One of 70 students and faculty in the University Union audience, Dionna Odom listened to Victor Glover’s passionate speech about the need for more diversity at Cal Poly and thought, Wow — he’s got a gift.

In April of 1998, Dionna hadn’t witnessed her boyfriend address a crowd like that before — and it was empowering.

“It was motivating,” said the future Dionna Glover. “It was charismatic. I remember that feeling of being aware of and recognizing his gift of eloquence.”

A month later, the ASI Board of Directors — with then university President Warren Baker attending in support — approved a proposal to establish United Students for Diversity, a minority outreach and retention center that Victor had suggested. While it was his idea, Victor humbly credited others, telling a Mustang Daily reporter, “I’m just the one with the biggest mouth.”

“Victor is a hero, but he is not some cardboard cutout hero,” said Dan Walsh, a biomedical engineering professor emeritus and Victor’s academic advisor at Cal Poly. “He is a real human being, with an abiding care for his fellow man on an individual and on a societal basis.”

As Victor neared the end to his six-month mission aboard the International Space Station, those who were with him at Cal Poly remember him as an active, determined and caring general engineering student who planned to become a professor — a goal he professed even as he committed to the U.S. Navy before his 1999 graduation.

‘One of the Nicest Guys’

But it was athletics, not academics, that brought him to Cal Poly.

The Ontario High School graduate came to the university on a wrestling scholarship. Danny Long (Geography/Planning, ’99), one of his teammates, remembers him as a tough and confident teammate who quickly earned everyone’s respect.

“He was one of the nicest guys you would meet,” Long said.

While teammates were confident in their wrestling abilities, Long said he and others were still insecure outside of the sport. But not Victor.

“I was just trying to figure out who I was,” Long said. “He knew who he was.”

While Victor credits wrestling with providing him career skills, he quit the sport after two years to focus on his studies.

“Both endeavors require dedication and lot of time to be successful,” said Jim LoCascio, one of Victor’s mechanical engineering professors.

LoCascio, whom Victor has called one of his mentors, welled up with pride the first time he learned, from a New York Times story, that his former pupil would be traveling to the space station.

“I had a small part in making this happen, and this why I love my job and am I still working,” he said.

A Lasting Partnership

After Victor chose to focus on his studies, choosing Dionna was next.

At the University Union on the first day of class in 1996 , Victor approached Dionna and her younger sister, Jesekah, who were both freshmen, welcomed them to the university and invited them to a meeting with the National Society for Black Engineers.

Dionna thought he was helpful and cute; Jesekah wasn’t impressed.

“She couldn’t stand Victor,” Dionna recalled with a laugh.

Both Dionna, a child development major, and Victor were seeing other people. But they began spending lots of time together through the MESA (Math, Science, Engineering, Agriculture), outreach program that helps educationally disadvantaged students become engineers, scientists and other math-based professionals needed by industry, where they tutored middle and high school students in other communities.

“Tutoring was not just an after-school activity,” Dionna said. “We traveled two to three hours in the back of our boss’s Westphalia Volkswagen van, taking all these supplies and what-not to teach kids in these communities.”

On one of those trips, near the end of Dionna’s first year, they decided to date. While Dionna was more of a “wild child,” Victor helped her stay focused on schoolwork.

“In fact, my girlfriends nicknamed him The Law,” Dionna said. “ ‘Dionna — The Law’s at the door!’”

Many of their dates were at Fat Cats in Avila Beach, doing schoolwork until 2 a.m.

“If I still had work I needed to get done, no matter how late it was, he would swoop me up and we’d go on a late-night study date,” Dionna remembered.

A Shooting Star

A teaching career seemed inevitable.

“He had a gift for breaking things down and making them easy to understand,” she said.

But in January of 1998, his acceptance into a Naval Reserve program that trained future officers would put him on a path to becoming a fighter pilot and eventually an elite member of NASA’s astronaut program. Looking back, Long said he’s not surprised by Victor’s success — and is particularly proud that a former wrestling teammate fared so well.

“How many people get picked for astronaut school, and of those, how many make it to space?” he said.

Dionna’s sister, who once viewed Victor as “nerdy,” eventually became close friends. Meanwhile, Dionna became the mother to their four daughters. And now Victor works among the stars.

“I’d be lying if I told you I knew he was going to pilot the first purposeful manned U.S. space flight in over a decade,” Walsh said. “But I can tell you that I knew Victor was going to be very successful in anything he tried to do.”

Learn more about Victor Glover and Mission: Learn by Doing at Cal Poly Alumni.