By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – The Norfolk Sports Club has found a home at Old Dominion University, and the club’s 79th annual Jamboree later on this month will have a distinctive Monarch flavor.
Dr. Wood Selig, ODU’s long-time director of athletics, Head Football Coach Ricky Rahne and Ray Wittersheim, a long-time Monarch fan and booster, will all be honored at the Jamboree, to be held Thursday, June 18, at 6:30 p.m. in the Big Blue Room of Chartway Arena.
Jack Ankerson, who heads the sports club, said the sports club and the Hampton Roads Sports Hall of Fame, which he also heads, now hold both of their annual awards ceremonies in the Big Blue Room.
It is the third year at ODU for the Jamboree.
Ankerson said the move to ODU from venues in downtown Norfolk began when John Rhamstein, the long-time director of cultural facilities, arts and entertainment retired three years ago.
“We had been at Scope a long time, but when John left, we were priced out of the building,” Ankerson said.
So, he called Mike Fryling, district general manager at Chartway Arena for the Oak View Group, who quickly agreed to host the hall of fame and sports club jamboree at a reasonable rate.
“Mike’s response when I called him was, ‘What took you so long?”’ Ankerson said. “Everything just worked out. We couldn’t be happier. The Big Blue room is the perfect size for us. There is parking just across the street and it’s free. It’s just a great location for us.”
ODU’s director of athletics for 16 years, Dr. Selig recently announced that he will retire at the end of 2026. He will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award, something the sports club doesn’t always award.
Selig was the architect of ODU’s decision to move up to FBS and join Conference USA, and later on, he and President Brian O. Hemphill, PhD., worked together to get ODU into the Sun Belt Conference.
Since Dr. Selig took control of ODU athletics, athletics facilities have undergone a $200 million upgrade, including a new S.B. Ballard football stadium, the Mitchum Basketball Performance Center training and practice facility for basketball, the ODU Volleyball Center and the Ellmer Family Baseball Complex, a $24 million facility in the final stages of completion.
Dr. Selig has also been a prolific fundraiser. Working with the Old Dominion Athletic Foundation, ODU has raised more than $160 million during his 16 years.
Moreover, he has improved the quality of life student-athletes. At his direction, ODU began a mental health counseling center, greatly expanded the academic advising staff that works directly with student-athletes on their academic performance and earlier this year, the University opened the ODU Student-Athlete Nutrition Center, where athletes are fed six days a week.
“Wood clearly deserves this recognition,” Ankerson said. “He deserves it just for what he’s done for the student athletes alone. It’s the right thing to do to recognize Wood as he prepares to retire.”
Dr. Selig said that when he got the call from Ankerson, “I’m thinking, well, a Lifetime Achievement Award? That means I’m getting hold,” he said. “But when I looked at the list of past honorees, it’s a substantial and significant list. I feel honored to be on that list.”
Former ODU, American University and Virginia basketball coach Jeff Jones, former Norfolk State athletic director Marty Miller, former NSU football coach and athletic director Dick Price, former Major League Baseball standouts David Wright and Michael Cuddyer and Jimmye Laycock, the former long-time William and Mary head football coach, were previous winners.
Dr. Selig will be introduced by his son, Lex Selig, who works for a marketing firm in Minneapolis.
“I thought of our donors, administrators, friends and sponsors, but I thought, no one would mean to me more personally to introduce me than my oldest son,” he said.
Rahne will receive the J. Roy Rodman Memorial Award as Virginia’s Outstanding Collegiate Coach.
And while Dr. Selig said that Virginia and James Madison perhaps had better years than ODU, neither coaching staff faced the obstacles that Rahne faced.
Rahne took over a program in 2019 that had finished 1-11. And then, in 2020, ODU shut down its football program because of the pandemic. The vast majority of FBS schools played a truncated schedule.
Because of the shutdown, ODU lost a ton of players, including some of its most talented defensive players.
Rahne has since taken ODU to three bowl games and this past season, the Monarchs finished 10-3, beat Virginia Tech in Blacksburg and defeated South Florida in the Cure Bowl in Orlando, Florida.
“When Ricky got here, he took over a program that was 1-11 and then we went dark for a year,” Dr. Selig said. “He lost so many players in 2020. What he did was similar to what Bobby Wilder did when he began ODU football. Now, it wasn’t a total startup, and we did have a brand-new stadium and a brief history of great success. But he essentially had to start over. Ricky led ODU to something this past season that we’ve never experienced before.”
Wittersheim was in the shipbuilding business for 49 years, the last 32 as President and CEO of Tecnico Corporation, before he retired in 2024.
Dr. Selig describes him as “one of our most generous donors,” but it is what Wittersheim does for student-athletes, and not the money he gives, that earned him this award.
Before every ODU home football game, he greets every player personally as they walk into the stadium. When the Monarchs went to their first bowl game in 2016, he bought the players 200 ceremonial footballs.
He loves ODU football, and is especially close to the Monarch offensive line, but he’s a faithful spectator at Monarch men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball, baseball and other sports events.
He’s known as the “Juice Man,” a nickname he picked up after hearing Wilder say “I always bring the juice” at a Norfolk Sports Club meeting. For ODU’s first home game against Chowan in 2009, he held up a juice container as the players walked into the stadium.
“There’s not a more genuine and loyal ODU follower than the Juice Man,” Dr. Selig said. “It’s not like he picks one or two sports. You see him everywhere. He’s not a front runner. He’s there in good times and bad.”
Jena Virga, who heads ODAF, will introduce Wittersheim and Dr. Selig will introduce Rahne.
UVA Football Coach Tony Elliott is the featured speaker. He was named ACC Coach of the Year after leading the Cavaliers to their first 11-win season and a Gator Bowl victory over Missouri.
Elliott will also be presented the Norfolk Sports Club’s President’s Award, which Ankerson said is one if the club’s most prestigious honors.
WAVY-TV sportscaster Craig Loper will receive the Abe Goldblatt Memorial Award for outstanding coverage of area sports. Goldblatt was a long-time Virginia-Pilot sports writer.
Virginia Wesleyan softball standout Morgan Tucker will be presented the General Douglas MacArthur Memorial Award as the most outstanding collegiate athlete from a Virginia high school. She led Wesleyan to a 50-win season and an appearance in the NCAA Division III World Series.
She is from Dinwiddie County just outside of Petersburg.
The Leigh Williams Memorial Award for Virginia’s outstanding collegiate athlete will go to Norfolk State’s Kendrick Winfield, who was an All-American in the 200 meters at the NCAA Division I indoor championships. He won MEAC indoor titles in the 200 meters and 400 meters and helped Norfolk State capture the 4x400-meter relay title.
Tickets for the Jamboree are on sale, priced at $85 per person or $650 for a table of eight. For ticket information, call 757-683-4444. Dinner is included.
Dr. Selig said having both the sports club and local sports hall of fame events on campus is a plus for ODU.
“I’m grateful they’ve chosen to come to ODU because they do such meaningful work for the sports community,” he said. “It’s nice to have Chartway Arena associated with these two organizations that have such a rich history and devoted following.”
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