Minium: ODU opens basketball practice with a new head coach and new commitment to winning

By Harry Minium

NORFOLK, Va. -- Old Dominion Head Basketball Coach Mike Jones blew the whistle at his first official practice Monday at the Mitchum Basketball Performance Center in what promises to be a new era for ODU. 

The Monarchs are coming off a 7-25 season, their second-worst record since moving up to Division I in 1977. And 2023-24 was a season in which the Monarchs faced much adversity, especially when head coach Jeff Jones had a heart attack in December that sidelined him the rest of the season.

It was health concerns, including his continuing battle against prostate cancer, that caused Jeff Jones to decide to retire.

Heading into the first season of the Mike Jones era, there is much anticipation that things will turn around quickly. 

Jones has assembled an almost entire new team of 18 players, including 14 newcomers, and a new game plan that will focus on getting the ball up the court quickly.

And, as Dr. Wood Selig, ODU’s director of athletics said of Jones a few months ago, “he’s one of us.”

Indeed he is. As a player, Jones (ODU Class of 1995) helped lead the Monarchs to one of their greatest victories ever, an 89-81, three-overtime victory over No. 3 Villanova in the NCAA Tournament, and played on two Colonial Athletic Association championship teams.

He has bled ODU blue ever since leaving. He has visited ODU often in the last three decades and maintained friendships. He said ODU was the only college head coaching job he ever coveted.

“My wife and I watched a lot of ODU games on TV,” he said. “I've been back here as often as I could get here and always stayed in touch with the people here.

"ODU is such a special place to me. I’ve always loved this university.”

Jones had an impressive coaching resume at DeMatha Catholic High School in Hyattsville, Maryland. He took over from legendary coach Morgan Wooten in 2002 and carved out an exemplary career of his own.

Many considered him to be the foremost high school coach in America.

In 19 seasons, his teams went 511-119 and won the 2006 national championship. He spent 22 years coaching teams for USA Basketball, including the 2021 USA Men’s Under 16 national team, which won an international gold medal.

A deeply religious man, Jones said he felt like God intended him to continue mentoring young men in high school.

“I thought I would retire at DeMatha,” he said. “I thought that having an impact on the lives of young men was what God wanted me to do.”

But he also had a dream — he yearned to be the head coach at ODU. And Virginia Tech head coach Mike Young knew that as he tried to lure Jones to Blacksburg as associate head coach in 2021.

“I told him, if he truly wanted to be the head coach at ODU, he wasn’t going to do it coming from DeMatha,” Young said. “He had to do it as a college assistant coach.”

“It was very apparent that Mike loved his time at Old Dominion. He loves the school, loves what it represents. He believes in ODU,” Young added.

Mike Bray, then the head coach at Notre Dame and a longtime friend, urged Jones to say yes to Young. Jones was approaching 50, and as Bray said, “there aren’t many 50-year-olds who get hired as first-year college basketball coaches.”

After praying about it, and discussing it with his wife, Stayce, Jones resigned at DeMatha and moved to Blacksburg, where in his first season, the Hokies won their first ACC championship. 

Three years later, on March 1, before a cheering throng in the Big Blue Room at Chartway Arena, Jones was named ODU’s 14th head coach.

“Welcome home,” said President Brian O. Hemphill, Ph.D., who along with Dr. Selig, selected Jones as the new coach.

Jones is clearly hungry to return his alma mater to its winning ways. “I never played at Chartway Arena, but I envision what it will be like when the arena is sold out and full for every home game,” he said.

Like so many ODU players and fans, his roots are blue collar.

He was raised in a middle-income family in Maryland and attended DeMatha only because his parents worked hard to pay his tuition. He kept out of trouble, was a good student and worked hard.

Family means everything to him. And he’s a steadfastly loyal man.

His wife, Stayce, will testify to his loyalty when cancer threatened to take her life a few years ago.

STAYCE JONES' BATTLE WITH CANCER 

Mike Jones had what he calls “a pretty normal life” until just after he asked Stayce to marry him.

But as their wedding day approached, Stayce said she noticed being out of breath occasionally — an unusual occurrence as she is someone who works out regularly and eats a healthy diet.

“A few weeks after the wedding, I started to have other strange symptoms: night sweats, more fatigue, insomnia,” she said.

Days later, she ran out of breath carrying laundry into the basement. She called paramedics, just to make sure she was OK, and they insisted, against her protests, on taking her to the emergency room.

After several tests, doctors pronounced her fit. However, one doctor took one last X-ray of her chest just to make sure.

He came back into the room red-faced and looking distressed. I don’t know what it is, but something is wrong, he said. You need to see an oncologist, and quickly, he told them.

A CT scan and MRI that followed confirmed Stayce had a 7-centimeter, or peach-sized, mass pressing on her lung. The diagnosis: non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Stacye was stunned. How could I be so healthy and this sick, she asked?

Stayce and Mike were heartbroken when they asked if they could still have children. The treatment, was the reply, will end any chance of you getting pregnant.

“We walked outside the door and after 10 yards, my wife lost it,” Jones said. “We were there probably 30 minutes while I held her and tried to console her.”

An oncologist recommended Stayce take part in an experimental chemo treatment at the National Institutes of Health. Her husband was at first opposed. It was about a 70-minute drive there and back and he didn’t want Stayce to take on the added burden of nearly three hours in the car every day.

“He could have treated us,” she said of the oncologist. “But he thought the trial drug might be a better fit for me.

“Mike and I talked and we agreed that was the best option.

“That may have saved my life.”

By the time she began chemo six weeks later, the mass had doubled in size. Her cancer was aggressive and can often be deadly, but after nine months of taking a tortuous concoction of drugs, the mass disappeared.

