By Harry Minium
Chris Finwood knew that his baseball team's unprecedented success this season generated a ton of interest among Old Dominion University fans. But he says he didn't quite appreciate how much until he attended a recent ODU alumni gathering.
Many at the event shook his hand and offered their congratulations. Yet he said that he was particularly surprised when two women approached and confided to him that as they sat at their desks at work, they watched the Monarchs play in the NCAA tournament on their phones.
Neither had seen the Monarchs play in person.
He's heard from dozens of others who tell a similar story.
"We created a lot of baseball fans this year," Finwood said.
Including thousands online. Social media lit up with comments about the Monarchs and last month, nearly 13,000 fans clicked on one of our baseball stories on the www.odusports.com website as the Monarchs advanced to the Columbia Regional NCAA Tournament final.
That's enough people to fill Harbor Park and we were just one of several media sources available.
For a myriad of reasons, ODU baseball became the biggest team in town for a few weeks this spring.
The Monarchs won 44 games, their first Conference USA title and advanced to their first NCAA regional. They were seeded 11th nationally in the NCAA Tournament and No. 1 in their region and advanced as high as 7th in the NCAA RPI.
They were leading the nation in home runs with 105 when their season ended and are 11th in scoring with 7.8 runs per game.
And this team proudly called itself blue-collar, one that didn't always have the same talent as their opponents but was never outworked.
Tragedy struck the team in April when Finwood's wife died. The team dedicated the rest of the season to its coach, and then reeled off six victories in a row.
Nationally, college baseball fans began to follow the team playing for its coach, and that national attention amped up when the Monarchs became the first team in a decade to be seeded No. 1 in an NCAA regional region and yet were forced to play on the road.
The Monarchs traveled nearly 400 miles to Columbia, South Carolina, where on their second night in the regional, they were forced to take on the homestanding Gamecocks. The Monarchs faced a hostile crowd of 7,315 which booed, hissed and yelled insults.
Ryne Moore pitched seven brilliant innings and Aaron Holiday came in and pitched two shutout innings to get the 2-1 victory on national TV.
It would be the last victory of ODU's season as the Monarchs lost two games to the University of Virginia, including a 4-3, tenth-inning defeat in the championship game.
Leave it to U.Va. coach Brian O'Connor to put ODU's season in perspective.
"They have an incredible team, they had a fantastic year," he said. "Certainly, it took our best to beat them twice. And I know how it feels, them walking off the field. We've been there before.
"But I hope as time passes, they realize what a special year they had and what they accomplished."
Coming off a pandemic that kept us isolated for more than a year, this ODU baseball team was a feel-good story that everyone could appreciate. Things have been so negative for so long in a country divided by political and racial strife that I think most of us want to embrace individuals or teams who have overcome great obstacles and succeeded.
That, in a nutshell, was ODU baseball.
"Maybe the most important part of what we did is that we helped a lot of people maybe transition back to normalcy," Finwood said. "We were coming off more than a year where you couldn't go to games.
"We didn't have a football season and during basketball seasons, our fans weren't really able to be there in large numbers.
"We were able to be the stewards, the Segway, for people to get back to normal.
"There have been some years where you worry about how many people care about baseball. You never had to worry about that this year."
The team also generated a movement to improve the Bud Metheny Baseball Stadium. Many ODU fans were embarrassed because their team could not host NCAA tournament games at home.
While the Bud, as Metheny Stadium is known, is a good place to watch baseball, it hasn't had a major upgrade since it opened in 1983.
The Bud was one of the finest stadiums in the Mid-Atlantic when it was brand new, but a lot has changed since 1983, when Ronald Reagan was president, the internet was still just an idea and the first mobile phones hit the market.
The stadium's field, dugouts, scoreboard and indoor hitting facility are ready to host an NCAA tournament game. Yet it lacks other necessary facilities, such as a sports medicine facility and space for players to sit out rain delays, necessary to host NCAA events.
The stands and concessions facility could also use a makeover.
ODU will soon embark on a feasibility study into what upgrades the stadium might need to host C-USA and NCAA tournament games. Meanwhile, the Old Dominion Athletic Foundation has quietly been soliciting funds behind the scenes to support such a project.
The study will be conducted by a consultant who would "provide a detailed scope of work, and cost estimate, for a stadium upgrade to compete at the NCAA Division I level," said David Robichaud, ODU's director of design and construction.
"We would also provide renderings to help with fundraising."
ODU Athletic Director Wood Selig told a Board of Visitors committee meeting last week that ODAF has so far had very encouraging results in the early stages of soliciting support for a stadium overhaul.
The feasibility study will include trips to other Conference USA stadiums so that ODU officials can see what Finwood's program is competing with.
C-USA is a power league in baseball and has some outstanding facilities. The league ranked fifth nationally in the RPI, sent four teams to the NCAA tournament and had three teams lose in regional finals.
"We need to get to the best places in our league so people can see what we're competing with," Finwood said. "We don't want the best facility in the league. We don't need that. But we want something that's better than what we have now."
Even before ODU announced the study or fundraising effort, a grass roots movement began on Twitter to help raise money for the baseball program.
Aaron Zielinski, who goes by "Big Blue's Bulging Biceps" on Twitter, got the ball rolling along with 15 other members of a Twitter group called "The Monarchists." Zielinski said he got a big helping hand from Monarch fan Mike Langston.
They challenged fans to donate $1 for every home run the Monarchs hit this season. That's $105, by the way. Many fans took him up on this, including football coach Ricky Rahne. They hash tagged their Tweets with #dollarsfordingers
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While the $105 contributions won't get the job done by themselves, it's an indication of how passionate ODU baseball fans are about their program.
And that's in part because of the guys who took ODU farther into postseason play than any team in the University's 90 years.
Finwood said when he met with players for end-of-the-season meetings, "I wanted them to understand just how important and how historic this season was and what it's going to do for our program.
"All the good things that happen to our program moving forward, recruiting, facilities, national recognition, are going be standing on their shoulders.
"That's what winning does. We're really proud of that, proud of our boys and our coaching staff. To have so many people telling us that they want to get on board helping us to build a new facility, that's what success does.
"They need to be really, really be proud of that."
Minium worked 39 years at The Virginian-Pilot, where he was twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and won 28 state and national writing awards. He writes news stories, features and commentaries for odusports.com and odu.edu Follow him on Twitter @Harry_MiniumODU, Instagram @hbminium1 or email hminium@odu.edu
Minium: If ODU Ends up Improving the Bud, it Will be Because of the 2021 Baseball Monarchs
