NORFOLK, Va. – When Hank Morgan got the call from Old Dominion baseball coach Chris Finwood, and was told he would be the 46th winner of the annual Bud Metheny Award, he at first was inclined to turn it down.
"I told Finny I don't deserve this, that there are so many other people around here who've done so much more," said Morgan, long-time manager of the Peninsula Pilots.
"I told him, 'Please give it to someone else.'"
Finwood firmly said the decision has been made and you're getting the award.
It wasn't false modesty. Morgan is a humble guy. During a 40-minute interview, he mentioned dozens of people who have been instrumental in his career and never claimed credit for any of his many baseball accomplishments.
But this is clearly an award he's earned.
A Hampton High graduate who played baseball at VMI and Christopher Newport, he took over as general manager of the Pilots shortly after his father, Henry Morgan, purchased the Coastal Plain League team in 2001.
Henry, incidentally, won the Bud Metheny Award in 2008, making the Morgans the first father-son duo to win the award.
When the team's manager abruptly left the team for another job in 2007, Henry asked Hank to get on the bus with the team, which was headed for road game in Petersburg, to coach the team temporarily. He won 14 of 21 games the rest of the season and was thus named the manager.
Friday night, Morgan will receive the Metheny Award at the ODU baseball program's annual Step Up to the Plate fundraiser at the Priority Automotive Club inside S.B. Ballard Stadium. The event begins at 6 p.m.
Tickets, which can be purchased by clicking HERE, include dinner, drinks, an up-close look at ODU's baseball team, including a chance to mingle with ODU players and coaches, as well as an update on the ongoing effort to do a $20 million makeover if the Bud Metheny Baseball Park.
Morgan has won two championships in the Coastal Plain League, which recruits college players to play during the summer. The players aren't paid but are provided with living accommodations.
Since the Pilots began playing in 2001, the team has drawn more than one million fans to the historic War Memorial Stadium, which opened in 1948 and was built with local funds raised by Branch Rickey, then owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Rickey brought Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play Major League Baseball, to the Peninsula to help raise funds for the stadium, which was home to the "Baby Dodgers" minor league team until the Brooklyn Dodgers moved to Los Angeles in 1958.
The stadium was home to Class A baseball for decades, and players such as Johnny Bench and Bret Boone got their start there. It was the last place where famed Negro League star Satchel Paige threw his last pitch in 1966.
Henry purchased the stadium and franchise in 2001 and both he and the city of Hampton have poured millions of dollars into turning it into a place where fans feel comfortable. There are new dugouts, a new stadium roof, video scoreboard, concessions stands, a play area for kids, turf, safety netting, seating, indoor hitting facility, press box and paved parking lots.
On a typical Saturday night it is not unusual to see the stadium's 3,573 seats full. With ticket prices at $8 apiece and concessions prices far below the norm of professional baseball, the Pilots give fans a more intimate and cheaper experience, though less high-end than what fans expect from the Norfolk Tides.
Henry Morgan (center) and son Hank (right) have been with the Peninsula Pilots for nearly 24 years.
The Pilots average about 2,100 paying customers a night, Morgan said.
"It's not unusual for our fans to have personal relationships with our players," Morgan said. "Our players live each summer with our fans.
"Our seating is very intimate. You're right on top of the game. When we do fireworks, they are right on top of you."
Morgan has won 483 games, the most of anyone in the league and coached 12 players who went on to play in the Major Leagues.
Finwood began sending players to the Pilots when he was an assistant with Auburn and has continued through his head coaching career at both Western Kentucky and ODU.
"I've known the Morgan family since I was in high school," said Finwood, who like Morgan, graduated from Hampton High School. "They are from an old Hampton family.
"Hank is an ODU guy, a long-time benefactor of our program and a big supporter of ours. They do a fantastic job with that organization.
"Every player we sent to play there benefited from the experience. They were treated well and loved the fans. And Hank is a baseball guy. He pushes his players to improve."
Finwood graduated from VMI and so would have Morgan had at the time Keydets been allowed to get married. He transferred to CNU after tying the knot.
He was recruited to VMI by Finwood, then the head coach, who offered him a slot as a walk-on.
"He was the first person to express an interest in me as a Division I player," Morgan said.
"I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Finny. He was the one who most encouraged me to take the job as manager (of the Pilots). I owe a lot to Finny."
After graduating from Christopher Newport, Hank Morgan was well on his way to a successful career with Noland Company in Newport News when his father asked him to do something he says he was not qualified to do.
"Six months after buying the team, my dad said he was having problems with the management team he inherited," Hank Morgan said. "He pulled me aside and told me that he needed someone he could trust to be general manager.
"I told him, 'I don't know what the hell I'm doing but you can trust me.' And then I said yes before he had a chance to change his mind."
The front office is now run by General Manager Matt Mitchell, also a former Hampton High Crabber.
Hank Morgan's job is year round. During the offseason he assists in marketing, group ticket sales, planning and generating corporate support.
Morgan said his father told him early on that the team's purpose is to cater to the Peninsula's blue-collar, military-oriented population.
With Ft. Eustis in Newport News, Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, the Navy's weapons station and Coast Guard training facility in Yorktown, and, of course, Newport News Shipbuilding, the region's largest civilian employer, there are plenty of fans affiliated with national defense.
"The purpose of baseball everywhere is to take peoples' minds off of their problems," Morgan said. "We play hard. We're going to run after the ball. We're going to run out every infield ground ball. And we're going to dive after the ball.
"We play good baseball. If we played a Single-A team, who knows what would happen? And if we ask you to come watch us, we're going to work hard for you.
"But a big part of what we do is to provide a platform for players to go on and do bigger and better things. We've had more than 300 players go on to be drafted."
And that resume is more than enough to warrant the award he will receive Friday night.
The Metheny Award is named for the late Bud Metheny, the former New York Yankee who coached ODU baseball when the school was known as the Norfolk Division of the College of William and Mary and VPI and took the Monarchs into Division I. He remains ODU's winningest coach.
The 45 previous winners include the late Dave Rosenfield, long-time general manager of the Norfolk Tides and Ken Young, the long-time owner of the Tides, former Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim and his brother, Ed Fraim, who was a long-time ODU fundraiser; newspaper reporters George McClelland and Abe Goldblatt and broadcaster Bob Rathbun, TV voice of the Atlanta Hawks; former Norfolk State coach and athletic director Marty Miller and former local baseball scouts Hank Foiles, Les Bangs and Harry Postove.
"I don't think I deserve this," Morgan said. "I've just been lucky. I'm terribly humbled.
"But I'm proud that someone thinks of me that way."
Minium is ODU's senior executive writer for athletics. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram