By Harry Minium
Old Dominion Athletic Director Wood Selig said it was the strangest press conference he'd ever been a part of.
And it surely was, given that when DeLisha Milton-Jones was introduced as ODU's new women's basketball coach, she was in Georgia, where she is staying with her Mom.
In part to make his point, Dr Selig announced to a dozen or so members of the media that he was wearing a dress shirt and tie.
"With shorts," he added.
No one saw his shorts because the press conference was held via "Zoom," a cloud-based service that allows you to see and hear people you are having a conversation with on a computer. You see only someone's head and shoulders unless they stand up, so we don't know what color shorts Selig wore.
This was a coaching search done totally via Zoom with no in-person meetings, and that's a first in ODU athletic history and one of the first such coaching searches in the nation.
As was the case with new football coach Ricky Rahne late last year, candidates are usually screened by telephone and/or Zoom meetings, then several finalists come on campus for more detailed interviews and are given a tour of the campus, its facilities and the Tidewater area.
Because of COVID-19, Milton-Jones agreed to become ODU's coach sight unseen. She's never seen Chartway Arena, the Mitchum Basketball Performance Center or the University's rapidly expanding campus.
Welcome to the world of hiring coaches during a coronavirus pandemic.
It was not possible, given the government shutdown of businesses and universities, and the risk of hopping onto a plane during a pandemic, to bring candidates to Norfolk nor for officials to visit the candidates.
ODU quickly fixed its sites on Milton-Jones, whose resume sparkled. She's a two-time Olympic gold medalist, former Wade Trophy Winner and a three-time WNBA all-star. In four short years of coaching, she took Pepperdine to its best record in 17 seasons, and then last season at Syracuse, recruited the nation's fourth-best recruiting class.
When she told the committee she hadn't seen ODU's campus, that worried Dr. Selig.
"When we recruit student-athletes, they love to kick the tires, love to buy with their eyes," he said.
"We sell ourselves when we get people on campus. Our facilities are so good, and the campus has exploded with growth.
"We didn't have the ability to do that, so we had to rely on videos."
The videos helped a lot, but so did Milton-Jones' conversations with previous coach Nikki McCray-Penson and her dealings with Selig, Deputy Athletic Director Ken Brown and President John R. Broderick.
"The thing that makes a University is the people," she said.
"The people at ODU could not have been more welcoming. Nikki said she had the administration's complete support. I know I'm in good hands."
DeLisha Milton-Jones does her first press conference at ODU zia Zoom.
An aside here: In her 30 minutes of taking questions from the media, Milton-Jones was poised, genuine, emotional and full of joy. She more than lived up to her reputation as a serious, hard-working coach who nonetheless, almost always wears a smile.
It was easy to see why she earned the nickname "Sunshine."
Her hiring drew plaudits from coaches and players around the nation. Former ODU All-Americans Nancy Lieberman-Cline and Ticha Penicheiro, as well as some of the University's most high-profile women's basketball fans, praised her hiring on Twitter.
She didn't sidestep any questions and as @ladyswish, a site run largely by national women's basketball writer Vicki Friedman, Tweeted: "New ODU coach Delisha Milton-Jones isn't just winning this press conference, she's running away with it."
Milton-Jones said the hardest part of her first day on the job was not being able to meet with her players in person. She met with them via Zoom last Friday and plans several meetings this week.
ODU returns all but two seniors from the team that was 24-6 and most of those players were close with McCray. Some are understandably heartbroken that she left.
"I spoke with the team through Zoom and while it was weird, I think it was still good," she said.
"The young girls ran the gamut of emotions. I could sense it even though we were all behind computer screens. Some were nervous, some looked like they were full of questions and concerns, others were excited and some confused and even upset.
"I can understand all of those emotions. No one wants to go through unprecedented change like what they're experiencing. I tried to allow them to get to know me as much as we could, and just answer any questions and allow myself to be a source of information for them."
She told them that her first priority is to make sure they are taken care of and as comfortable as they can be when forced to stay in their homes during a pandemic.
She told them that she doesn't plan any big changes.
"I feel like I walked into a situation where I can pick up the reins and continue where Nikki left off," she said. "The foundation Nikki built was solid."
She talked for hours with McCray about her players, their talent, personalities and needs. Although Milton-Jones describes herself as an old-school player, she says she's not an old-school coach. Today's players are from a different generation and need to be handled differently, she said.
"A head coach should not necessarily be set in their ways and force it on individuals," she said. "I think a head coach should be malleable, someone who can adapt and adjust. Injuries come and go, and a player's confidence comes and goes."
As for her discussions with McCray about her players, McCray "gave me the Cliff Notes to answer the pop quiz," Milton-Jones said, adding that every player will be judged on what she sees when the team comes together, and not what she's heard from others.
"I wanted to understand what's important to them, what's non-negotiable for them. It's important for me to go in knowing as much as I can about them.
ODU Athletic Director Wood Selig.
"What struck a chord with me is hearing that these players are wonderful people. I knew I was going to walk into a situation with a lot of turmoil, but seeing how those players handled it, I knew I was in the right place."
Her players seemed to like what she told them about her style of play, which sounds almost similar to the style ODU played this past season, when they were 15th nationally in defense and ran a high-octane offense.
"The style of play is going to be high intensity and very energetic," she said. "I want pressure on both ends of the floor to be proportionate.
"We want to be able push the ball and defend at a high level. We're going to throw a lot of different schemes, zones and presses at our opponents. We want to keep our opponents on their heels while we have the ability to play on our toes, on the balls of our feet."
And she wants everyone to have the green light to shoot, if they take good shots.
When she left Pepperdine a year ago for Syracuse, she said she did so to help her reach her goal of coaching a Power 5 program. When asked by a writer from Syracuse if she put off that goal, said replied that ODU is, in essence, a Power 5 program.
"ODU may not be labeled a Power 5, BCS school, but they run their program as it if is," she said. "The facility they have compete with all and they have people who compete with all.
"They have been holding their own rather well."
Selig said that ODU saved money and a lot of time interviewing long distance.
"It made it a little quicker and more efficient," he said. "There wasn't the logistics of when we're going to get a break in everyone's schedule or having to line up visits or dealing with everyone's schedule on a big committee.
"I enjoyed this process more. It was not hard to get on peoples' schedules. It was not hard to schedule time to talk to references, to schedule people in the industry. People are at home. They're not jammed up with meetings.
"And I liked the result even more. We've hired a great coach who is going to do great things with our women's basketball program."
On that, there's near unanimous agreement.
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu
Minium: ODU Conducted its First Coaching Search Entirely Online
