Minium: ODU Will Honor One of its Legendary Basketball Players, Ronnie Valentine, on Saturday

By Harry Minium                                                        

NORFOLK, Va. – Ronnie Valentine crammed a lifetime of accomplishments into his four-year basketball career at Old Dominion.

As a freshman in 1976-77, he helped lead ODU to one of the most successful debuts ever by a school moving up to Division I. The Monarchs won 22 games in a row at one point, upset Virginia and Georgetown on the road and went to the NIT at a time when the NCAA Tournament invited just 32 teams.

Only a three-point loss to No. 10 Syracuse in the ECAC championship game, before a raucous, sellout crowd at Scope, kept ODU out of the big dance.

He would score 2,204 points in his four years, still an ODU record 46 years after his career ended, pull down 994 rebounds, eighth among the University’s all-time leaders, and become the first Division I player to score in double figures in every game he played.

Twice named an All-American, ODU was 84-31 in his four seasons, went to its first NCAA Division I Tournament, won twice at U.Va., upset Clemson, Mississippi State and Florida State and stunned No. 3 Syracuse at Scope.

“By any standard, he had a remarkable career at a crucial time for ODU,” said Eddie Webb, who was an assistant when Valentine played for his father, the late Paul Webb.

“When you look at the numbers he put up, and what he and ODU did at the time, it was incredible.”

Mike Pollio, who was also an assistant coach at ODU, visited Valentine recently in Miami.

“He and the other guys on those early Division I teams, Wilson Washington, Ronnie McAdoo, Joey Caruthers, Jeff Fuhrmann, Mark West, Kenny Gattison and so many others, they helped give Old Dominion a national name,” Pollio said.

Washington, West and Gattison all had their jerseys retired many years ago.

More than four decades since Valentine donned an ODU jersey, Valentine’s jersey number 42 will finally be retired Saturday night when the Monarchs host Louisiana. 

The ceremony will take place at halftime of a game also billed as alumni night. More than 50 former players, coaches and managers will be announced at halftime and will be on the court when Valentine’s number is retired.

So many of his former teammates, including Ricky Adams, Ricky Kresinske and Tony Ellis, will attend.

“It will be so good to see Ronnie again at ODU,” said former teammate Tommy Conrad.

“I’m so glad his jersey is being retired. It’s been a long time coming. It's overdue.”

While what Valentine did on the basketball court deserves praise, the most remarkable accomplishment of his life was his recovery from circumstances that many don’t survive.

He was homeless on the streets of Miami, Florida, for nearly three decades. 

Thanks to a Catholic charity that focuses on getting the homeless off the streets, and a little help from his ODU friends in South Florida, Valentine now has a normal life.

He’s living in an apartment near downtown Miami. His apartment is small but immaculate, with trophies from his days at Norfolk Catholic High and ODU on his walls.

“Life is pretty good now,” he said. “It’s so much better than it used to be. Man, I had some hard times when I was living on the streets.”

His life indeed has been filled with ups and downs.

After leaving ODU in 1981, Valentine had a nine-year career pro career that began with a season with the NBA’s Denver Nuggets. He then went to Europe, Turkey, South America and the Continental Basketball Association – he was named the league CBA’s MVP in 1982 when he averaged 32 points per game.

But then, in 1990, friends lost contact with him. Only many years later did we learn that he was broke, dealing with substance abuse issues, and began living on the mean streets of Miami. He was too proud and too embarrassed to ask for help.

He panhandled for a while, sleeping in shelters, before finally becoming homeless.

He was homeless for nearly 28 years, and life for the homeless is hard, even under the best of circumstances. His healthcare was limited, he often went hungry and slept under interstate highways in the blistering Miami heat. Homeless men and women are subject to violent attacks, loneliness and so much stress.

It often leads to an early death.

He was finally rescued off the streets by a Catholic organization that put him in supportive housing. He’s made a remarkable recovery since.

Pollio went to visit him last week in Miami.

“I was really surprised at how good he looked, how sharp his mind is,” Pollio said. “His memory is good. He remembers almost every game he played in.

"He's a lot thinner than he was as a player but he's reasonably healthy. 

