NORFOLK, Va. – It was the spring of 1975, and a talented, close-knit group of young men of different races and backgrounds traveled to the nation’s heartland and won the first national championship ever for Old Dominion University.
Most ODU fans are too young to have any recollection of Coach Sonny Allen’s up-tempo Monarchs, who averaged nearly 87 points per game and capped the season with a 76-74 victory over the University of New Orleans in the NCAA Division II national championship basketball game.
For those who didn’t experience that season, it’s difficult to describe just how much that meant to ODU, which was then a very young university whose athletics history at that point had largely been unremarkable.
Nor do many appreciate how much that team contributed to the University’s future basketball success.
Fifty years ago, everyone walked a little taller on campus, students, faculty and staff. National championship shirts could be seen all over Hampton Roads. For weeks after ODU won the national title, there was a party atmosphere along Hampton Boulevard.