Wally Walker weighs in on the search for Odom

By Jerry Ratcliffe

There was no one in the Virginia basketball family more well-equipped to spearhead a coaching search than Wally Walker.

The hero of UVA’s first ACC Tournament championship in 1976, the No. 5 overall pick of the ‘76 NBA Draft, and part of the Seattle SuperSonics’ three NBA Western Conference Championships as a player and later as the organization’s president and general manager, Walker built an impressive resume. He was president of the club for 12 years.

In his current role with Virginia as Deputy Athletics Director, he led the search committee on a national scale to find the school’s next basketball coach. At the end, the answer was only 70 miles away in downtown Richmond in VCU’s Ryan Odom, who had strong roots to the UVA program.

“From the first time we spoke to Ryan, he had that quiet confidence that said, ‘Hey, I got this,’” Walker said after Monday’s press conference, where Odom was officially presented as Virginia’s new coach. “Every step of the way and a little bit of what the narrative is I’m hearing — and maybe I’m hearing a limited sample — is that this was obvious.

“It wasn’t altogether obvious. The more we looked, it became obvious. But we had great candidates who want to be here, and we had to look and talk and vet all of them, and Ryan, every step of the way, just stood out.”

During the presser, Odom talked about how when he was just a kid, he accompanied his father, Dave Odom, then the head coach at East Carolina, to meet with Virginia head coach Terry Holland about joining Holland’s staff. They met at a nondescript hole-in-the-wall diner in Clarksville, near the Virginia-North Carolina border, to discuss the possibilities. Dave Odom agreed to come to UVA, where he was an assistant for several years.

All Ryan Odom remembered about the trip, just being a youngster, is that they had a meal.

When Ryan Odom met with Virginia’s brass for the first time, it wasn’t anything like his dad’s and Holland’s meeting. It was via Zoom.

But when Odom was asked to meet UVA president Jim Ryan and AD Carla Williams, one of the first questions was, Why Virginia?

Odom was prepared. He had his wife, Lucia, to print two pictures of him posing in a Virginia uniform for the cover of a Cavalier basketball camp brochure. He was 12 years old and the photos were taken by Holland’s wife, Ann, who was in the audience for Monday’s presser.

“So I just put them right in front of them,” Odom said. “Why Virginia? That’s why Virginia. That’s the starting of why Virginia.”

Walker said that after the initial contact, the committee, Williams and others attached to the search began to watch Odom’s VCU team play a lot, and the more they watched, the more they were convinced.

“He talked about his defense and being an offensive guy, but they were a great defensive team and they played hard every night,” Walker said. “So you put what we learned about him as a guy, what we saw when we talked to him and watch his team play, and it became obvious.”

Walker met up with Odom’s parents, Dave and Lynn, at Monday’s press conference and it was a great reunion.

“I’ve stayed in touch with Dave over the years, but the last time I saw Dave and Lynn was on Maui, because they run the Maui Invitational, and I’ve got a home on Maui,” Walker said. “So literally, they’re at our home and on our deck, the last time I saw Dave and Lynn. It’s a small world.”