The recruiting class of 2004 was supposed to belong to other people. Shelden Williams was the headliner, the 6-foot-9 shot-blocker from Midwest City, Oklahoma who would become the most decorated defender in Duke history. Sean Dockery was the flashy point guard from Chicago. Lee Melchionni was the sharpshooter from Germantown, Pennsylvania. And David McClure — a 6-foot-6 forward from Ridgefield, Connecticut — was the one nobody outside New England was talking about.
Born on April 1, 1986, in Danbury, Connecticut, and raised in Ridgefield, McClure attended Trinity Catholic High School in Stamford, where he became the most dominant player in the state. Over four years, he compiled a record of 101-7, won three FCIAC tournament championships, and led Trinity Catholic to a 27-0 record and the Connecticut state title as a senior. He closed his prep career on a 52-game winning streak. As a senior, he averaged 16.2 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 3.1 blocked shots per game. Over his career at Trinity, he scored 1,367 points (fourth all-time), grabbed 1,186 rebounds (second all-time), added 389 steals and 321 blocked shots — numbers that earned him Gatorade Connecticut Player of the Year, the Connecticut Coaches Association Player of the Year, and the inaugural Dave DeBusschere Award from the New York Knicks' MSG Network.
Nationally, he was ranked 71st by RSCI, 13th among small forwards by Insiders, and 21st by Rivals. His final choices came down to Duke and Notre Dame. Mike Brey, the Notre Dame coach who had been a Krzyzewski assistant, could offer more immediate playing time. But McClure's high school coach, Mike Walsh, convinced him to visit Durham before committing. McClure was sold. He called Coach K directly on June 2, 2003, to give his verbal commitment. He later explained the logic with the quiet certainty that would define his career: he wanted to learn from "the teacher, not the student." He was the first Connecticut player to attend Duke since three-time Academic All-American Mike Gminski from Monroe in the late 1970s.