Minium: ODU took the Ricky Rahne Show to the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower and we were surrounded by heroes

Harry Minium

NORFOLK, Va. – Nashville is known for country music, Milwaukee for brewing beer and Pittsburgh prides itself as the Steel City.

Yes, the Hampton Roads area has one of the world’s largest natural ports and from Virginia Beach to Williamsburg, is a center of tourist activity.

But the real engine of our economy is the military. And as we are home to the world’s largest Naval Base, that’s how the word views us.

From the Navy Seals and Oceana in Virginia Beach to Naval Station Norfolk to Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, where the Mercury space program was born, to NATO’s North American headquarters in Norfolk, we are a military town.

There are more than 120,000 active duty and civilians employed here by the military, 125,000 military dependents and 220,000 military veterans in Hampton Roads.

That’s more than a fourth of the 1.7 million people in the region and doesn’t include tens of thousands employed by civilian defense contractors, including our shipyards which build and repair ships.

Economically, the Department of Defense accounts for 45.6 percent of the region’s $116 billion worth of economic activity, according to the Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce.

All of this is a long way of saying that the military is a key demographic for professional and college sports programs seeking to lure fans.

And while Old Dominion has worked diligently to try to lure the military to home sports events, it has been met with limited success.

Monday night, ODU may have taken a giant step toward cracking that nut.

David Jones, who came on as general manager of ODU Sports Properties earlier this year, proposed last summer that we hold the Ricky Rahne Coach’s Show on a Navy ship. It was a brilliant idea.

The Navy cooperated, and Monday evening, the ODU football coach and Ted Alexander, Voice of the Monarchs, set up shop inside a mammoth hangar of an aircraft carrier.

It came during a week in which ODU pays homage to the military. On Thursday, when the ODU football team hosts Georgia Southern at S.B. Ballard Stadium at 7 p.m., it will be our Military Appreciation Game. And the game will be televised nationally on ESPN2.

A contingent of about 40 people from ODU were welcomed aboard the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower by Captain Christopher Hill, who commands the 5,000 sailors, officers and pilots on board.

We all walked into the huge hangar bay, decorated with a sign that said, “Best Damn Ship in the Navy,” where a table was set up with microphones and surrounded by flags, poster boards with photos of the command structure on the Ike. And, of course, there was a bronze bust of the former US President and World War II Army General for whom the ship is named.

About 50 sailors joined the ODU contingent as Rahne, Alexander and Captain Hill spent an hour talking about football, life on board a ship and all the similarities between sports and the military. Ted, as always, kept the conversation going with insightful questions.

Before the show began, I asked Captain Hill, who goes by his Navy pilot call sign of “Chowdah,” if he’d ever attended an ODU game. He had not, he said sheepishly.

“I live five minutes from ODU, but I’ve never been to a game,” he said. 

After the show began, I talked to more than a dozen sailors and officers, all from outside of Virginia. And none had gone to an ODU game, either.

Toward the end of the show, Captain Hill said that he appreciates have “we have a solid college nearby that we can cling to,” and then added, “I hope some of my sailors will attend games.”

He approached me afterwards and said, “I’m coming to a game.”

Mission accomplished.

Men’s Head Basketball Coach Mike Jones was among the ODU contingent and sought out Captain Hill when the broadcast was done. He’s seeking similar ways to engage the military. He huddled several minutes with Captain Hill

Captain Hill is from Quincy, Massachusetts, and, of course, his sports life revolves around the Boston Red Sox. I gather he’s not a big college football fan. Other sailors I talked to mentioned Ohio State, Georgia and Nebraska as their favorite football teams.

And that’s OK, Rahne said.

“I’ve said since the day I got here, that I understand people in this area move around,” he said. “They are going to have loyalties to other teams.

"But if we can be everyone’s second favorite team, we can fill that stadium up.”

If you’re in the military, it is easy to get tickets for ODU football games. We have a program called “Seats for Service” in which ODU fans donate money to provide free tickets for those who are on active duty or vets. The program is sponsored by ADS, the Virginia Beach defense firm led by Luke Hillier, an ODU alumnus

We have more than a thousand left to give away and it’s not too late to get tickets for Thursday night.

CLICK HERE FOR FREE MILITARY TICKETS

On Thursday, ODU will pay homage to the military in a myriad of ways.

At 4:45 p.m., as the Monarch football team walks into S.B. Ballard Stadium, there will be a flyover by F-18 Super Hornets. 

The ODU band will perform military songs.

And at halftime, there will be a drone show that pays homage to all six services of the military. I’ve seen a video of the show and it will be awesome.

ODU has a long had a deep relationship with the military. More than 5,000 ODU students, and that's more than a fifth of our enrollment, have ties to the military. Many are active-duty military, including some on ships to take online classes from ODU Global.

And our ROTC units, which have future Navy, Marine and Army officers, has 213 Cadets.

For goodness sake, ODU even has a cannon that fires twice every football game.

Rahne also has close ties to the military. His father, Ray, fought in Vietnam and he has uncles and two grandfathers who served in the military. One of his uncles was a Navy Admiral whom Captain Hill served with while overseas.

“I have the deepest respect for you and all that you and your men do to protect this country,” Rahne said to Captain Hill.

Well said, especially considering the circumstances.

The Ike just returned from a nine-month deployment to the Red Sea, where pilots flew dozens of sorties every day against the Houthis, an Iran-backed revolutionary movement in Yemen that has attacked more than 70 ships, mostly in the Red Sea.

Earlier this year, the US State Department designated the Houthis a terrorist organization.

The attacks have disrupted international shipping, sunk two ships and killed at least four sailors. The Americans and British have taken the lead in trying to subdue the Houthis.

Although he commands the Ike, Captain Hill flew missions every Friday. It was his way of telling his crew that he’s one of them.

Hero is an overused word these days, but I felt surrounded by heroes Monday night.

Captain Hill is an engaging man with tons of charisma, and he’s even a star on Twitter (@ChowdahHill), where he has more than 91,000 followers. He Tweeted daily during the deployment about the bravery and sacrifices his pilots and sailors made to protect the innocent.

“It was the craziest deployment I’ve ever seen,” he said. “We had a mission. We had a purpose. We were saving civilian lives.

“We don’t know how many. It’s hard to count something bad that doesn’t happen.

“I’m so proud of every single one of the men and women who serve on this ship.”

I’m a Norfolk native and the son of a Navy Chief. And I was reminded Monday night that it’s officers like Captain Hill, and the 5,000 people he commands, that make me so proud of my hometown.

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