Road to Duke
Larry Linney came up out of Winston-Salem, North Carolina - the Forsyth County city in the Piedmont region of the state best known for its R.J. Reynolds tobacco heritage, the Wake Forest University campus that has been in town since the 1956 relocation from Wake Forest NC, and the cluster of competitive high school basketball programs that have, across the postwar decades, produced a steady stream of Division I players. The Tobacco Road basketball culture of North Carolina ran through Winston-Salem the way it ran through Durham and Chapel Hill and Greensboro. Larry Linney was 6'6" by his senior year of high school. He had played basketball at the kind of level that placed him on the Duke recruiting radar in the spring of 1977 - the year Bill Foster's Duke program was building toward what would become the most famous postseason run in Foster's coaching career.
Larry Linney's college basketball trajectory at Duke would, by his own four-year arc, parallel Jim Suddath's almost exactly. Suddath, a year older and on full scholarship out of Woodward Academy in Atlanta, was on the freshman class that came in fall 1977. Linney, also entering Duke in the fall of 1977, came in as a walk-on - a player whose Duke roster spot depended on what he could prove in practice each season rather than on a scholarship guarantee. The Foster recruiting class of 1977 had also brought in Gene Banks and Kenny Dennard as the high-profile names; Mike Gminski was already there as the rising junior All-American. Linney was the talented walk-on who made the practice rotation work. He was on the Duke roster for Foster's 1977-78 season - the campaign that would, by April 1978, place his freshman class on the Duke team that reached the NCAA national championship game.
The 1977-78 Duke team won the ACC Tournament, advanced through the NCAA Tournament regional bracket, beat Notre Dame in the national semifinal, and lost to Kentucky 94-88 in the title game played at The Checkerdome in St. Louis. The same Kentucky game that, four decades later, Jon Weingart would tell his JHU Hub interviewer was the reason he had heard of Duke when his study-hall classmate flipped him a Duke application. Larry Linney's freshman year was Duke basketball's pre-K modern-era apogee. He was a deep-bench walk-on freshman on the most famous Duke team Bill Foster ever coached. He stayed on the roster. He earned his way back each summer. The walk-on trajectory that defines Larry Linney's Duke story began with a runner-up freshman year and would, four years later, run through Coach K's first Duke season.
At Duke
Larry Linney's sophomore year 1978-79 was Duke's ACC championship year under Foster. His junior year 1979-80 ended in the Elite Eight - the 24-9 Foster squad that lost to Purdue in Lexington, Kentucky in the regional final, the same team Loel Payne and Jon Weingart joined as freshmen. Across three Foster years Linney built the kind of practice-player reputation and defensive instincts that, by his senior year, would place him in the rotation on Coach K's first Duke team. The Foster coaching staff departed for South Carolina in the summer of 1980. Mike Krzyzewski was hired to replace Foster. Larry Linney was, by the fall of 1980, the senior walk-on whose return to the roster for his senior season was, by any measure of program continuity, important to the new head coach.
The Duke Basketball Report retrospective on Coach K's first Duke season, written in 2021 by veteran Duke beat writer Barry Jacobs, framed the 1980-81 wing rotation as the sophomore Chip Engelland, the scholarship senior Jim Suddath, and the talented walk-on senior Larry Linney - the trio whose collective depth gave Coach K reliable rotation pieces on the wings. The "talented walk-on senior" framing has become the Brotherhood label that defines Linney's Duke career - the kind of player whose ability earned him roster status and whose defensive specialty earned him the minutes Coach K could trust him with.
His senior statistical line under Coach K is one of the more remarkable lines of any walk-on on a Coach K Duke roster. He played in 26 of the team's 28 games. He averaged 9.5 minutes per appearance. He logged 248 total minutes across the season - more than Jim Suddath's 220 minutes, more than several other holdovers. His shooting percentages were modest: 21-of-57 from the floor for 36.8 percent. His free-throw percentage, however, was excellent: 31-of-43 from the line for 72.1 percent on a substantial 43-attempt sample - the kind of foul-shooting reliability that allowed Coach K to put him on the floor late in games when the lead needed to be protected. His defensive line was his calling card: 22 STEALS across the 26 games for a 0.85 steals-per-game pace - exceptional for a reserve who averaged under ten minutes per appearance. He grabbed 44 total rebounds. He recorded 3 blocks. He scored 73 total points across the season.
He was on the Cameron Indoor Stadium floor for Coach K's first Duke season - the 17-13 squad that finished sixth in the ACC, beat North Carolina in the Senior Night overtime thriller that gave Coach K his first win over UNC, and lost to Purdue in the NIT quarterfinals. The Winston-Salem NC walk-on senior had survived four years on the Duke roster - one freshman year on the NCAA national championship runner-up team, one sophomore ACC championship year, one junior Elite Eight year, and one senior year on Coach K's first Duke team. The Brotherhood records the walk-on whose Duke roster spot was earned every season - and who completed the four-year arc as a senior contributor on the foundational K-era team.
