball or The Recruiting Process. If you need help with infield to prepare for a camp, consider a Trosky infield camp.