Minium: ODU Women's Basketball team Has Dealt Bravely With Tragedy and Grief

By Harry Minium

NORFOLK, Va. – DeLisha Milton-Jones had just finished her final radio show for the 2024-25 season and was relaxing with some fans at the Waters Edge Winery and Bistro when the tears began to flow.

The Old Dominion women’s basketball coach had been asked about the personal tragedies her players had to overcome this season, and as she began to repeat their losses, she momentarily lost control.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “I don’t like to cry.

“But sometimes, I just can’t believe what these young women have had to bear. Sometimes, it’s just too much for me.”

Death is a part of life, but it’s not supposed to hit you when you’re in your late teens or early 20s. Yet eight of her 14 players have been touched by death in the last year or two, as has Director of Basketball Operations Corey Green and Assistant Coach Roland Jones Jr., who is DeLisha's husband.

Milton-Jones said that her team’s collective grief had a lot to do with the six-game losing streak in January and February that threatened to crush what had looked like a promising season for the Monarchs.

“We just did not focus during that stretch,” she said. “There was too much grieving.”

But she said the closeness and camaraderie the team built while collectively caring for each other also had everything to do with a three-game winning streak that followed and allowed the Monarchs to claim the No. 5 seed in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament.

ODU (17-14) takes on No. 8 seed Georgia State (16-15) Friday at 12:30 p.m. in the fourth round of the seven-round tournament.

A victory would send the Monarchs into Saturday’s quarterfinals against Coastal Carolina at 1 p.m. 

Milton-Jones said the emotional bonds that developed because of the shared grief between players will help the Monarchs in the postseason.

“This team is close, they’re so close,” she said. “We cared for each other. We lifted each other up.

“They’re a good group of kids and they’re all fighting together in the best way that they can.

"Seventeen wins is not too shabby considering everything that we’ve been through. What we’ve been through might have torn down any other program.”

On occasion, the grief has boiled to the surface, as it did on Nov. 26 after ODU defeated William & Mary at Chartway Arena.

When asked a question during the post-game press conference, junior guard Kelsey Thompson broke down into tears. The game was played on the one-year anniversary of the last time she spoke to her mother and thinking about her Mom was too much for her.

Thompson, a transfer from South Alabama, lost her mother, Nicole Redd, to breast cancer. Redd was diagnosed with cancer when her daughter was a freshman.

“She was able to beat cancer,” Thompson said of her freshman season. But then a year ago, the cancer returned, and quickly took her mother’s life.

Thompson’s mother lived just a few miles from the South Alabama campus, and Thompson was able to go see her every day.

“I was blessed to be close to her and see a woman who woke up every day and kept fighting and fighting,” Thompson said. “She came to the games that she could come to, until God called her home.

“She was always happy. She just focused on me and my brother and my niece. She was so brave.”

Camryn Hill, a transfer from Hampton, lost her father just before she graduated last May. Jadyn Atchison, a transfer from Colorado, also lost her father.

Simone Cunningham, the ODU senior who has been open about her battles with mental health, lost her significant other to suicide last year.

Simone Cunningham’s mental health battles

Guard Hama’ya Fielder lost her brother to a car accident last summer and junior center Mikayla Brown lost three relatives – a brother, uncle and first cousin.

Simaru Fields, the guard whose stellar play helped ODU finish the regular season on a run, also lost a cousin.

En'Dya Buford, ODU's best player, lost an aunt and a cousin. 

“Hama’ya Fielder also lost a younger cousin to a drive-by shooting,” Milton-Jones said. “That’s such a senseless way to die.

“It’s just been non-stop.

“I’ve asked my staff a few times, ‘Is this really happening?’ Is it really possible for this much grief to be happening at such a high rate?’

“We’re talking about young people here.”

Including Green, who is 32, and nearly lost his wife, Sheila Green, after the couple lost a stillborn baby. Sheila nearly died from severe blood loss.

"It was a very difficult experience," Green said. "But we've recovered and have come out stronger together."

Roland Jones Jr. lost a high school classmate and an uncle. 

Milton-Jones and her staff have relied heavily on the counseling provided for players by ODU's Student-Athlete Mental Health and Well-Being Center. The center was established more than two years ago at the behest of Dr. Wood Selig, ODU’s director of athletics, in an effort to improve the mental health of Monarch athletes.

Student athletes receive free and confidential counseling at the center.

“I'm not licensed to counsel," Milton-Jones said. "The only thing I can give them is unconditional love.

"Sonja Lund and her staff have been so good to our players. They’ve taken on a lot.

"It speaks so well of ODU and of Dr. Selig that we provide counseling to our student athletes."

Milton-Jones has also had a ton of group conversations with her team about their collective tragedies.

“We face everything, even the tough conversations,” she said. “We pray for one another. We comfort one another. But we also put the conversation out there that we’re here if you need us but we also don’t want to be overbearing in our care and love for you.

“We want to give you the space you need if you need it. But we also want to help you if you need it.

"At times, some of our young ladies have asked for space and then come back and asked for help.”

Although Milton-Jones doesn’t wear her Christian faith on her sleeves, she said she’s had many long conversations with players about why bad things sometimes happen to good people.

“We had five players this year, all of them were going to church together, and all five rededicated their lives to Christ,” she said.  “We had two get baptized last year.

“Grief is an individual thing. You may be fine today but then we both may have our bad moments tomorrow. And as a coach, it’s difficult to watch your players get physically ill when they don’t understand why.

“Often they don’t understand why they are feeling the way they are and why such bad things happened to them. Sometimes, I feel guilty when I have to tell them to jump higher and run harder.

"But that's my job and as college basketball players, it's their job to perform. And they've all worked so hard.

“So often, when I think about all they've been through, I wish I could give them the life that I had when I was growing up, the love and care that I received from my mother and my family."

Thanks to Milton-Jones and her staff, they're getting it now. 

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