NORFOLK, Va. – In the nearly eight decades that the Norfolk Sports Club has presented the Tom Fergusson Memorial award, it has gone to people in many walks of life – athletes, coaches, mayors, team owners, business people and college presidents.
But rarely has one person won the award twice.
Dr. Wood Selig, who is finishing his 13th year as Old Dominion's athletic director, will receive the 2023 Tom Fergusson Award at the 76th Norfolk Sports Club Jamboree on Tuesday, June 20th, at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott.
And he is a repeat winner.
Selig also won the award in 2013, three years after he arrived in his hometown of Norfolk to head ODU athletics.
Named for one of the sports club's founders, the award is presented to people who have made a major impact on the local sports scene. He will be introduced at the jamboree by Ted Alexander, radio voice of ODU football, men's basketball and baseball.
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Jack Ankerson, a long-time Norfolk Sports Club member who served on the selection committee, said there was little debate after Selig was nominated.
"There was a genuine consensus among the members of the committee and our board that Wood Selig deserved this award a second time," Ankerson said.
Ankerson noted that since 2013, ODU has moved up to FBS, joined Conference USA, opened the Mitchum Performance Center basketball facility, did a $76.5 million renovation of S.B. Ballard Stadium that was started and completed in nine months, joined the Sun Belt Conference and added women's volleyball, which plays in the new ODU Volleyball Center.
Although ODU is coming off a 3-9 football season, one marred by injuries, the Monarchs have beaten Virginia Tech in two of their last three games against the Hokies and set an average attendance home record last season of 20,232 spectators per home game.
"Wood has been at the epicenter of all of these seismic changes at Old Dominion," Ankerson said. "Ten years ago, who would have thought that ODU would beat Virginia Tech twice in football?"
ODU set a fundraising record in 2022 of $18 million, and much of that will be used on a planned $20 million renovation of ODU's baseball stadium, another project started under Selig's watch.
The Jamboree will have a decided ODU flavor elsewhere as well. Paul Webb, the former ODU men's basketball coach, will introduce his son, Eddie Webb, who will receive a lifetime achievement award.
Eddie played basketball for his father at Randolph-Macon and went into coaching with his father at ODU. He bounced around the coaching profession for several years before being named executive director of the Virginia Sports Hall of Fame.
He led the Sports Hall of Fame for 24 years before retiring in 2019.
Webb headed the Hall of Fame through difficult times. The Hall of Fame moved from Portsmouth to Town Center in Virginia Beach at a time when declining revenues threatened its existence.
The Hall of Fame maintains an office at Town Center and sports-related displays are dispersed throughout office buildings and hotels. The move to Virginia Beach cut costs and allowed the Hall of Fame, now headed by Will Driscoll, to thrive.
"Eddie clearly deserved it," Ankerson said. "He's done so much for the local community."
He and his father still host the Paul Webb Summer Basketball Camps, as they have for nearly five decades.
Ankerson, who does public address announcing at ODU football, basketball and baseball games, will also be honored. He will receive the Abe Goldblatt Award, named for former Virginian-Pilot reporter Abe Goldblatt.
Ankerson will be introduced by Debbie White, the former ODU senior administrator. She was the state's first female sports writer and headed the university's sports publicity and marketing operations when ODU was a national women's basketball power.
Jack Ankerson (right) with ODU baseball coach Chris Finwood
Ankerson was general manager of the San Antonio Spurs, then a member of the ABA, when he was lured away to head the Virginia Squires.
The Squires went out of business after two seasons but Ankerson remained in Hampton Roads. He was a radio sportscaster and sports director, worked in the front office for the Norfolk Tides and Norfolk Admirals and also headed the Hampton Roads Sports Commission for nearly two decades.
Ankerson 's deep, baritone voice is one of the most recognizable to local sports fans. In addition to doing the public address announcing for ODU events, he's also the PA announcer for the Norfolk Tides and emcees many local events, including the Norfolk Sports Club Jamboree.
Ankerson was one of the founders of the Hampton Roads Sports Hall of Fame, a group he still heads.
"Debbie was my first contact at Old Dominion," Ankerson said. "She's been my connection to ODU since day one. I'm honored that she agreed to introduce me."
The guest speaker for the jamboree is former Western Branch High, North Carolina and NFL star Dre' Bly, who recently left the University of North Carolina to coach with the Detroit Lions. His son, Jordan, is a rising junior wide receiver for the ODU football team.
Born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Selig moved to Norfolk as a baby and was raised in Larchmont, steps away from ODU. He attended Norfolk Collegiate and then Washington & Lee, and then began his career working in the ticket office at VCU.
Selig was senior associate athletic director at the University of Virginia from 1988-1999, before Western Kentucky hired him as athletic director. He came to ODU from WKU in 2010.
Former ODU assistant basketball coach and Virginia Sports Hall of Fame Executive Director Eddie Webb.
Selig said he is honored to receive an award also given to former Norfolk Mayor Paul D. Fraim, former Norfolk State Athletic Director Marty Miller, Blake Cullen, who brought the Admirals hockey team to Norfolk; and Dr. Jim Jarrett, whom Selig replaced as ODU's athletic director.
"It was a surprise the first time," Selig said, adding that his wife, Ellen, insisted that he to go the 2013 Norfolk Sports Club Jamboree without telling him why. When his name was announced, "I was completely shocked," he said.
"It was a very pleasant surprise this year, too. When you receive an award, you don't think much about getting it a second time.
"I was very touched when Jack told me. It's an honor to be mentioned in the same company of so many great people who previously won this award."
Selig said that without ODU President Brian O. Hemphill, PhD., many of the positive changes in ODU athletics would not have occurred.
"He's been behind the coming merger between ODU and Eastern Virginia Medical School, and that's going to mean so much for our entire community," Selig said.
"He worked so hard to help Old Dominion join the Sun Belt. And with the baseball stadium, he's taken the lead on fundraising.
"The move to the Sun Belt has just been a part of the transformation that's occurring at ODU. In some ways, I've just been at the right place at the right time."
Contact Minium at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
Minium: Wood Selig Among Several with ODU Ties to be Honored by The Norfolk Sports Club
