THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 5, 1995 TAG: 9511030190
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 30 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BILL LEFFLER, CURRENTS SPORTS EDITOR
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
While a visitor is waiting to see Old Dominion University basketball coach Jeff Capel, it's impossible not to leaf through the mammoth scrapbook on the coffee table in the room outside his office.
The book, with hundreds of pages of clippings, drawings and pictures, chronicles the past season in ODU basketball.
It's a 60-hour production put together by John Hoofnagle at his own expense. ``A labor of love,'' Hoofnagle calls it. This year's scrapbook required about $110 in expenses for materials alone.
Hoofnagle, who will celebrate his 53rd birthday Nov. 14, isn't even an Old Dominion graduate. But he has been a devoted follower of the ODU basketball team for 30 years.
He has compiled scrapbooks for five ODU coaches, starting with Sonny Allen and including Paul Webb, Tom Young, Oliver Purnell and Capel.
``Getting that book is one of the highlights of the fall for us,'' said Capel. ``The players look forward to it. And just about every player we recruit thumbs through it a time or two. John is a true fan, and the scrapbook is just excellent.''
Hoofnagle began going to Old Dominion games when they played at the old Norfolk Arena.
``After awhile I wanted to do something to get involved in the program,'' he said. ``And that's when I started the scrapbooks.''
Throughout the year, he accumulates all the stories, locally and in out-of-town newspapers, he can get. This year there were five paper bags filled with clippings.
After the season ends, he starts sorting through them, adding in personal observations, charts and drawings and replaying the year from start to finish in the scrapbook.
Twice, coaches have departed before he finished and the books went to their successors.
``This has enabled me to become good friends with the coaches and the players. They really look forward to it, especially the players,'' said Hoofnagle. He proudly points out that all the players call him by name.
It's only natural that Hoofnagle, a Portsmouth Catholic High School graduate, and his wife, Joann, are avid followers of the team. They attend all home games and many on the road. There's a group of five or six other couples who sit with them at the ODU field house or who get together at one of their homes to watch the Monarchs play on television.
Their oldest daughter, Susan, now teaches at Ocean Lakes. She is an Old Dominion graduate and is working on her master's in education at ODU.
The Hoofnagles live in Chesapeake and their other two children, Staci and Bryan, are students at Western Branch High School. All are ODU fans.
Hoofnagle, an administrative specialist for the Naval Command, Control and Ocean Surveillance Center In-Service Engineering at St. Julien's Creek, has 2PT4ODU on his automobile license plate.
``Two points for ODU,'' he explains.
His wife is a nurse and clinical supervisor of the operating room at Maryview Hospital. ``She relates to the excitement at the basketball games. She isn't going just because I want her to go,'' said Hoofnagle.
John is a member of ODU's Big Blue Club. And it really irks him that more of the Old Dominion students and a larger group of area fans don't fill Scope or the field house for Monarchs' games.
``I know we are saturated with ACC and Big East fans, but there's room enough to support them and ODU, too,'' he pointed out. ``People can tape some of those games they watch on television and still go see the Monarchs play. We have too many empty seats.''
Hoofnagle says the many hours he devotes to compiling the scrapbook have made the task a hobby.
``I don't play golf,'' he said. I really get excited when I start putting it together.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MARK MITCHELL
John Hoofnagle, a devoted follower of the ODU basketball team for 30
years, has compiled scrapbooks for five ODU coaches.
by CNB