THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 22, 1997 TAG: 9702220615
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: STEVE CARLSON
LENGTH: 46 lines
Sometime during Old Dominion's basketball game with George Mason tonight at the ODU field house, Odell Hodge will join some elite company.
Hodge is four points shy of 2,000 for his career. Already this season he surpassed 1,000 career rebounds.
Heading into the season, only 79 players in NCAA Division I basketball history had reached the 2,000-1,000 combination. Hodge's name will be listed in the NCAA record book among the likes of Oscar Robertson, Danny Manning, Elvin Hayes, Larry Bird, David Robinson, Elgin Baylor, Christian Laettner, Jerry West and Lew Alcindor.
``It really means a lot to accomplish that,'' Hodge said Friday. ``It had never crossed my mind early in my career. I didn't see the 1,000 rebounds as a possibility.''
Hodge will be the first to reach the milestone at Old Dominion, and just the third in the history of the Colonial Athletic Association. The others were Navy's David Robinson (1983-87) and George Mason's Kenny Sanders (1986-89).
Hodge is third on ODU's career points (1,996) and rebounds (1,029) charts. In points, he trails Ronnie Valentine (2,204) and Leo Anthony (2,181), while the Monarchs' rebounding list is led by Randy Leddy (1,153) and Mark West (1,113).
``That's a heck of a career,'' ODU coach Jeff Capel said of the 2,000-1,000 combination. ``You look back at Chris Gatling, Kenny Gattison, Mark West . . . none of those guys did it. It's a mark of consistency, good luck, endurance and ability.'' Capel cites advantages of playing in the field house
Capel admittedly hasn't been enamored with playing in the smaller field house compared to the downtown Scope, but Wednesday he began to change his mind about the on-campus building. After ODU's thumping of American at the field house, Capel said the proximity of the crowd to the court - something Scope can't replicate - and the noise fans created gave the Monarchs the kind of home-court advantage that's often lacking at Scope.
``The fans in the field house are right on top of us, and we fed off that energy, no question about it,'' Capel said. ``Our crowds have tried to duplicate this at Scope, but when you're in a 10,000-seat building with 6,000 or 5,000 people and the ceiling is 100 miles up in the air, it's difficult to generate that kind of energy. Four-thousand people in (the field house) is a lot louder than 4,000 people would have been in Scope.''