NORFOLK, Va. – The role athletics has played in the growth of Old Dominion University has been well chronicled.
The 1975 Division II men's basketball national title, three women's basketball national crowns, two football victories over Virginia Tech and star players such as Nancy Lieberman, Inge Nissen, Dave Twardzik and Taylor Heinicke all helped spread the word about ODU to millions.
But the role Bud Metheny played in the school's early days, and his influence on the growth of Old Dominion, isn't as well known.
Jay Ingram, who is an engineer with a history degree, has eloquently filled in that gap with a book entitled: Monarchs: Bud Metheny, Old Dominion Baseball and the Foundational 1960's Championship Teams."
Ostensibly, the book is about Old Dominion baseball teams in the early 1960s that first brought the school some national acclaim.
The 1964 Monarchs finished 22-3, won the championship of the "Little Eight," then a loose amalgam of Virginia college division schools, as well as the Mason-Dixon Conference title. The Monarchs then defeated Buffalo and Long Island University to win the NCAA College Division East Regional at Yankee Stadium, at the time the nation's most hallowed sports venue.
This from a college that was only two years removed from being a junior college.
It was the second East Regional title in a row at a time when there were no national playoffs for small colleges. Although the 1964 Regional games were sparsely attended, they commanded a good portion of national media attention, with the New York Times and New York Daily News among newspapers that covered the event.
John Ingram pitching for ODU in 1964 at Larchmont Elementary School.
The Associated Press covered the Regional final and Old Dominion's name appeared in hundreds of newspapers for the first time, although a year later, after the Monarchs lost in the regional semifinals at Yankee Stadium, a Vermont newspaper referred to the university as "Old Domination."
The 1964 team was loaded. Five members eventually would be inducted into the ODU Sports Hall of Fame, four would be named All-Americans and two would play Major League Baseball.
But the book chronicles far more than that one season. It starts at the beginning, the university's founding in 1930 as the Norfolk Division of the College and William & Mary, and takes the readers on a fascinating narrative of how Joseph "Scrap" Chandler and later Metheny used athletics to help the university grow.
Ingram weaves local and national events into the narrative including the Civil Rights movement, the Vietnam War and President John F. Kennedy's assassination. There are plenty of vintage photos – one of the most fascinating was the 1949 team attired in jerseys with W&M-VPI on the front. Virginia Tech later also became affiliated with the Norfolk Division.
His appendix is full of records and on page 70, there is a list of chants used by Norfolk Division cheerleaders.
Rickety, rackety, russ
We aren't allowed to cuss
But jam-it to jell
We gotta yell
For William and Mary or bust!
Oh my, how times have changed.
The book is thoroughly researched. Ingram spent hundreds of hours in the archives at the ODU library. He also had a big assist from Dr. James R. Sweeney, an ODU history professor emeritus who has written extensively on the University's history.
"Everyone knew," Metheny told Sweeney in 1975, "that we could be recognized nationally much quicker through the realm of athletics than we could with any other means."
Jay Ingram (right), with his parents John and Arlene
Jay Ingram's father, John Ingram, was a left-handed pitcher for Old Dominion in 1964 and later an outstanding coach – he won a state championship at Virginia Beach's Cox High School. He passed away in 2020 while his son was in the midst of researching the book.
Jay's research began as something of a family project, just a way to chronicle the history of his father and mother. His Mom, Arlene, was the 1964 class president at Old Dominion College, as ODU was then known.
"As I started researching the project, the thesis changed," said Jay, a Virginia Beach native. Athletics, and especially that 1964 baseball team, "had such an impactful influence on the community and the school."
Like most people in Hampton Roads, he'd only known ODU as a large institution. He was not aware of how it grew from the Norfolk Division, with a few hundred commuter students, into a university rated among the nation's top 146 research institutions with a beautiful campus and an FBS football program.
"How does a fledging college gain name recognition? How does this become a University of 25,000 students?" he said.
"In some ways (the baseball players from the 1960s) were the architects of the University as it is today."
Bud Metheny giving advice to some of his ODU baseball players.
