Minium: After Putting on a Show for ODU Football, Navy Pilots Worked Out with ODU on Thursday
By Harry Minium
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – It was just another day of practice for Navy pilot Marty Wilson as he whirled, twisted and whipped his jet through the air at the Oceana Naval Air Station.
Flying a F-18 Hornet at more than 700 miles per hour, and then heading straight up in the air, then diving back down, is something routinely done at air shows, and when training for combat.
But it was clearly far more than a routine event for the 75 or so visitors from Old Dominion University.
ODU head football coach Ricky Rahne loaded his team and coaching staff into three buses at the Broderick Dining Commons and bused 35 minutes to Oceana.
After going through some pretty thorough security screening, they then entered the base and unloaded in front of Oceana’s huge tarmac.
Pilot Mark Van Orden smiled as players, coaches and others lined up for the show. He served as the unofficial host.
“We’ve had some groups” come to watch a simulated air show, he said. “But I’ve never seen one this large.
“You guys are in for a treat.”
He wasn’t kidding. For 20 minutes or so, Wilson dazzled the Monarchs, most of whom had their cell phones out taking videos. He dove, flew over the tarmac upside down and then took his jet straight up in the air, where it seemed to freeze for a few seconds, before turning in another direction.
“Just amazing,” ODU quarterback Grant Wilson said as his teammates yelled and cheered and gawked in awe.
It was, for the players preparing for ODU’s opener Aug. 31 at South Carolina, a welcome break between summer practice drills and summer classes.
When the show ended, players and coaches re-boarded the buses and headed to a mammoth hangar where the Navy has been maintaining jets since the early 1950s.
Once inside, the executive officer of the Fixed Wing Fight Attack Squadron VFA-106, Brian Knick, spoke and took questions for a half hour more. The group then went outside and had photos taken next to an F-14 Hornet, the Navy’s most advanced fighter.
That all occurred on June 11.
On Thursday, nine days later, it was time for the pilots to get a taste of football practice. A dozen or more pilots hit the turf at the L.R. Hill Sports Complex on Thursday.
Although NCAA rules forbid pilots to do traditional football drills, ODU’s training and conditioning staff has come up with some difficult workouts that will test the pilots physically and mentally.
“These pilots, everyone we met there, they are all at the top of their game,” Rahne said. “They are the very best.
“We try to expose our players to as many accomplished people as we can. Bringing them to campus I think it will be great for our kids.”
Commander Knick hopes some football players may have been inspired by the trip to Oceana to give the Navy a try.
It’s no secret that enlistment numbers are down in all the Armed Forces, and it’s also no secret that college athletes often have the same kind of discipline, teamwork and work ethic needed to succeed in the military.
Knick, who has been in the Navy for more than two decades, said athletes fit the mold of a good pilot, a good maintenance mechanic or a good sailor.
Asked what it takes to be a pilot, he said “folks that are good at being competitive in a good way without being selfish.
“Typically, someone like that, they’ve played a team sport. You understand what it’s like to be part of a team and the locker room and discipline and all the things you need to know.
“I love getting anyone who played a physical team sport.”
He said more than 1,000 people fly, maintain and manage the 40 to 45 jets at Oceana, including civilians.
You think fourth down and inches to go is pressure? Maintaining a jet in which a pilot puts his life in your hands, that’s truly pressure.
“Every time I get in one of those jets to fly, I trust that all of those people did their jobs. I put my life into their hands to go fly in an unforgiving environment,” Commander Knick said.
“If any part of that goes wrong, I’m not going to have a good outcome. That amount of trust we have here is a special thing, just like you guys know what it’s like to trust somebody you work with.”
He encouraged the players to think about a career in the military after college and urged them to reach out to him, anytime, to talk about a Naval career.
“If you take nothing else away from this experience, I just want you all to see what other Americans, less than 1 percent of our population, are out here doing. They’re getting these people and jets ready to go to places outside of their control to do things in harm’s way for the rest of America.
“After 20 years of doing this, it still gets me fired up to think about the people and what they are doing on behalf of the rest of America.
“This is one of most rewarding working environments anywhere.”
Minium is ODU's Senior Executive Writer for Athletics. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
Minium is ODU's Senior Executive Writer for Athletics. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.