Minium: ODU Basketball Will Honor Two Distinguished Alums Before Tonight's Opener

By Harry Minium

NORFOLK, Va. – A new era in Old Dominion basketball begins tonight as ODU alumnus Mike Jones coaches his first game when the Monarchs host Buffalo at 7:05 at Chartway Arena.

Jones was a long-time head coach at DeMatha High School in Hyattsville, Maryland before spending two years as an assistant coach at Virginia Tech and year at Maryland. ODU named him as head coach last March. 

A 1995 ODU graduate, he has long said that ODU was his dream job. “Monday will be Christmas Day for me,” he said.

But minutes before the tipoff, Jones has asked that ODU hold a moment of silence to celebrate the achievements and the lives of two very special Monarch alumni who passed away earlier this year.

Mario Mullen, who was Jones’ teammate at ODU, passed away on July 5 at the age of 50. He remained very much a fan favorite in the nearly three decades since he left ODU.

Bob Pritchett, who played when ODU was known as Old Dominion College, was a racial pioneer as he and teammate Buttons Speakes became the first African Americans to play for a predominantly white school in Virginia.

Pritchett passed away on July 20, hours before he was inducted into the Indiana Sports Hall of Fame, at age 77.

Jones never met Pritchett, but said his legacy lives on with every player on the court.

“I can only imagine what their families are going through,” he said. "For their family members to know that we’re acknowledging what they are going through, I think is important for them.

“I think it’s important for us to have some celebration of what they meant to this university and to this basketball program. It’s only right that we do that and do it in a way that is celebratory."

Although separated by decades in age, Mullen and Pritchett had much in common. They both loved their families, were good fathers, popular on campus and dedicated their lives after leaving ODU to help young people.

Mullen is a Virginia Beach native who led Bayside High School to two state basketball championships and was the Virginia High School League Group AAA Player of the Year as a senior.

Mullen then signed at ODU, where he played four seasons and averaged 8.4 points and 4.8 rebounds. His career was marred by a serious car accident that sidelined him for much of a year.

He teamed with Jones, Petey Sessoms, David Harvey and Brion Dunlap, to upset third-seeded Villanova, 89-81, in triple overtime in the 1995 NCAA Basketball Tournament. Mullen had 16 points, 10 rebounds and three steals in 50 minutes of playing time.

After graduation, Mullen taught at Maury, Tallwood and Ocean Lakes high schools, the last three years as the head basketball coach at Ocean Lakes, where he coached his sons – Tyler, who graduated in 2021; and Chase, who graduates this spring.

"The very first person I saw when I walked into the Big Blue Room at my press conference was Mario Mullen," said Jones of the press conference in which he was named ODU’s coach.

"He told me he wasn't going to able to make it because of school. There was no chance he wasn't going to be there, but he wanted it to be a surprise and it was.

“Mario was such a good human being, a really good person. He led a great life. He means so much to me and our basketball program.”

His wife of more than two decades, Angela Mullen, can’t attend tonight’s game because of a previous engagement, but is pleased ODU will honor his legacy.

Two months after Mario died, Angela lost her mother, whom she had been caring for. She has been so busy that she hasn’t head a real chance to grieve.

Mario had high blood pressure and Angela suspects that’s what led to his death. “People should really watch their blood pressure, especially Black men,” she said.

He had an aneurism and a stroke and was paralyzed on his right side a few days before he died.

He had surgery and doctors were preparing him for physical therapy when he passed away at Sentara Virginia Beach General Hospital. Angela was sitting next to him.

“He grabbed my arm,” she said. “I told him, I love you and asked him if he was okay. But he was looking past me.

“Whatever he was seeing was making him smile. I knew at that moment that he was gone.

“I’m glad I was there. I know it was a good passing because he was smiling.”

Nevertheless she said: “I’m never going to be the same without Mario. I miss him so much.

“We met after his playing days were over. But basketball was his life, and he loved it. I supported that life. I heard all of the stories and his teammates were such close friends.”

That includes Odell Hodge, the special assistant to Jones who was injured during the 94-95 season.

“I’m super excited for this year, for Mike and for Odell,” Angela said. “I’ll do anything I can to help ODU basketball.”

Pritchett was the 1965-66 Junior College Player of the Year at Vincennes University, which he helped lead to a national junior college championship.

He should have had dozens of college scholarship offers, but he was an African American at a time when many schools were segregated by race.

But not Old Dominion coach Sonny Allen, who became ODC’s head coach in 1965. He came to Norfolk from Marshall, where as a player he roomed with future NBA great Hal Greer, who was an African American. 

Allen took the ODC job on the condition that he could recruit Black players. His first recruit was Speakes, whom Allen saw play when he was the junior varsity coach at Marshall. Speakes played on the ODU JV team in 1965-66.

Allen worked hard to recruit Pritchett, who roomed with Speakes.

Together, they suffered much discrimination, although rarely as much as at a game at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina in 1966.

Allen didn’t tell Citadel officials that he had two Black players but officials eventually learned the truth and when the Monarchs arrived at their game, there were state troopers surrounding the facility.

The Monarchs won 78-70. “One of my most satisfying wins ever,” said Allen, now deceased, a few years ago.

"The crowd that night, they were pretty hard on us," Pritchett said in a 2019 interview. "But at the end of the game, I believe we had their respect."

Best-selling author Pat Conroy was on that Citadel basketball team and devoted an entire chapter to Pritchett and Speakes in his book, "My Losing Season: A Memoir."

Whenever the team was on the road and stopped to eat, Sonny Allen would ask the restaurant manager if they served African Americans.

“Sonny always said that if we couldn’t go in, nobody would go in,” Pritchett said.

Pritchett had three children and nine granchildren. 

He served in the Navy for four years after leaving ODU during the Vietnam War. He then worked 35 years with the Ohio prison system, where he counseled young men and women to turn their lives around.

Pritchett scored 1,188 career points and his 67 points against Richmond Professional Institute, now known as VCU, set a school record that still stands.

ODU averaged 98.2 points per game in 1966-67, when Pritchett started with Harry Lozon, Dick St. Clair, Ron Drews and Speakes. He averaged 25.4 points as a senior, the second most in ODU history.

Billy Allen was a ballboy for his father, Sonny, when Pritchett played. He was there the night Pritchett scored 67 points in the old Norfolk Arena.

“My father said in later years that Bob Pritchett had an unbelievable knack for scoring,” Allen said. “He made it look easy.

“What I remember about him most was his explosiveness. I never saw anyone who could jump as high as he could standing flat footed. Most people need a running jump to get as high as he did.

“That game against RPI, I remember it but not a lot of details. My dad always said it was unbelievable for him to score 67 points in a 40-minute game with no shot clock and no three-point line.”

Allen got to know Pritchett in later years. “He was just a class person. He was such a good man.”

Julie Trice, Pritchett’s daughter, echoed those comments shortly after her father’s death.

“He was a quality person, a family guy,” she told the Princeton (Indiana) Clarion newspaper. “He was always supportive of his grandkids and was a regular attended at their basketball and volleyball games and tennis matches.”

Tickets remain for tonight’s game.

To purchase tickets, CLICK HERE.

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