After Duke
Larry Linney earned his Duke undergraduate degree in May 1981 and left the basketball program with the kind of resume any walk-on player would have been honored to claim: four years on the roster, freshman year on a national-championship-runner-up team, sophomore year on an ACC champion, junior year on an Elite Eight team, senior year on Coach K's first Duke team, 22 steals as a senior, 72.1 percent from the free-throw line as a senior, and the label "talented walk-on senior" applied to him by the Duke Basketball Report writers in their 2021 retrospective. Whatever he did after his Duke graduation, he had already built one of the more distinctive walk-on resumes in modern Duke basketball history.
The public record on his post-Duke career is, however, sparse. He does not appear in the obvious public-facing post-Duke records the casual researcher can find. A LinkedIn profile for a Larry Linney in the Greensboro-Winston-Salem-High Point area of North Carolina exists but with limited publicly-accessible details, suggesting the possibility of a North Carolina Triad-region post-Duke career. He did not pursue professional basketball. He does not surface in the documented coaching or athletics-administration records. The Brotherhood website does not yet have the rest of his story.
What is documented decisively is the four years on the Duke roster. The Foster era arc - freshman on the 1978 NCAA national championship runner-up team, sophomore on the 1978-79 ACC champion, junior on the 1979-80 Elite Eight team - placed Linney on three of the highest-water-mark Foster Duke teams. The Coach K era arc - senior on the 1980-81 first Duke team - placed Linney on the foundational team of the modern Duke basketball era. The Winston-Salem NC connection on Coach K's first Duke roster ran through two players: Larry Linney as the four-year walk-on senior, and Gordon Whitted as the freshman from the same hometown. Together they were the Winston-Salem NC representation on the team that opened Coach K's Duke career.
Where Is He Now
The current life of Larry Linney is privately documented. The Brotherhood records what is in the public sources. He is from Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He played his high school basketball in the Winston-Salem area in the mid-1970s. He arrived at Duke in the fall of 1977 as a walk-on. He played four years of Duke basketball through May 1981. He was on the most famous Bill Foster team - the 1977-78 NCAA national championship runner-up to Kentucky - as a freshman. He was on the 1978-79 ACC champion. He was on the 1979-80 Elite Eight team. He was on Coach K's first Duke team in 1980-81 as a senior wing reserve, logging 248 total minutes across 26 games, shooting 72.1 percent from the free-throw line, and recording 22 steals on the season. The Duke Basketball Report retrospective by Barry Jacobs called him a talented walk-on senior who gave Coach K quality depth on the wings.
The Brotherhood website does not yet have the rest of the Larry Linney story. We do not have the documented arc of his post-Duke career - whether he returned to Winston-Salem and built a business or professional career in the Triad region, whether he pursued graduate education, whether he raised a family in North Carolina, whether he stayed connected to the Duke program across the decades. If you know Larry Linney of Winston-Salem, North Carolina and Duke 1977-1981 - or knew him during his Duke years or his subsequent life - please write to us at the Brotherhood. The Brotherhood will be ready to receive the rest of the story.
For now, what stands in the open record is the four years on the Duke roster - one freshman year on the NCAA national championship runner-up team, one sophomore ACC championship year, one junior Elite Eight year, and one senior year on Coach K's first Duke team. The Brotherhood includes the walk-on whose four-year arc spanned the Bill Foster apex era and the Mike Krzyzewski foundational year. The Brotherhood includes the Winston-Salem North Carolina senior whose 22 steals on Coach K's first Duke team were exactly the kind of defensive role-player production that defined the bench of Coach K's debut squad. The Brotherhood includes the talented walk-on senior whose name appeared in the same Barry Jacobs retrospective sentence as Chip Engelland and Jim Suddath - the trio of foundational Coach K-era wing rotation pieces.
And so the Brotherhood, with this profile, reaches the end of the foundation-era stub sweep. Larry Linney is the last stub - the final foundation-era roster member to receive a full profile after the long process that converted the Foster-to-K transition rosters from name-and-stub-line entries to full Brotherhood profiles. Whatever the rest of the Larry Linney story turns out to be, when it is sent in to the Brotherhood by someone who knew him, the Brotherhood will publish it. Until then, the Brotherhood records the four years on the Duke roster, the talented walk-on label that defined his Cameron Indoor Stadium career, the 22 steals as a senior under Coach K, and the Winston-Salem North Carolina origin that placed him alongside Gordon Whitted as the two Winston-Salem NC connections on Coach K's first Duke team. The Brotherhood, when properly understood, includes every player who ever wore the Duke uniform. Larry Linney wore it for four years. The Brotherhood remembers him.