By Harry Minium
The best seat in the house at the Bud Metheny Baseball Complex isn't in the stadium.
To get there, exit The Bud, head east down 49th Street past left field, take a left on Elkhorn Avenue and then walk into Old Dominion University's new Chemistry Building. Once there, take the elevator to the fourth floor, turn right and keep walking until you reach Dr. John Cooper's office.
Cooper, who heads ODU's Chemistry and Biochemistry department, has a breathtaking view not only of the stadium, but of the Lamberts Point Golf Course, the Elizabeth River and much of ODU's campus.
Smack dab in center field, it's by far the best view I've seen from any office on campus.
And that hasn't gone unnoticed. When ODU officials dedicated the new Chemistry Building a few weeks ago, President John R. Broderick could not resist giving Cooper a little tongue-in-cheek ribbing over the panoramic view.
"Dr. Cooper has been a leader in this chemistry project," President Broderick said. "But to John's credit, he also got the best office in the building."
"The view," President Broderick added, "is a baseball fans' dream."
As it turns out the view isn't being wasted. Cooper is not only a renowned chemistry researcher, he's also a college baseball fan.
Once a dyed-in-the-wool Boston Red Sox adherent, Cooper turned to college baseball once ESPN+ began broadcasting. Not only does he watch ODU, but his two alma maters – The Citadel and North Carolina State.
"I am all about college ball," he said. "Anytime ODU is on, I'm watching."
His next door neighbor in the Chemistry Building, Dr. John Donat, is also an ODU baseball fan and his view is almost as good.
Cooper will be watching from his office on Friday when ODU kicks off the biggest home series of the season against Charlotte at 3 p.m. He'll be working, but will look over every time he hears the ping of an aluminum bat.
ODU is ranked 25th and Charlotte 15th and the four-game series, including a doubleheader Saturday and a single game Sunday, will go a long way toward determining who wins the Conference USA East title. ODU (28-10, 14-6 C-USA) is second to Charlotte (30-11, 17-3) after the 49ers claimed three of four games last weekend in the Queen City.
Charlotte is coming off a 4-1 victory at North Carolina on Tuesday.
When I saw the view from Cooper's office while doing research on the Chemistry Building, and heard he was a Monarch baseball fan, I decided that he and ODU coach Chris Finwood needed to get together.
You won't believe the view from his office, I told Finny, as most know Finwood.
"Uh huh," he replied.
Thursday afternoon, Finny and I walked to the Chemistry Building and met Dr. Cooper in his office. Finny presented Cooper with an ODU hat, then looked out the window and his tongue hit the floor.
"You were right," Finny said as he pulled out his cell phone and snapped photos.
Both graduates of strict military schools -- Cooper went to The Citadel, Finny to VMI -- they are both intelligent, high-energy guys, and seemed to hit it off immediately.
"Maybe one of these games I'll just get thrown out and come up here and hang out with you," he said to Dr. Cooper.
The new Chemistry Building was a group effort, combining architects, professors, contractors and a myriad of other ODU officials, but much of the building reflects Cooper's vision.
Pardon me for going on a bit, but it is a magnificent, $75.6 million, 110,000-square foot facility with 13 teaching labs and 24 research labs, some of the most modern equipment in the state and a design meant to appeal to students and researchers. There are stylish common areas on every floor and glass nearly everywhere you look.
Walking down hallways, you can see into classrooms and labs through large planes of glass. "STEM-H on Display," is what ODU officials call the open concept. More than 5,000 students, most of them majoring in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and health sciences, will take classes there this fall.
Click here to read more about Chemistry Building
The building will be a huge plus for ODU's sciences schools and Finny said it's also benefitted his baseball program.
First, the building's dark, brownish brick on the back side provides a great hitting background. ODU has a black tarp with a lion's eyes right above the center field fence designed to give batters a good background, but Finny said it looks like "a postage stamp" compared to the Chemistry Building.
"The Chemistry Building has become a big batter's eye for us," Finny said. "It's made the visual part of hitting even that much better."
It may also have helped ODU's red-hot hitters by altering the wind flow. Putting a four-story building 20 or so yards behind your outfield is most certainly going to affect the wind, for good or ill.
Finny said the wind has usually blown in from right field and now it often blows out.
"I'm not a meteorologist," Finny said when I asked him if that's because of the new building. "But it sure feels that way. The wind has blown out to right more than it ever has. I've been here ten years and it's never blown like this."
Is it any wonder that ODU has already broken the school record for home runs?
Cooper said when officials gathered six years ago to begin planning the new Chemistry Building, there were understandable concerns that the building might have a negative effect on the baseball stadium.
To the contrary, Finny said. Even if you don't take into account the wind flow and hitting background, it's just a beautiful building that adds to the stadium's ambiance.
"I'm really glad to hear that," Cooper said.
Before we left, Cooper took Finny into a conference room near his office that seats 54 people and the view there is even more spectacular.
He told Finny he can use the conference room and Finny said he will take him up on that offer. He wants to bring his assistant coaches there, and in June, when recruits can begin traveling to ODU, he will also make use of it.
"I can't imagine," he said, "a better place to try to close out a deal with a recruit than coming up here with a Mom and a Dad and looking this over and saying, 'Don't you want your son to come here?' "
Neither can I.
Minium is a Senior Executive Writer who worked 39 years at The Virginian-Pilot. Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, he won 19 Virginia Press Association awards and 4 each from the Associated Press and Football Writers of America. Follow him on Twitter @Harry_MiniumODU, Instagram @hbminium1 or email hminium@odu.edu
Miniuim: New Chemistry Building May be one Secret to ODU Baseball Team's Hot Bats