“We talked about so many games, so many good memories. He seems happy. His apartment is small but it was spotless. It’s cleaner than my house. He has trophies on up his wall.

“Given where he was a few years ago, he’s made such a great recovery. You have to admire him for what he went through.”

There are so many people to thank for Valentine’s recovery, beginnign with the Catholic counselor, Rose Anderson, who talked him into moving into supportive housing.

Former ODU All-American Nancy Lieberman, former ODU cheerleader Stephanie Carr Field, former ODU basketball player Reese Neyland, and Karlton Hilton, the former Maury High and South Carolina basketball player, are among those who stepped up to care for Valentine.

But none has done more than Wes Lockard, who was Big Blue, the ODU mascot, when both Valentine and Lieberman starred for the Monarchs.

“Wes,” said Stephanie Carr Field, “is an absolute saint. I don’t know where Ronnie would be without him.”

I was a reporter at The Virginian-Pilot in early 2018 when I learned that Valentine was homeless. I was doing an interview with Paul Webb when I asked him about Valentine. He got a pained expression on his face and said Ronnie had been homeless since 1990 and that nobody had seen him in nearly 20 years.

I talked my sports editor, Tom White, into flying me to Miami to find Valentine. At the time, the Miami area had seven million people. The odds of him being in the same neighborhood, or even the same city, where he was last seen were long, to put it mildly.

Wes took three days off from his job with the city of Plantation recreation department to help me search. He was the last person that we knew had seen Valentine in 2000, but had no idea where he was 18 years later.

I had heard, from his friends, that Wes was eccentric, but I had no idea how much.

When we met in downtown Miami, his teeth were brown and diseased and it wasn’t until later that I learned they were fake teeth. He wore a St. Louis Cardinals hat topped with red fake hair. His car had a fake leg hanging out the rear door and a baby doll, with a look of pain on her face, who was dangling from a back window, her fingers tightly shut in the window.

It was in Wes’s car that we began our search. Embarrassing? Oh, yeah.

I would later learn that as Big Blue, the WTAR-radio Seagull and the New Jersey Nets and Miami Heat mascot, that he had an outrageous sense of humor.

When he plied the field at Norfolk Tides games as the Seagull, he would stash a jock strap in his pocket and when he stopped to tap an umpire on the rear end with a broom, he would appear to pull the jock strap out of the umpire’s pants.

Pollio recalls during an exhibition against the Russian national team at Scope that Wes was behind the Russian bench, dressed as a spy. KGB or CIA? That was left to the imagination. All that mattered is that the Russians looked nervously over their shoulders as players were being announced.

What’s not left to the imagination is Wes’s big heart, something that was apparent to me in our first week together.

As we went from homeless shelter to homeless shelter, we heard stories of how awful life is on the streets. It was June and the heat was stifling, and I wondered how you can survive July and August sleeping on a sidewalk in a tropical climate.

As I watched people in abject misery, I wondered if Valentine was no longer among the living.

Wes has contacts everywhere in Miami and we worked them extensively that day. Wes had helped Valentine during his first 10 years or so of being homeless, when they would meet outside of the Miami Heat arena following NBA games.

He would give Valentine food, drink, clothes and cash and they would talk about the old days. “Ronnie talked about his times at ODU as if it were yesterday,” Wes said.

But when the Heat moved to another arena, they lost touch.

Late in our first day there we got a lucky break. A former Miami police officer told Wes that he’d heard a former basketball player named Ronnie was now off the streets and in supportive housing.

I reached out to Sam Gil from the Camillus House, a Catholic charity that is the largest in Miami aiding the homeless. If Ronnie Valentine is in your supportive housing and is willing to talk to us, please let us know, I asked him.

There are dozens of supportive housing units in Miami, but Camillus is the biggest so we started there. It was a shot in the dark.

At 7:30 the next morning, Gil called. Yes, Ronnie Valentine was in supportive housing and wanted to meet with us.

We met with Valentine the next day, and it was a joyous reunion for Wes and Ronnie.

Ronnie spoke with Lieberman and Paul Webb and others by telephone that day and he cried during some of the conversations. He seemed shocked to know people at ODU remembered him.

