While I finish work on a significant update to the AD Big Board that dives deeper into the profile that I think ODU will be looking for in their next hire, I took a detour to objectively assess what this next hire means and what it will take to get it right. I hope you enjoy the detour, and look forward to an updated Big Board on Monday.
Here's a fact that doesn't get talked about enough: Old Dominion has had five athletic directors since 1930.
Five. In nearly a century of athletics.
Bud Metheny held the job for decades before Jim Jarrett took over in 1970. Jarrett stayed for 40 years. Wood Selig arrived in 2010 and is now wrapping up a 16-year run. When you do the math, ODU has basically had two athletic directors for the last 56 years.
That's not a knock on the model itself. In a lot of ways, it speaks to the stability and loyalty that this program values. Jarrett was a genuine visionary — the guy who made ODU the first school in Virginia to offer women's athletic scholarships in 1974, and who built women's basketball into a national powerhouse at a time when most schools weren't even trying. His tenure ended with a program that had real national credibility.
Then came Selig. And this is where honest fans have to have an honest conversation.
The official narrative — $200 million in facility upgrades, 21 conference championships, a football program that went 10-3 last season — sounds great in a press release. And to be fair, the infrastructure improvements are real. Ballard Stadium is legitimately one of the better venues in the Sun Belt. The Ellmer Complex is coming. The Mitchum Center exists. Selig deserves credit for building things.
But facilities are a means to an end. And the end — competitive, relevant, winning programs in the sports that drive the brand — has been harder to find.
Men's basketball hasn't seen the NCAA Tournament since 2019. Women's basketball, once one of the most storied programs in the country with 25 NCAA Tournament appearances, hasn't been back since 2008. Wrestling was eliminated in 2020, a 63-year-old program cut while Selig cited COVID financials. The "21 conference championships" figure leans heavily on tennis and soccer — sports that don't move the needle for the broader fanbase or the program's national profile.
What the true believers in this program will tell you, quietly or loudly depending on how many drinks deep you are at Brock's, is that Selig ran a program that was very good at looking successful. The fundraising numbers are real. The GPA records are real. The ribbon-cuttings were impressive. But somewhere along the way, the culture of winning — the thing Jarrett built this place on — got deprioritized in favor of metrics that look good in donor presentations.
That's the honest assessment. Not a villain story, but not a success story either.
Here's the thing about only having two ADs over half a century: it means ODU has almost no experience running a high-stakes search. And now, at one of the most consequential moments in the history of college athletics, they're about to do it again.
The Moment We're In
Let's be honest about where ODU athletics actually stands right now — not the version in the press release, the real version.
Football is a bright spot. Ricky Rahne had the Monarchs in a great bowl and appears to be building something real. The 10-3 season last year felt like a turning point. Baseball has been respectable under Chris Finwood. Women's tennis keeps winning. Those things are true.
But men's basketball is 8-19 this season and hasn't sniffed the NCAA Tournament since 2019. That counter on this blog isn't a gimmick — it's a reminder that the program's most visible sport has been largely irrelevant for seven years. Women's basketball, which Jarrett built into one of the premier programs in the country, hasn't been to the Tournament since 2008. That's two decades of drift in a program that used to host Final Fours.
The person who presided over most of that drift is the same person whose departure is now triggering this search.
That context matters. Revenue sharing is changing everything about how mid-major programs compete. NIL money is real. The transfer portal means that a passive, relationship-maintenance approach to athletic administration is a recipe for getting lapped. The next AD doesn't just need to be a good administrator — they need to be someone who actually burns to win, who has a real plan to get basketball back in the Tournament, and who has the relationships and competitive edge to make it happen in a market that is used to success, but also has lost interest in ODU Sports.
That's a specific, demanding job description. And ODU absolutely cannot afford to get it wrong.
The Pattern Worth Watching
When Jarrett retired in 2010, ODU hired Selig — a Norfolk native who grew up watching ODU basketball as a kid and had already successfully transitioned Western Kentucky's football program from FCS to FBS. That's a beautiful story, and some may think it worked out. But it also set a template: ODU tends to hire people with personal connections to the institution or the region.
That instinct isn't wrong. Someone who genuinely loves ODU and Hampton Roads is going to show up differently than a mercenary who treats the job as a stepping stone.
But that preference for familiarity can also narrow the candidate pool in ways that aren't always in the program's best interest. If ODU is doing a "national search" but quietly filtering for people who already have ties to Norfolk, they're not really running a national search. They're running a regional search with national branding.
The university has brought in CSA Search & Consulting to run the process. CSA is a legitimate firm that has worked on high-profile searches around the country. That's a good sign. But search firms can only bring you names. The decision ultimately comes down to what President Brian Hemphill and the board actually value — and how willing they are to take a swing on someone who might not have the ODU pedigree but has the vision and relationships to move this program into the next era.
What ODU Actually Needs
This isn't complicated to say, even if it's hard to execute.
ODU needs an AD who has lived in the NIL and portal era as a decision-maker, not just an observer. Someone who has recruited against bigger programs and found creative ways to compete. Someone who has either revived a dormant basketball program or can demonstrate a clear, credible plan to do it here. Someone who understands the Hampton Roads market — not because they grew up here, but because they've done their homework and they're genuinely excited about the opportunity.
The worst outcome isn't a bad hire, exactly. The worst outcome is a safe hire. An internal promotion, a familiar name, someone who checks boxes without raising pulses. ODU has been good at those. The program is arguably too stable in some areas, coasting on infrastructure while the programs that need competitive urgency — basketball, especially — drift further from relevance.
Selig built a lot of things that will outlast him. The foundation is there. What ODU needs now is someone to actually use it.
The Question No One Is Asking
Here's what I'd want to know, and what I suspect we'll never get a straight answer on: Is ODU willing to pay to get the right person?
Mid-major AD salaries vary wildly, and ODU has historically been conservative with athletic department compensation. If the right candidate is currently an associate AD or deputy AD at a Power Four school — someone who has watched how the big boys do it and wants their own program to run — they're going to need a compelling offer. Competitive salary, real NIL resources to deploy, a clear mandate from the president, and genuine autonomy to make decisions.
If ODU is dangling a modest package and asking a top candidate to "believe in the vision," they're going to end up with someone who couldn't get a better offer somewhere else.
The fanbase should be paying attention to what the university is willing to invest in this search, not just who they ultimately hire. That number will tell you more about the administration's actual ambitions than any press release.
Bottom Line
Wood Selig is leaving ODU with nicer buildings and a healthier balance sheet than he found. Those things have value. But if you've been watching this program for the last decade and feel like something important has been slowly slipping away — the edge, the hunger, the sense that winning actually matters around here — you're not imagining it.
The next hire isn't just about replacing an administrator. It's about deciding what this program is actually for. Is it a well-run, financially stable, facilities-rich mid-major that competes comfortably in the middle of the Sun Belt? Or is it a program that remembers what it felt like to host Final Fours and believes it can get back to something like that?
ODU doesn't need to find the next Jim Jarrett. They need to find someone built for 2027 — someone who looks at this market, these facilities, this football momentum, and sees an opportunity worth fighting for rather than a comfortable landing spot.
The question is whether the people making this decision share that ambition. History suggests caution. This moment demands something different.