New home for Duke Sports Medicine expands care

A big facelift for Duke's Wallace Wade Stadium is underway to add more seating and a new, 90,000-square-foot tower with modern amenities.

To make room, the 30-year-old Finch-Yeagar Building - where Duke Sports Medicine launched its reputation as a pioneer in the field – is coming down.

“Sports medicine is really the space program for all of orthopaedics because the cutting-edge advances that are developed for the Peyton Mannings and the really elite-level athletes that we see in USA Basketball - trickle down to all of us,” said Dr. Claude Moorman, director of Duke Sports Medicine.

The new Sports Science Institute opened on the campus of the Duke Center for Living after clinic and research efforts had outgrown their old facility.

“One of the exciting things is, we're able to do it all in one site now, which is a real new development for Duke Medicine,” Moorman said. “There's a deep hole in the ground that's going to be our laboratory - the K-Lab, which we do in conjunction with Mike Krzyzewski and Nike.”

The first K-Lab was among the first facilities to use 3-D motion capture technology to study the way athletes move in order to help them reduce their risk of injury. Now, they will be better equipped to continue cutting-edge research that can also help the average patient.

“We have places right in the building where we do research, and we have places in the building where multiple clinicians can see patients,” said Dr. Benjamin Alman, chairman of Duke Orthopaedic Surgery.

Next door is the newly renovated Health and Fitness Center, which serves people of all fitness levels and health conditions. A new second level offers many services, including physical therapy for people like Robert Haliburton, who is recovering from partial knee replacement.

“It's a great facility. It's beautiful,” he said.