Road to Duke
Ned Franke was a new North Carolinian when he got to Duke. His full name is Robert Edward Franke, and his family moved to Pinehurst from Summit, New Jersey, in 1978. His father, Robert J. Franke, and his mother, Joyce, a Baltimore native and Vassar graduate, settled in the old resort village and stayed for the rest of their lives. Joyce became one of Pinehurst's leading preservationists. She founded the Pinehurst Historic Preservation Foundation and later the Village Heritage Foundation, helped restore the village's Fair Barn and created its arboretum. "She loved the village of Pinehurst and had a passion for creating a sense of community," her daughter, Beth, said years later.
How Ned got onto the Duke roster is still a gap in the record. We have not found where he finished high school, in Summit or in the Sandhills, or whether Bill Foster or Mike Krzyzewski ever recruited him. What the GoDuke roster shows is that by the 1981-82 season he was a junior, a 6-foot-5, 200-pound forward from Pinehurst wearing No. 42.
At Duke
The 1981-82 season was the worst in Mike Krzyzewski's career: 10-17 overall, 4-10 in the ACC. It was the only losing season Coach K would ever have. Vince Taylor led the team in scoring. Tom Emma ran the backcourt. Mike Tissaw and Allen Williams manned the frontcourt. The roster was thin, the talent gap against ACC opponents was real, and every warm body who showed up to practice mattered.
Ned Franke was one of those bodies. He played limited minutes off the bench. His career statistics at Duke amount to a single season: three games, three minutes, one shot from the field, which he made. Two points in the record book and a name on the roster.
But here's the thing about two points in a 10-17 season: somebody had to be there. Somebody had to show up to practice against Taylor and Emma and Tissaw every day, take the hits in scrimmages, fill out the scout team, and make the scholarship players better by giving them someone to compete against. The walk-ons and deep reserves on those early Krzyzewski teams were not bystanders. They were the infrastructure. Without them, there aren't enough players to run five-on-five in practice, and without five-on-five in practice, there is no development, and without development, there is no Godfather Class, and without the Godfather Class, there is no dynasty.
Ned Franke scored two points. The dynasty that followed scored five national championships.
After Duke
For years we believed the trail ended there. It doesn't. When Joyce Franke died in March 2014, at 83, The Pilot's obituary listed among her survivors "her son, Robert Edward (Ned) and wife, Jean, of Chicago." Ned had built his adult life in the Midwest, and he and Jean had raised three children there.
He also kept his mother's work going. By 2018 Ned and his sister, Beth Stevens, a biologist who had led conservation work for Disney, were both on the board of the Village Heritage Foundation. In September 2019, as the foundation's vice president, he opened its historic-plaque ceremony at the Fair Barn, the building his mother had helped save. "The mission of the VHF is to promote the preservation, restoration, enhancement and maintenance of the special character of the historic village of Pinehurst," he said. He called the arboretum, his mother's project, "a very valued-in enhancement" to the village, and he noted "how fitting" it was to hold the awards in the barn.
Where Is He Now
When his mother died in 2014, Ned and Jean were living in Chicago, and nothing we have found since says otherwise. He has not let go of Pinehurst. More recently he was among the Village Heritage Foundation leaders, with his sister, scheduled to present "Fluttering into 2026 at the Village Arboretum" to a community group in the Sandhills.
We have not yet confirmed what he has done for a living in Chicago, and we would rather wait than guess. The rest of his Duke story, how a junior from a family that had just moved south found his way onto Coach K's second team, is his to tell.
There is something fitting about where the trail finally led. The plaque program he helped run in Pinehurst exists, in his own words, "to encourage the recording of Pinehurst' unique history, and to make that history accessible." That is what this page is trying to do for one season, three games and two points in Durham. If you are Ned Franke, or you played alongside him in 1981-82, we would love to hear the rest.