He was doing relatively well, but had been in an apartment only a few months and while he was so happy to be off the streets, he was clearly struggling.

When we left his apartment, I didn’t say anything to Wes, but realized, he needed a caretaker, someone to watch over him. And little did I know that Wes had already signed up for the job.

Wes dove into helping Valentine almost immediately upon my departure. He and others, mostly ODU alumni, all worked together to help Valentine adjust to life off the streets.

They helped him get a government ID, file for Social Security benefits and start getting the medical care that he had missed for decades. Valentine suffers from various ailments, and acknowledges: “I don’t know where I’d be without Wes.”

Wes helped him find a new apartment closer to downtown Miami and rented a U-Haul and helped move him in.

Wes lives two counties north of Miami but is at Valentine’s house twice a month at least. Valentine spends every Thanksgiving and Christmas with Wes and his wife, Wendy.

Wes delivers Christmas and birthday presents and has taken him to numerous games, from the Marlins to the Heat to the Florida Panthers.

When ODU was still in Conference USA, Wes often took him to see the Monarchs play at Florida International or Florida Atlantic, in both football and basketball.

“Wes is just that guy who cares more about other people than himself,” Conrad said. “He thrives on taking care of other people. Wes is like Ronnie’s surrogate brother, almost like his step father.”

“Wes worries about everything with Ronnie,” Carr Field added. “He’s really a solid, faithful friend, just a great human being.

“A lot of people have jumped in to help with Ronnie and then gotten tired and jumped out. Not Wes. He takes him to the doctor. He takes him to get a haircut or to do his banking. And he gives Ronnie the most important thing you can give to people in life and that is his time. He just spends a lot of time with Ronnie.

"It's been nearly five decades since we all met at ODU and after all of this time, we all still really care about each other."

“Wes has the hugest heart,” Lieberman added. “He’s a mess, we all know that, with his antics and his jokes. But he’s such a good man. He loves Ronnie Valentine and has taken such good care of him.”

Wes hooked Valentine up with Alonzo Mourning, the Norfolk native and former Indian River High, Georgetown and Miami Heat great, who visits Valentine from time to time.

Mourning sent a video clip that will be played at halftime on Saturday.

“Ronnie, you’re a legend, a true legend in the Tidewater area, an ODU great, one of the best to ever do it, brother, and I’m so excited and happy that they are retiring your jersey. I celebrate you today. God bless you, man. Enjoy it.”

Wes and Carr Field will fly with Valentine to Norfolk Friday night. It will be his first time back in Norfolk since the 1980s.

On Saturday he will have lunch with family members, and on Saturday, comes the very much overdue retirement of his jersey.

He said the call he received from Dr. Wood Selig, ODU’s director of athletics, in December, telling him that his jersey would be retired still hasn’t completely sunk in.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said. “But at first, it was hard to digest. It's been so long."

Coming home after so many decades away “is a little stressful” when he thinks about it, Valentine said.

“But I will be there. I’m really looking forward to coming home.”

ODU and Hampton Roads were far different places than when he left. Chartway Arena didn’t open until 2002 and the campus is probably triple the size it was when he attended school.

I asked Ronnie about his favorite memories and he mentioned games at Georgetown and at Scope against Syracuse.

He scored 36 points as a freshman against Georgetown in the ECAC South championship game, won by ODU, 80-58.

John Thompson, the legendary Georgetown coach, passed away a few years ago.

“Every time I ran into John before he died,” Pollio said, “He would say, ‘That damn Ronnie Valentine.’”

ODU stunned No. 3 Syracuse, 68-67, on a last-second tip-in by Bobby Vaughan, who is among those who will attend the jersey retirement.

“Coach Pollio and I talked about those games,” Valentine said. “Those are really great memories, great memories.”

Saturday night will be another great memory, said Dr. Selig.

“The fans here will embrace Ronnie Valentine as a hero,” Dr. Selig said. “The fans who remember Ronnie, they love him and what he did for the program. Even the fans who didn’t see him play, I think they will greet Ronnie with a thunderous, standing ovation.

“Our fans are appreciative of all that he did for ODU and admire that he’s made such a tremendous comeback in life.

“We can’t wait for Ronnie to come home.”

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