Center to those who lob enough dough at ODU to watch from inside that box.
The day after he arrived on campus from the University of Maine, he carried a football into the cafeteria and began playing catch with students, joking that he was looking for a quarterback. The first time he walked onto the court of the Constant Center, 7,000 people accorded him a standing ovation and one supporter presented him with a half- million dollars for his program.
At 42, he is young, but experienced; sincere, energetic and gregarious, seemingly the ideal makeup for someone heading a program literally being built brick by brick. ODU has started many programs in athletic director Jim Jarrett's 35-year career, none of whose coaches were greeted with standing ovations and six-figure checks.
The answer is there at the Harbor Club, 21 floors up, where some of the university's most ardent supporters are enjoying mini-crab cakes and flaky ham biscuits.
It's in their sadly told stories of alumni and friends who've vowed never to return to campus until there's a football team. It's in their spoken dreams, lightly basted, perhaps, in whimsy:
Of 20,000 fans lured by Wilder to a resplendent Foreman Field, of shuttles ferrying busloads of gleeful tailgaters from satellite lots to 49th Street, students barging out of dorms and charging to their seats. Of an ever-increasing enrollment, ever-growing endowment and ever-swelling pride.
Of an ODU that seizes a place among the most popular universities anywhere.
You don't build a bridge from Hampton Boulevard to that kind of new frontier in a day or a month or a year. That's why Jarrett wonders how people could ask what his coach is going to do between now and ODU's first game in 2009.
You only need to spend a little time with Bobby Wilder to see that there is plenty to keep him busy.
Dressed in jeans and a white long-sleeved shirt with "ODU Football 2009" stitched on the pocket, Wilder is passing out rally towels to students before the Lady Monarchs' game against James Madison.
An older fan, half paying attention as he trudges into the arena, starts to hand Wilder his ticket, but stops in his tracks.
"Hey, you don't take tickets," he tells Wilder.
"No," Wilder answers, "but I'd do that if they told me to."
The fan laughs, takes a towel and moves through the turnstile.
Moments later, a woman in a wheelchair and her assist dog approach. When Wilder stoops to hand her a towel, she points instead to the golden retriever.
"Give it to him," she says.
The dog opens its mouth. Wilder slips the towel inside and tells them to enjoy the game.
"Hope he knows when to wave it," he muses to no one in particular.
Wilder spends the first half sitting in the student section behind one of the baskets. He shakes hands, poses for a few photos, chats with school president Roseann Runte. When ODU makes a run that forces a JMU timeout, Wilder leaps to his feet, clapping loudly.
At halftime, he's led to the Constant Club, open to those who contribute a minimum of $6,000 to the Intercollegiate Foundation. He starts to put a sesame-seed cracker in his mouth when someone recognizes him.
"Coach, I am stoked for football," he proclaims, grabbing Wilder's hand.
"I can't wait for that first game."
"Me, neither," Wilder says. "But we've got some work to do first.
"
Later he confides, "I've learned some new words since I got here. Stoked. You don't hear that one in Maine.
"
Wilder is back at his office by 3. Normally, he'd worked until 10 or 10:30 before dragging himself back to a hotel. But in his haste to get to Virginia, he packed few clothes.
So, instead, he's forced to engage in one of his least favorite activities: shopping. Scurrying over to Nordstrom's, Wilder picks up several suits for the big week ahead.
"Should have paid more attention to the ties," he says sheepishly, after confessing he inadvertently dropped $92 on one.
"I never knew a tie could cost that much."
Wilder and six ODU administrators are sequestered in a conference room. In front of them are 8-1/2-by-11 sheets of paper showing ODU logos and colors.
Uniforms with gra y jerseys, blue jerseys, light-blue jerseys; jerseys with white numbers, black numbers, blue numbers outlined in white, gra y numbers outlined in blue; gra y pants, blue pants, white pants, white-and-blue pants; pants with light- and dark-blue piping; white socks, light-blue socks, gra y socks, white and gra y socks...
.
After an around-the-horn discussion, Wilder asks them to call two manufacturers for nine sample helmets each, in metallic silver, white and blue. While he favors "O-D-U" in gra y with blue outlines and arranged horizontally with a crown on top, he's less sure about the colors of face masks and chinstraps.
"I'm more a Penn State type of guy," he says. "I'm not as interested in flash as I am in substance."
The Monarchs will wear black shoes, and no names on jerseys.
"It can get pretty ugly on the road for the guys who don't play," he said, only half joking. "Someone in the stands yells, 'Hey, Jones, go get me some water. You look bored just standing there.
' "
In the end, Wilder says he wants to see uniform samples with several color combinations.
"I know it's necessary," he says later, "but God that was boring."
"There's been an accident inside the Monitor-Merrimac and the tunnel is closed," FM 106.
9's Leila Rice tells listeners enduring the morning rush hour. "Your best route in is the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel."
Wilder, standing in front of a mike, adjusts his headphones.
Around him, eyes roll at the irony of the HRBT being anyone's best route anywhere.