Scrap Chandler came to Norfolk in 1942 and was the school's athletic director until 1963, when Metheny took over. He hired Metheny in 1948 as basketball and baseball coach and together, with meager budgets, they began to schedule ambitiously.
"It's a difficult process," Metheny said in 1975 of improving the schedule, "because sometimes the boys will get discouraged when they get beat.
"But later on in life, by playing this kind of competition, they found out that to be a competitor you have to compete against the better ones if you're going to be successful."
Chandler and Metheny pushed for the Norfolk Division to become a member of Virginia's Little Eight – the Big Five included Virginia and Virginia Tech – and then the Mason-Dixon Conference. They did so even though the school had subpar facilities.
Baseball games were played at Larchmont Elementary School and the team practiced at Lafayette Park, two miles away from campus. Sometimes there were so many pebbles in the dirt at Larchmont and infielders could never predict where the ball would go.
Fred Balmer scores game-winning run in 1964 East Regional championship at Yankee Stadium.
The gym where ODU played basketball and where the swim team worked out had just two showers. Basketball games were often played off campus at local high schools.
Metheny, whose full name is Arthur Beauregard Metheny, was a former William & Mary star who played parts of four seasons with the New York Yankees. He was the last player to wear Babe Ruth's No. 3 jersey.
Metheny was a blue-collar guy and Old Dominion then appealed to blue-collar kids. Full athletic scholarships weren't the norm at the time, and for local stars, playing at Old Dominion made financial sense.
"I don't remember any rich kids joining the team," Jay quotes his father as saying.
The Monarchs got very good very fast in baseball and developed a camaraderie that Jay Ingram said came across in interviews.
"It is a good bunch of guys, a humble bunch of guys, who accomplished so much," he said. "The University owes them for what the University is today.
"But I don't think the guys from those teams even see that. They played ball, they won some tournaments and still have a really great time when they are together. There are no egos in the room."
Bob Walton congratulates Fred Edmonds after his game-winning hit in 1964 NCAA East Regional.
At times they played heart-stopping baseball. In the 1964 final against LIU, with the score tied in the bottom of the ninth, Fred Balmer singled, John Ward singled him to third, and then, with two outs, Fred Edmonds hit a "shot that soared over the shortstop's head with plenty to spare" reported the New York Times.
Metheny was named College Division national coach of the year. His status as a former Yankee helped ODU baseball receive a ton of media attention.
A year later, Metheny stepped down as basketball coach and hired Sonny Allen to replace him. Six years later, ODU played for a national basketball championship before finally winning the Division II title in 1975.
ODU was then just two years away from becoming a Division I school..
Jay Ingram is an engineer for an electrical company in Ohio and even though he has degrees from William & Mary and Virginia Tech, his heart is with ODU.
His family began an endowed scholarship at ODU in the name of his parents – the John A. Ingram Jr and Arlene Ingram Endowed Scholarship – and he is donating all proceeds from the sale of his book to the scholarship. Ben Moore, a freshman pitcher from Frederick, Maryland, was the recipient of the scholarship this past season.
1964 ODU Baseball Team at Yankee Stadium.
"You probably lost a parent and that's a powerful loss for anybody, anytime, when you lose somebody you love," he said. "It was something we were able to do. We started the scholarship a week before Dad died. Every paycheck I put something towards it.
"It's a legacy thing."
Allen, former athletic director Jim Jarrett, former men's basketball coach Paul Webb, women's basketball coach Marianne Stanley and others are deservedly credited for the growth of ODU athletics.
When you've read this book, you will know the names of others who were also pioneers – Wayne Parks, Fred Kovner, Bob Walton and Frank and Jimmy Zadell.
"I realize the book will appeal to a niche audience," Jay Ingram said. "You have to be from ODU or love baseball or be from Norfolk to want to read this book."
Probably true. But if you fit any of those categories, click below. It's a book that will inform and entertain.
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE ODU BASEBALL BOOK
Contact Minium at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
Minium: Jay Ingram's Book About 1964 ODU Baseball Team Tells the Story of the University's Early Growth
