By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – Today's football game between Old Dominion and James Madison is also the Oyster Bowl, with some proceeds going to childrens hospitals, and is a game in which many ODU fans are looking to help needy children at Christmas.
The Oyster Bowl began in 1946 with a game matching unbeaten Granby and Clifton (New Jersey) high schools and for most years since, involved college football games. In its heyday, the game matched some of the nation's top programs, including Virginia Tech, Navy, Syracuse and South Carolina.
Since designating one game a year as the annual Oyster Bowl, ODU has won eight of the 10 games, including a 23-20 victory over JMU in 2011.
A portion of the game's proceeds will be set aside for the Khedive Shrine Temple's Shriners Hospitals for Children. The game's MVP will be presented the Mel Blassingham Trophy, named for the man who founded the game nearly eight decades ago.
Meanwhile, the Monarchists, including former Marine and Virginia Beach Police Captain Harry McBrien, will have two collection points for the Toys for Tots campaign, which provides Christmas toys to needly children at Christmas.
If you want to give, bring an unwrapped toy and it will surely bring a smile to the face of a child on Christmas morning.
Collection points will be on Kaufman Mall and in the Blue tailgate lot, which is located just east of S.B. Ballard Stadium adjacent to the WHRO-TV studio. Marines in full dress uniforms will be at each collection point.
Fans have been raising money for weeks in preparation of the Toys for Tots campaign. One tailgate group led by Scott Bracken raised more than $1,400. When Kelly Fougerousse and her husband Mike went to pick out gifts at Macy's at Lynnhaven Mall in Virginia Beach, employees there chipped in $200.
McBrien, who served in the Marines in the Iraq War, has arranged for some military fanfare for ODU's final home game.
A tank will be located on 49th Street and Hampton Boulevard. Also, two F-18 Super Hornets wil do a pregame flyover at 12:45 p.m.
Field Hockey Team Felt the Love
Because the football, field hockey and women's lacrosse teams all train at the L.R. Hill Sports Complex, the coaches and players from all three teams tend to become close.
That explains why the football team delayed its departure last week to its hotel the day before the Monarchs hosted Marshall to cheer the field hockey team in a shootout victory over Temple in the Big East Conference semifinals.
And while field hockey coach Andrew Griffiths said he appreciated that support, he was blown away by a gesture from head football coach Ricky Rahne.
Rahne wrote hand-written notes to all 23 field hockey players after they won the Big East regular-season title.
Rahne made light of it when asked about the notes at his weekly press conference. "My handwriting is so bad," he said. "It looks like you cut letters out of a magazine and pasted them on a note."
Griffiths said the camaraderie among coaches at ODU starts at the top, with Dr. Wood Selig, the director of athletics. He said he heard from half a dozen other coaches, too.
"There are very few (FBS) schools where the football coach pays much attention to the field hockey program, much less goes out of his way to do what Ricky did," he said. "That meant so much to all of our players.
"This is the kind of culture that Dr. Selig has created here, where everyone cares about everyone else. That's one of the things that makes this such a great place to work."
Some Fans will be Conflicted
As was the case when ODU hosted Virginia Tech, some fans in the sellout crowd of 21,944 will be conflicted. Some ardent ODU fans are JMU alums, including Larry Eakin, who has been a season ticket holder since football began in 2009 and a basketball season ticket holder for decades.
Eakin played for JMU's first football team, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last season. He will be wearing his 50th anniversary hat, but also an ODU shirt and jacket.
Who's he rooting for? "This will be one of those rare football games where my team can't lose," he said.
Contact Minium at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
Minium: ODU Football Fans Expected to Dig Deep Today for Toys for Tots campaign
Ali Jennings was the MVP of the 2021 Oyster Bowl