Minium: Ricky Rahne Appeals to Monarch Nation to Show Up for ESPN Cameras
ESPN's SportsCenter will be on campus Thursday on Kaufman Mall at 2 p.m. Then, at 7:30, ESPN broadcasts ODU's football game with Troy.
By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – ESPN is clearly the Worldwide Leader in sports, as its motto claims. It reaches nearly 70 million households, or more than 200 million people, and its digital platforms, on YouTube and social media, is seen by 200 million Americans each week.
If you’re a sports fan, you watch ESPN.
So, it is truly a big deal that ESPN will focus its cameras on Old Dominion much of Thursday afternoon and evening.
The network’s daily SportsCenter Campus Tour show will be broadcast from Kaufman Mall Thursday from 2 until 3 p.m., and various segments will be shown live on the network the rest of the afternoon.
Then, at 7:30 p.m., ESPN cameras will be trained on S.B. Ballard Stadium as the Monarchs host Troy in a game with Sun Belt Conference championship implications.
Truth is, it’s vitally important for the future of ODU athletics that Monarch fans show up, make a ton of noise and show the sports world that fans here care about their football team and their university.
ODU Football Head Coach Ricky Rahne made an emotional plea – and this from a guy who doesn’t often show a lot of emotion – for Monarch fans to turn out Monday.
“If you care about Old Dominion, and you care about your university, this is the opportunity to make an impact by showing up, screaming out loud and showing the country the type of support, the type of fans, we have in Hampton Roads,” he said on his weekly radio show at Grain restaurant in the Hilton Hotel in downtown Norfolk.
"I don't know how much it would cost to purchase this much exposure but I'm sure it would be a lot. It would mean a lot to all of us with ODU football, especially our players, if the stadium was full Thursday night."
ODU is 6-3 overall, 3-2 in the Sun Belt Conference, and is already bowl eligible.
ODU is pulling out all the stops to try to attract fans on campus. Giveaways, a halftime drone show, a tailgating experience after dark and a ton of entertainment are all part of the package.
The Chartway Arena parking lots open at 1 p.m. for fans to take part in the SportsCenter broadcast. The Bluestone Garage at 43rd Street and Bluestone Avenue will also open.
Classes end at 12:30 and ODU’s Student Enrollment, Engagement & Services is throwing a party for students at the Webb Center from 12:30 until 2 that includes – drum roll please – free food!
ODU athletics is providing students with food from Mission Barbecue. Is there anything students love more than free food?
A sign-making crew will be there to help you make signs to hold up for hundreds of thousands of viewers to see. Want to say hello to Aunt Martha in Iowa? We’ll make that sign for you.
SportsCenter will be hosted by veteran sportscaster Matt Barrie and in addition to reporting news from around the world, will also do segments on ODU, from a tour of the tailgating area on Kaufman Mall to shots from all around campus.
The crew will also learn about ODU traditions. One of the most unique is Ice Cream and Cake, the quirky song which Monarch students stand and dance to at every home football and basketball game, a tradition that leaves visiting fans scratching their heads.
Matt and broadcast partners Tom Luginbill and Harry Lyles will be schooled on how to dance to Ice Cream and Cake by ODU cheerleaders live on ESPN.
CLICK HERE for an explantion of how Ice Cream and Cake became a thing.
It is Military Appreciation Week and ODU will pay homage to the military, with which the university retains close ties.
Rahne flew in a Super Hornet Navy Jet at Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, and the video of his ascent to 40,000 feet has drawn tens of thousands of viewers. He will be interviewed in the early portion of SportsCenter.
CLICK HERE for story on Ricky Rahne’s flight on a Navy jet.
There will be 960 American flags on a hill on the east end of Kaufman Mall near Hampton Boulevard to pay tribute to all of the vets who working or attending ODU and all of the ROTC students currently planning to serve in the military.
More than ¼ of ODU students have some kind of connection to the military. And why wouldn't they? Naval Base Norfolk, the world's largest Navy base, is just a few miles up Hampton Boulevard.
There are additional Navy, Air Force, Marine and Army bases around the region, and the defense industry, from shipyards to military equipment manufacturers, are also all around the region. They employ thousands of ODU graduates.
ODU works closely with the defense and maritime industries.
Toys for Tots, the U.S. Marines' charity that collects toys for needy kids at Christmas, will be on campus with collection points in amphibious assault vehicles.
If you're on active duty in the military, we have free tickets for you under our Seats for Service Members, in which our fans donate money so that military personnel can attend ODU events for free.
CLICK HERE for acitve duty military to claim free tickets
Tailgating begins on Kaufman Mall at 3 p.m., and as much of the tailgating will occur after dark, the mall area will be bathed in red, white and blue lights.
ODU Global began 40 years ago as a way to provide long-distance classes to the military while serving on ships and overseas, first by TV and later online. It continues to enroll thousands of active-duty personnel from Germany to Japan and will have a booth on Kaufman Mall.
There will be live entertainment from the band, Buck Shot. Food trucks will be open from 2 p.m. on, and that includes Ghost Kitchen, which features the "ODU Burger."
As usual, Kaufman Malll will also offer a beer garden and games for children and adults, from corn hole to bounce boxes.
There will be a parachute jump at 7:15 – and seeing parachutists appear in the lights and land in a stadium is an ethereal experience. One of the parachutists will be landing with a dog cradled in his arms from Mutts with a Mission, the group that trains dogs to work with disabled vets.
At halftime, there will be another drone show, and the show last season, when the Monarchs hosted a Thursday night game against Georgia Southern, was an event not to be missed.
This year's drone show will have a different theme, but If you missed it last year, here's a video to whet your appetite for Thursday.
ODU hopes at some point to host a GameDay broadcast, which unlike SportsCenter, brings ESPN’s most famous talking heads to your campus for a day-long broadcast on a football Saturday.
And how Monarch Nation turns out Thursday could impact our effort to bring GameDay to ODU.
“If we’re ever a candidate for a GameDay broadcast, they’re going to come back and look at the video of what happened on campus on Thursday night,” said Joe Rafanelli, ODU’s senior associate athletics director for revenue generation and external operations.
“We need our fans to show up and be loud.”
Minium is ODU's Senior Executive Writer for Athletics. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
To see past stories from Minium, CLICK HERE