It's 7:40 on a Tuesday and Wilder is about to be on the John and Leila Show before strolling down the hall to the R-rated buffet of FM 99's Tommy and Rumble.
During a break, Rice tells Wilder she spent some time in Maine, briefly attending Bath High.
"You are a Shipbuilder," Wilder exclaims, pointing at her.
"I am a Shipbuilder," Rice answers, impressed that Wilder knows his nicknames.
John Reynolds teases Wilder about an early Virginian-Pilot story in which Wilder admitted not knowing all the details of his contract before accepting the job.
"No offense, coach," he offers, "but I don't want you negotiating my next deal."
It's the perfect opening for Wilder. "You don't take a job like ODU for the money," he tells them.
"You take it for the chance to work at a great university."
Asked about recruiting, Wilder points out that 40 players on the rosters of future conference foes William and Mary, Richmond and James Madison grew up within a 10-minute drive of ODU. Getting those kids to stay home is a primary goal.
The coach hears about 15 minutes of Tommy Griffiths and Rick Rumble's scatter-gun irreverence before he goes on the air: Florida annexing Anna Nicole Smith's body and declaring it a new Key; the American Idol contestant suddenly famous for exposing more than her limited vocal range; the "discovery" of Jesus' family tomb.
Wilder whispers, "I guess I can say anything to these guys, eh?"
He starts by playfully scolding the hosts for not playing Ozzy Osbourne's "Diary of A Madman" during his introduction.
"Can we get that done next time?" he barks.
Later, talking about the NCAA's 487 pages of recruiting regulations, Wilder says, "The most inconvenient thing about this job is that (ODU) expects me to follow all of these.
"
"You try to steal as many good ideas as possible and claim them as yours," he jokes. "You don't have that in your business, because everyone knows that you two guys invented radio."
Wilder's office at ODU is hard to find, which is fine with him.
To be more visible would result in a stampede of job applicants, only some of whom had actually coached football.
In 15 minutes, he and a small committee will begin Round 2 of phone interviews with assistant-coach candidates. Wilder has put the same preparation into this as he did for his interview at ODU, where he gave the search committee a 22-page manifesto entitled "Recruit and Develop: A Program for Success" that was more detailed than anything else they received.
He has sifted through more than 150 resumes looking for candidates who would be loyal, who understood his offensive and defensive strategies, who espoused his philosophy of what a student-athlete should be.
Grades are paramount in Wilder's world. More than half of the scholarship football players at Maine made Dean's List.
He expects nothing less at ODU, he told the committee, and he detailed weekly plans for tracking academic progress and for honoring those who excel.
In fairness to the coaching applicants, Wilder designed a grading system to analyze every resume. Then he distributed a questionnaire to the committee so that interviewees would answer the same questions asked the same way.
And he gave them the type of answers he was looking for, too.
Wilder walks into a room adorned with plaques celebrating great moments in ODU history: The opening of the Constant Center and the induction of Anne Donovan and Nancy Lieberman into the basketball Hall of Fame. He sits at the elbow of an L-shaped desk and leans back as assistant athletic director Debbie White opens the questioning.
At a news conference a few days later, Wilder sits between new defensive coordinator Andy Rondeau and new offensive coordinator Brian Scott. Their evening plans for a quiet dinner and house-hunting are scuttled when a call comes from Charlottesville: A uniform-company rep wants to know when they can meet.
"The sooner you get here the better for you," Wilder tells him.
At 8 that evening, the rep pushes a rack loaded with uniforms into Wilder's hotel room. He and the coaches will meet until 11.
It's just getting light as Wilder addresses a Kiwanis Club breakfast arranged by soccer coach Alan Dawson.
Wilder is grateful for the gig. Dawson could have used the breakfast to plug his program; instead, he turned the spotlight on Wilder. It's an indication, the new coach says, that ODU people work together.
He's doing his part. Wilder keeps the media guide from every Monarchs program on his desk. He's learning the names of each coach, player and department secretary.
He has also started a file on university facts: what majors are offered, the student-faculty ratios, graduation rates, and the like.
Wilder opens a 15-minute presentation by recalling how excited he became when, during his first tour of ODU, he counted eight backhoes at eight campus construction sites.
The message, he says, is clear: ODU is intent on improvement, from classrooms to dormitories, from the new student recreation center to parking and a hotel and, oh by the way, the mega football facilities slated for Powhatan Avenue.
"I can use those backhoes as part of my presentation to the parents and the student-athletes we're going to recruit," he tells them. "Selling this university is going to be so much easier than where I came from."
Someone starts a story about the old "Granby vs.
Maury" games at Foreman Field, but is interrupted.
"It's 'Maury vs. Granby' " the man says, drawing a huge laugh.
"The groundswell of support has exceeded my expectations," Wilder said. "I told my wife right before I was introduced, 'People here are so excited about football, but I may not be a popular choice. I may not be the guy the public wants.
' And she told me, 'Don't worry. We'll win them over.' "
At his present pace, it may not take long.
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