Jack Gray ’66 Faithful fan drives 186 miles round trip to watch Lady Monarchs By Steve Daniel Webster’s uses the word “devotee” to define a person who is enthusiastic about a sport or performer. The Lady Monarch basketball team certainly has its share of loyal fans, but not all are as devoted as Jack Gray. Since the mid-1990s, Gray and his wife, Barbara, have driven 186 miles round trip from Modest Town, Va. (population 87), on the Eastern Shore to attend the women’s home games. Gray, in fact, can just about count on one hand the number of games he’s missed. “I believe last year I missed one when the bridge-tunnel was temporarily closed because of high winds,” he recalled. An Eastern Shore native, Gray entered Old Dominion as a 31-year-old freshman in March 1962. The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was still two years from opening. He rode the ferry to the Virginia mainland and got an apartment on Maury Avenue in Norfolk’s Ghent neighborhood. He earned his bachelor’s degree in history in 1966, and returned a few years later to pursue a master’s in school administration, which he completed in 1972. Although he wasn’t a basketball fan during his undergraduate days, it was only a few months after receiving his diploma that Gray found himself coaching the girls’ team at Atlantic High School in Oak Hall (now Arcadia High) on the Eastern Shore, where he had been hired to teach history. As a youngster, he had played baseball, but basketball was not a sport that interested him. “I had no training in this,” he said. “I think I got the job because the principal couldn’t get anyone else to do it.” Nevertheless, Gray became a quick study of the game and ended up coaching the Lady Cardinals for six years, compiling a record “close to .500.” He regrets that his team never won a district championship, but he enjoyed his time as coach. With his master’s degree in hand, Gray went on to work in school administration. He served as principal at Parksley High for six years and back at Arcadia High for 18 years, retiring in 1995. It wasn’t until the early ’90s that he became acquainted with Lady Monarch basketball. Dana Burnett, Old Dominion’s vice president for student services, had visited Gray’s school in 1990 and 1992 when it had two university Presidential Scholars, Gray said. “He got me a couple of tickets to some big games.” Gray became hooked a few years later when a flashy point guard from Portugal, Ticha Penicheiro, arrived on the Old Dominion campus and set about putting the Lady Monarchs back in the national spotlight. Penicheiro and teammates Clarisse Machanguana, Mery Andrade and Aubrey Eblin quickly became his favorite players. He purchased season tickets and has been coming back game after game, year after year. “I enjoy women’s basketball more than the men’s game because it’s more like it used to be played – no dunks, no 7-footers,” Gray said. “In many respects, I think the women’s game requires more basketball skill.” Gray, who also enjoys surf fishing in his free time and serves on the Accomack County School Board, expects to have mixed emotions this year when he watches the Lady Monarchs play in the new Ted Constant Convocation Center. “I’m going to miss the old Field House,” he said. On average, Gray and his wife put about 3,000 miles on their car driving to and from the women’s home games each season. For the last several years that also meant paying a $10 bridge-tunnel toll each way. While the cost hasn’t deterred him, this season he’ll get to pay a few dollars less, which he can put toward peanuts and popcorn. On March 1 of this year, the date of the Lady Monarchs’ last regular-season home game, the bridge-tunnel commission reduced the round-trip price of $20 to $14 for those who make the return crossing within 24 hours. “It’s nice to get a break like that. After all these years, I think I own half of it anyways,” Gray said with a laugh.