Birth of a Rivalry? 0
Today, the two major local universities, Norfolk State and Old Dominion, play each other in football for the first time. There is much buzz about it, with many pointing out Old Dominion has had a football team for only three years.
(It’s a playoff game; regular season games were already slated to begin in two years.)
I don’t follow either team closely, though I know persons who have attended both schools, but the coverage has been hard to escape.
One thing I haven’t heard mentioned is that, even had ODU had a football team for the duration of its existence, this still might be the two schools’ first meeting, for historically Norfolk State was an all-black Jim Crow college (“separate but equal” and all that) and ODU began as an extension campus of an all-white college up the road a piece.