It’s been five years since the chemo ended and her prognosis is good; she was told she has an 88% chance of long-term survival.

Stayce said only divine intervention can explain the turn of events that led to her treatment other — a paramedic insisting she go to the hospital when she wasn’t all that sick, a doctor who went the extra mile to take one last test, an oncologist who insisted she take part in a trial treatment.

“There’s no other explanation,” she said.

“Mike has done so much to strengthen my spiritual life,” she added. When they disagree with each, as all couples do, they pray together at the end of the discussion.

“I don’t try to beat anyone over the head with it,” Mike Jones said. “And I know different people are raised in different traditions and I respect that.

“But spend time around me and you will see that I won’t ingest anything without praying. It’s just who I am.”

While they are unable to have children, each gained a child when they married — Mike has a daughter from a previous marriage and Stayce a son.

“Mike has had a huge impact on my son,” she said. “I couldn’t bear telling him about my cancer. So, Mike told him. I still don’t know what the conversation was. He just took care of it.

“That’s the kind of man he is. He is there for you when you need him.”

ODU FANS UPBEAT ABOUT MIKE JONES

Jones’ hiring comes at a critical time for the program. ODU is 67-83 over the last five seasons and hasn’t been to postseason play, nor won a conference tournament game, since 2019, when the Monarchs claimed the Conference USA title.

Dave Twardzik, the former ODU All-American who was also a longtime color commentor for the Monarch basketball radio network, says he believes Jones is the one to right the ship.

“I love that ODU blood,” he said. “Mike knows the program. He knows the history. He loves ODU. He’s such a genuine person and he understands what Old Dominion basketball is all about.

“Old Dominion has a great basketball tradition and Mike is a part of that tradition.”

Jones is the second ODU alumnus to be head coach of his alma mater, joining former coach Oliver Purnell, who coached Jones for three seasons.

Jones also hired a big name in ODU history — Odell Hodge, the former CAA Player of the Year — as a special assistant to the head coach. Hodge is in the ODU Sports Hall of Fame and his jersey hangs from the rafters at Chartway Arena.

“Every long-time ODU fan knows Odell Hodge,” said ODU Larry Eakin, who has been a season ticket holder for decades. “The fans know that for both Mike Jones and Odell, this isn’t just another job. This is the job they both dreamed up.”

Jena Virga, executive director of the Old Dominion Athletic Foundation, ODU’s fundraising organization, said their commitment to ODU has been apparent when she has taken Jones and Hodge out to meet alumni.

“The first time I heard Mike speak was at a gathering of donors in Richmond,” Virga said. “Some of them had fallen off over the years. They have not supported basketball in a while.

“But both he and Odell brought tears to the eyes of so many people there. They were so moved by his passion, by how he said he’s lived for this day, to be ODU’s coach. It’s what he dreamed of.”

Jones’ hiring comes at a critical time for the program. ODU is 67-83 over the last five seasons and hasn’t been to postseason play, nor won a conference tournament game, since 2019, when the Monarchs claimed the Conference USA title.

Jones retained Jamal Robinson from last year’s coaching staff and brought on Jason Wade, a popular ODU player who was a senior last season, as a graduate assistant.

His two assistant coaches hail from other programs but have ties to Jones – James Robinson, who played for Jones at DeMatha and was a star at Pitt before playing professionally in Europe; and Ryan Nadeau, a Michigan State graduate who coached at Virginia Tech the last six seasons.

Matt Hamilton, the director of basketball operations and player personnel, who spent the last nine seasons at Hampton; and video coordinator/assistant director of operations Aiden Brami, who comes to ODU from Maryland. 

PREDICTIONS FOR 2024-25 DIFFICULT TO MAKE

It is difficult to predict how good the Monarchs will be with Jones at the helm. He and his coaching staff are trying to meld 14 newcomers in with four holdovers and that can be a difficult task.

"I love the effort so far, and their work ethic," he said.

In preseason drills, the team looks more talented and is certainly much taller than last season.

One thing seems certain – their style of play will be more up-tempo.

“Coach Jones has made clear that we’re going to push the ball up the court,” said point guard Imo Essien, one of four returning players.

ODU had no true center and depth was thin at power forward last season. This team has 12 players standing 6-foot-6 or better and two standing 6-10 or taller.

Caelum Swanton-Rodger, a 7-foot transfer from Maryland, almost certainly will start at center.

Robert Davis Jr., who is from Detroit and transferred from UMass, has practiced well, as has Sean Durugordon, a transfer from Siena, where he averaged 18 points and 7.3 rebounds last season. Both are 6-6 guards.

Stephaun Walker is a 6-7 wing player from Robert Morris who averaged 9.9 points and 6.2 rebounds for the Pittsburgh school.

Another returnee, R.J. Blakney, could be ODU’s best player judging by preseason practice.

There are five walk-ons, including Vytautas Zygas, a 6-6 freshman from Kaunas, Lithuani who played for his country’s junior national team and has a lot of international experience.

Jones believes that ODU can be successful even in the new world order of college athletics in which the transfer portal, and name, image and likeness give the power conferences major advantages.

“The world has changed, and some people don’t look at academics as a crucial part of athletics,” he said. “But I want families to send their young men here to play for us with the goal of getting a college degree.

“We have a world class university here. I want our players to take advantage of that, graduate, and become good citizens and fathers.

“For me, that’s what coaching is all about.”

ODU opens the season Monday, Nov. 4, with a home game against Buffalo. To purchase season tickets, CLICK HERE.

Minium is ODU’s senior executive writer. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram