By Harry Minium
First-year coach Ricky Rahne reflected for a couple of days after learning his Old Dominion football team would not play this fall, and then Tweeted an insightful statement on his thoughts and emotions.
He affirmed that he loved being a coach, expressed how football has affected his family in a good way and reiterated his determination to build ODU football into a championship program.
He ended the Tweet by saying: "I promise each of our players that I will continue to work each day to make them better players, better sons, better fathers, better men."
The final two words, "better men," defined how he and his coaching staff approached practice this fall, he told the ODU Board of Visitors recently.
He said he continually asked himself "How can I help them continue to develop every day?"
Rahne's Tweet went viral and likely was seen by millions on Twitter. But that wasn't his target audience – it was the 90 or so players on his roster who were asked to lift weights, run and practice diligently without games to look forward to.
Rahne is a big fan of quotes. He's well-read – he graduated from Cornell after all – and used this quote from Abraham Lincoln to express to his players what he hoped would be accomplished this fall.
"If I had six hours to cut down a tree, I'd spend the first four hours sharpening the ax," Lincoln said.
Said Rahne: "I told our kids we have longer to sharpen the ax now. We need to take that approach that we're still sharpening our skills and when we do finally play a game, we're going to be ready to go.
"We were blessed with the opportunity to go into minute detail on certain skills. I always talked to our guys about viewing things as an opportunity or an obstacle. I wanted to view this fall not as an obstacle, but an opportunity we've been granted that's going to make us a better program, make us better coaches, make us better players, make us better men."
ODU had 15 practices in 34 days, including eight in which the players could tackle. On off days, the players lifted weights and ran.
"I felt like we got better this fall," he said.
"We were really able to dig in and do some things you normally don't have time to do in the fall. We were able to get into the stadium, which was fantastic, it was awesome. When we had a couple of practices out there, those were our best days."
He said he's building a positive culture on the football team that begins with what he calls 'the three C's:' Care, Competition and Character.
"The team has to know I care about them, that our other coaches care about them, and we do. We also want them to care about their teammates and know that they know I care about their education. This is the No. 1 thing we talk about. We have to care about each other and our own success.
"We're going to compete in everything we do – the practice field, the classroom, the weight room. If we play video games, we're going to compete. If I'm on the treadmill next to a guy, I'm going to compete against him.
"I believe I hired men of great character. We're going to recruit men of great character. It's something we're going to stress all the time. We're not going to let that slip."
Then he went to another quote, this one from the late John Wooden, the former great UCLA basketball coach: "Be more concerned about your character than your reputation, because your character is who you really are, your reputation is merely what others think you are."
He praised his athletic training staff, especially head athletic rainer Justin Walker and assistant athletic trainer Angela Moening. "Justin is an absolute rock star," Rahne said. "He and Angela did a wonderful job keeping our guys healthy."
As, he added, did Assistant Athletic Director for Equipment Operations Dan Cornier, whose staff cleaned athletic equipment and washed jerseys and pants after every practice.
Social distancing was practiced off the practice field, including team meetings. Everyone in the L.R. Hill Sports Complex wore a mask unless a coach was alone in his office.
ODU is fortunate, he said, to have a large weight room, and that made social distancing much easier.
Nonetheless, attendance in the weight room was limited to 25 players at a time, there were different doors designated as entrances and exits and everyone wore masks.
"Have you ever been on a treadmill wearing he mask?" he said. "It's no fun. But I'm asking our guys to wear masks and I have to set an example for them."
He said the players handled things well this fall and that the program is building a culture of winning.
That building process continued last month, when Rahne and his staff signed 18 players during the early signing period. The 247Sports recruiting service ranked it as the best ODU recruiting class since the school began playing football in 2009 and the site has so far not added the names of two players signed by the Monarchs.
Because the NCAA decreed that no player lose eligibility this season, even if they played, ODU will have 62 freshmen and redshirt freshman next season. With just ten seniors among 108 players, the Monarchs will have one of the nation's youngest teams.
"This is a great class," Rahne said. "This influx of talent is really going to help us."
He added that he was impressed with how the current team handled a difficult fall.
"I was very proud of our players," he said. "I thought they were very mature about the entire process.
"I'm really excited about our team. I'm really excited about the culture we're building."
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu
Minium: ODU's Ricky Rahne Said he Focused This Fall on Making Monarch Football Players "Better Men"
