Broderick embraced athletics’ role
Retiring ODU president praised by Monarchs for commitment to sports
NORFOLK — Old Dominion president John Broderick likes to tell the school’s baseball players that he used the game to pay his way through college, which is usually met with the same dubious reaction.
“They kind of look at me wondering what the punchline is going to be,” Broderick said.
When a man who was 5-foot-9 and 165 pounds while attending Northeastern explains it to the players, it makes sense. So, then, does Broderick’s longtime commitment to and support of the Monarchs’ athletic program.
Broderick, ODU’s leader since 2008, announced this week his plans to retire in 2021. Those who work for him in the athletic department hope his departure won’t leave a void at the top, which has been occupied by an ally.
“I think he’s been a real leader and a visionary,” said athletic director Wood Selig, who was hired by Broderick in 2010.
“I’ve never felt that it’s a traditional boss-employee relationship. It’s been more of a partnership and more of a team concept, a team approach, and not just with me, but with all the administrative members and coaching members of athletics. I don’t think any of us feel like we work for him. We work with him.”
In 2009 under Broderick’s leadership, ODU successfully resurrected a football program that had been dormant since 1941. The Monarchs have since moved from the FCS level to FBS and joined Conference USA as well as opened the $67.5 million S.B. Ballard Stadium last year.
In addition to other construction on campus, Broderick has overseen the establishment of the L.R. Hill Sports Complex, a basketball practice facility and the football stadium’s Priority Club.
Broderick and his wife, Kate, attend about 75 athletic events at the school each year as well as countless other university events ranging from theater to musical performances.
Broderick, a 64-year-old father of three and grandfather of six, said his decision to retire was the result of simply wanting to do other things.
“This is the kind of job if you’re going to do it and you’re going to do it right, you want to go to those things,” he said. “That’s what you’re here for. When you start
thinking about, ‘Gee, I’d maybe like to celebrate my wife’s birthday not at a women’s basketball game or our anniversary at a football game’ — at some point, you need to recognize we all only have so much time on earth, and I want a chance to do some things for myself and with my wife, and obviously with my family and grandchildren, like everybody always says when they retire. But I mean that, too.”
Still, he’ll be missed at stadiums and arenas, not to mention budget meetings. Jeff Jones, ODU’s basketball coach since 2013, said he has admired Broderick’s commitment to sports.
“He knows basketball and is a fan of the game,” Jones said. “But I think the bigger picture is he understands and recognizes the role that athletics can play in a university community, and he’s adamant about the athletic department, engaging with the student body and with the overall university community.”
Broderick’s love for athletics began when he was a boy growing up in central Connecticut. Neither of his parents attended college, but Broderick’s father would take him and his brother to football games at the University of Connecticut and Yale as well as basketball games at UConn and Central Connecticut.
And that claim he makes to baseball players about his college days? Broderick spent his summers covering Double-A games for local papers and the Associated Press, even earning the occasional byline on a feature in The Sporting News.
Game stories about six nights a week, combined with money he’d earn as the evening’s official scorer, helped fund his education.
“Back then, that was enough to pay a portion of my tuition,” Broderick said. “So a lot of the fact that I got out of college primarily debt-free was because of minor league baseball.”
Broderick said he doesn’t have a favorite sport. He enjoys them all, and he feels fortunate that his wife does, too.
Because the Brodericks live on campus and because it’s important to them, they’ve gotten to know many of ODU’s athletes personally over the years.
Meanwhile, Broderick has served as president of Conference USA’s Council of Presidents and has been on a number of
NCAA committees.
“So he understands intercollegiate athletics, the inner workings, the value that a successful intercollegiate program brings, not just to a university, but to an overall community,” Selig said, adding that Broderick drove the school’s decision to join the FBS.
“In the state of Virginia, athletically, we’re keeping company with U.Va. and Virginia Tech. So he has always had high aspirations and expectations for our athletic department — first and foremost academically, then athletically and, most importantly, professionally: how we conduct ourselves.”
Jones said he’s been struck by Broderick’s interactions with ODU’s student body, and not just those who play a sport.
The school’s overall graduation rate reached an all-time high in 2017 on Broderick’s watch, and 62 percent of ODU’s athletes achieved at least a 3.0 GPA in the 2019 fall semester, even as they learned remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“I know he’s extremely proud of the graduation rates of the student-athletes,” Jones said. “It’s not just show; he is very genuine in wanting to develop relationships with student-athletes and be a sort of mentor, which is, I would say, probably rare among college presidents — being willing to spend the time with the young men and women in that way. But I think he does that for the normal student, the non-athlete as well.”
Asked which athletic milestone he’s proudest of, Broderick didn’t mention the reestablishment of the football program without being prompted.
Football, he said, gave birth to a marching band that draws 150-200 students who might have gone to school elsewhere. It also facilitates outreach to alumni and community leaders, who see the on-campus improvements when they come to games.
“I don’t want to avoid the football piece,” said Broderick, who first came to ODU in 1993 as director of public information. “I know people love me to say that’s the answer, but it’s really a little broader than that.
“I think what I feel connected to most is the emphasis that we have placed on the student-athlete experience. And I think over the years, we have made necessary investments in every aspect of that student-athlete life off the field in terms of academic advising, in terms of career counseling, enhancing our medical and training facilities. And I think that has allowed all of our programs to grow and blossom.”