By Harry Minium
The Old Dominion University Athletic Foundation began a virtual auction on Monday, and it was easy for me to pick out which of the 70 items would be first on my wish list.
How about being driven in a ROX Luxury Motor Coach with my wife and some friends to explore vineyards in the Charlottesville area for a day? No designated driver needed. No worries about traffic. Sit back on a luxurious vehicle and watch TV and take advantage of the bar and snacks before and sampling some of Virginia's best wines.
If that doesn't pique your interest, would you like to stay at a beach house in the Outer Banks for a week? ODAF has three available.
Or are you intrigued by a sunset cruise on a nice boat, a VIP experience at Harborfest or a night at the luxurious Marriott hotel at the Virginia Beach Oceanfront, replete with a $100 meal gift card?
Or how about a visit to your home from Santa Claus?
I think most of you would be intrigued with nearly all the 70 items on the virtual auction that began Monday and ends on Dec. 9.
Register for auction here
There's a Philadelphia Eagles helmet autographed by the two ODU alumni playing in Philly – Travis Fulgham and Rick Lovato, as well as basketball jerseys autographed by former All-Americans Nancy Lieberman and Dave Twardzik.
Want to brush up on your tennis game? How about lessons at the ODU Tennis Center with men's coach Dominick Mueller or women's coach Dom Manilla?
There are rounds of golf at the Bayville Golf Club and Princess Anne Country Club, two of the finest courses in the region.
And then there's a custom side table with an ODU logo create by Adam McLamb, an assistant volleyball coach who crafted a similar piece for the ODU Volleyball Center.
There are minimum bids for every item, as you would expect, and the minimums are less than the items are actually worth. For instance, a 1-hour family photography session at S.B. Ballard Stadium is priced at $250. If you hired a photographer, it would cost you more like $400.
The auction is being headed by Chandler Shirer and Alyssa Jones, two up-and-coming, ODAF fundraisers.
"We saw another Conference USA school produce an auction like this, so we asked if we could do it here," said Shirer, an athletic donor relations manager who starred on the ODU swimming team before graduating in 2017.
Jena Virga, ODU's senior associate athletic director, said yes, and they were off and running.
ODAF officials solicited the 70 items largely from generous donors and Tidewater Home Funding offered to sponsor the event.
The pandemic has impacted the bottom line for every college athletic program in the country, and ODU is no exception. While ODAF has done an amazing job under difficult circumstances raising revenue, we have less income both from private donations and ticket revenues than we've had in a long time.
So, if you bid, please bid generously, because every dime will be used to help pay for athletic scholarships.
"All of the proceeds will go to our unrestricted annual fund," said Jones, director of special events and stewardship at ODAF, and a four-time field hockey team captain at ODU.
The minimum bids add up to $25,000 raised, but Jones said: "Obviously, we want to raise more and think we will."
If you haven't made a donation to ODU athletics this year, and you usually do, a successful bid will count and the amount you pay will also help beef up your ODAF priority points.
Once you're at the auction site, you need to download an app, which I'm told is an easy process, and then you can begin bidding. More than 130 potential bidders have altready done so.
For questions about the app, call Shirer or Jones at 757-683-6963.
Although the fiscal year for athletics ends in July, ODAF's fiscal year ends on New Year's Eve. This is part of a "final push" to increase fundraising numbers before the year ends, Shirer said.
"We really needed something like this to help with fundraising," Shirer said. "We didn't play football and we've got limited capacity in basketball.
"We really want to support our student-athletes in the best way we can."
As I said, bid generously.
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu
Minium: ODAF Auction a Chance to Claim Some Nice Prizes and Donate Money for Athletic Scholarships
