By Harry Minium
Dr. Camden Wood Selig rose at 5 a.m. Tuesday morning, quickly showered and dressed and headed from the Outer Banks, where the Old Dominion athletic director is staying with family, for an important appointment at ODU's Student Recreation Center.
He arrived shortly before 8 a.m. and walked into the Student Rec Center, where ODU's volleyball team has been practicing while it awaits the opening of the new ODU Volleyball Center.
It's been a difficult six months for all ODU athletic teams as the pandemic wiped out most of the spring sports schedule and all of the fall sports schedule, including the debut of a new volleyball program in a new facility.
And when Selig began speaking, things seemed to get a lot worse for the volleyball Monarchs.
"I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but we have to pause practice," he said. "I know you're excited to get going and practice today, but we can't practice here."
As you might expect, there were long faces all around.
"I want to apologize for that," he added. "I don't know when we're coming back here. I have no idea about that. I really can't tell you what's next."
Then he paused for a few seconds and smiled before delivering the punch line.
Players listening to Wood Selig
"But I will tell you this, that the new volleyball venue is ready right now so we can leave right here and go to the Jim Jarrett Building," he said.
He stopped talking and as it hit the young women what that meant, you could see their smiles, even behind face masks, and hear them cheer.
"Now who wants to go over there and practice?" he asked.
They sprinted over to the volleyball center and when they entered for the first time since the court was finished, they looked around in awe.
Practice was supposed to start when they got there, but they spent some time looking around, and then listening to Rick French, associate athletic director for operations, explain the changes made since the last time they worked out in the facility a year ago.
"I think they needed a few minutes to get adjusted to their new surroundings," volleyball coach Fred Chao said.
ODU is spending about $3.5 million renovating the practice gymnasium at the Jim Jarrett Center into a volleyball facility that will be among the finest in Conference USA.
Stands for nearly 900 fans are in place, although they were rolled up to allow for practice. The court has been sanded and is edged with a trendy multi-colored blue with an ODU logo at the center.
A ticket center, public restrooms, home team room and an adjoining locker room, offices, storage space, visiting locker room, restroom facilities for fans and a glass-covered foyer are still under construction.
Players react to the new ODU Volleyball Center
"I think athletics got a bargain," said David Robichaud, ODU's director of design and construction, who oversaw construction of the project.
"This facility looks fantastic. It looks like a more expensive facility."
Much of the credit for that goes to French, who handled many of the details in the new building, from the Italian tile in almost every room, the wood-like tiles on the floors and walls and stylish furniture.
He admits, the Italian tile was Selig's suggestion.
"Rick has bent over backwards on this project for us," Chao said. "Any cliché you can throw out there, he's done. Instead of going along with what had been planned, he always sought out our perspective.
"You would think this was his only job. (French also has a hand in running ODU's other athletic facilities).
"He made us feel like this was his only job."
Like I said, 2020 has been a rough year for everyone, so it was good to see some joy on the court. As I watched the players do spiking drills, they seemed to do so with more gusto than I remembered the last time I saw them practice.
They smiled. They laughed. What a great scene it was in a year that has given us so much misery.
Ashley Peroe, a redshirt freshman from Virginia Beach's Kellam High School, said she was taken aback at first when Selig began speaking. "But when he said have to practice in our facility, it was super cool," she said. "Everyone was freaking out."
Rick French in the women's locker room
Chao was named coach in January of 2019 and recruited his first class, which spent last fall training and playing some scrimmages against local teams, such as Norfolk State and Hampton.
The Monarchs were supposed to kick off their inaugural season earlier this month, but because of the pandemic, the volleyball season has been postponed until the spring.
"We've been kind of relying on each other to keep us all motivated," said Anna Burkhardt, a redshirt freshman from Ft. Wayne, Indiana. "We've been practicing since last fall, so it's been tough.
"But we know we just have to keep pushing to have a successful season when we finally get to play."
ODU plans to open the volleyball facility the weekend of Jan. 22 against a non-conference foe to be determined. The Monarchs will also play all 13 other C-USA teams.
That assumes the pandemic is under control.
"I really hope fans can be there," Burkhardt said.
Before the team left the student rec center, Chao admitted to his players that the practical joke was his idea.
"I really wanted Wood to be a part of this first practice in our facility," Chao said. "He and President (John R.) Broderick have put so much into the startup of our volleyball program. They constantly reach out and ask how things are going."
"This was such a feel-good day for all of us," he added. "We have overwhelming appreciation for what ODU has provided us.
"They want us to be competitive and they've been true to their word in providing us what we need to do that."
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu
Minium: ODU Volleyball Team Gets An Early-Morning Surprise: A Practice Session at New, $3.5 Million Facility
