Coach Bill Stewart
Written by Westfork
Bill Stewart (1952 – 2012)
Many words have already been written about Bill Stewart’s loyalty and character, so I won’t add to them here. He was a good man who died much too soon.
All coaches must have games in their career where the moment is so grand they must wish they could petition the football gods to freeze time for just a few more precious minutes. For Stewart that time was the late night of January 2, 2008, in a Phoenix suburb as his team raised up an entire state still suffering from the pain of the worst defeat in WVU history a month earlier. The 48 – 28 Fiesta Bowl upset of Oklahoma was to be the high water mark of his head coaching career.
Years from now fans will look at his .700 winning percentage (second best of all WVU coaches of more than one year) and wonder why he was so maligned. He took a lot of heat from a segment of the fan base (including me) and, truth be told, some of the criticism was warranted — clock management during the final minute of regulation in the first Colorado game comes to mind. Other fans questioned his conservative play calling and point to a drop in season ticket sales as the reason the decision was made to let him go.
Whatever his faults as a coach, his 28 – 12 record speaks for itself. And I think there is another, far simpler, reason why his popularity never matched his wins. WVU fans have long dreamed of playing on the big stage with the college football elite and Stewart was just a little too ‘country’ for our taste.
While we may personally like some ‘aw shucks’ down home manners in a coach, I suspect that we were nervous that the rest of the nation may have been laughing at him and, by extension, us. He was the country cousin who lived up the hollow who didn’t get invited to your daughter’s wedding because you were afraid his unsophisticated ways might embarrass the family.
I guess in the final analysis that says more about us than it does about him. Rest in peace, Coach.
“For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes not that you won or lost but how you played the Game.” – Grantland Rice
Westy is out of the closet
Written by WestFork
Odds & Ends . . .
Fragments of articles I never got around to finishing, ideas that have been kicking around in my brain for a while, strange musings on sticky notes, and random thoughts jotted down on bar napkins (“Call Brandi at 555-7397”). Oops, wrong napkin.
Playoffs
I may be the only college football fan in the country who is opposed to a playoff. While the current BCS system may not be perfect (the coaches poll is a joke and should be jettisoned), more often than not it ends up matching the two best teams in the country. Even if a 4 or 8 team playoff had been in effect last year Alabama and LSU would have met in the championship game (assuming they were in different brackets).
With the impending advent of a playoff system college football will lose the most compelling regular season in all of sports. Every Saturday there are games that amount to sudden death playoffs. Easily the most thrilling contest of 2011 was the Iowa State upset of Oklahoma State that cost the Cowboys a shot at the BCS Championship.
Most observers blame former NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle for the cheapening of the regular season in all sports. As a cynical reporter once observed, “if he [Rozelle] had been in charge of World War II Ethiopia would have still been around at the end as a wild card.”
Floppers
Is anyone else tired of watching NBA players going down like they’ve been shot with a 30.06 after an insignificant bump? Many are blaming the influx of European players (who grew in soccer-mad cultures) for this disturbing trend. As much as I hate to defend the kickball crowd, they may be getting a bad rap in this case. Follow the trail of this ‘sissy boy’ phenomenon and it leads directly to Durham , NC , and Duke University – the source of everything foul and noxious in college basketball.
“Aginners and the Big XII”
They’re a dyeing breed in West Virginia if, in fact, there are any left at all. They were country folk who came to town once a week on Saturday to load up on groceries and do some shopping. We called them ‘aginners’ because they were against (in no particular order) drinking, dancing, smoking, chewing, gambling, movies, hanging out in pool halls, spending money on gewgaws and people with “big ideas.”
I can hear them now from half a continent away, “They’re getting “big ideas” down there in Morgantown . WVU has no business playing schools like Oklahoma and Texas . Pride goeth before a fall.”
Whitlock
Jason Whitlock is far and away the best sports columnist of our time. His latest column, a thoughtful defense of suspended Saints player Jonathan Vilma’s lawsuit against Roger Goodell (“the NFL’s well-intentioned, but wildly out of control, dictator”), is a classic. As usual, the contrarian Whitlock is right on the money.
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NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP?
great column by Westfork
Our Long Wait is Over.
The genesis of this article was the BCS Championship game. After the Alabama victory over LSU several people pointed out that while Miami (OH) may indeed be the cradle of coaches, our home state of West Virginia is the birthplace of national championship coaches. The list is impressive.
Ben Schwartzwalder (b. Point Pleasant , WV ) – Syracuse (1959)
John McKay (b. Monongalia County , WV ) – USC (1962, 1967, 1972, 1974)
Lou Holtz (b. Follansbee , WV ) – Notre Dame (1988)
Nick Saban (b. Carolina , WV ) – LSU (2003); Alabama (2009, 2011)
Venturing further back into college football’s pre-history, former WVU player Fielding H. Yost (b. Fairview , WV ) accounted for six championships at Michigan between 1901 and 1923. His 1904 championship team beat the Mountaineers to the tune of 130-0 in their first and only meeting ever. The game was played in Ann Arbor so this debacle can’t be blamed on the usual culprits — students who left at the half.
While researching the internet for this article it wasn’t before long I ended up on the Wikipedia 1922 college football entry. I checked it out mainly because the Mountaineers were 10-0-1 that year (the first 10-win season ever). They finished the season by defeating Gonzaga in the San Diego Christmas Classic — one of only two post-season games that year. It was evidently a different game back then. According to one source I found, only 17 WVU players made the cross country train trip to the west coast.
That must have been some football team. The defense had 7 shutouts and for the season WVU outscored the opposition 267-34. Included in the victories was a win over Washington & Jefferson, considered by many experts to be the best team of 1921. The Presidents were coached by the legendary “Greasy” Neale (b. Parkersburg , WV ).
College football polls and the BCS were many, many years in the future so no national champion was crowned. It would have been controversial since there were several undefeated teams besides the Mountaineers. Interestingly enough three different retroactive polls several years later crowned four different teams as the best in the land.
Cornell (8-0-0) — Helms Athletic Foundation
California (9-0-0) — National Championship Foundation
Drake (7-0-0) and Princeton (8-0-0) — College Football Researchers’ Association
An internet site called TipTop25 purports to ‘scientifically’ rank the strength of teams for years gone by. Their retroactive analysis of the 1922 season put the aforementioned Princeton, Cornell, and California teams on top with honorable mentions to three more teams: Michigan (6-0-1), Vanderbilt (8-0-1), and Iowa (7-0). They did not mention WVU.
Well, WestFork cries foul! It appears to this observer that then, as now, the Mountaineers were the victim of media bias. Anyway, if you parse the previous two paragraphs the key word is “retroactive.” As I was working my way through my third (or perhaps fourth) Silver Bullet last night the thought occurred to me that this blog (the number one source for all things WVU) should retroactively crown their own 1922 champion.
Accordingly, after a thorough review of games won, bowl game results, and strength of schedule we are pleased to announce (drum roll, please) the Retroactive EERNationB12 National Champion for 1922:
WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY
Let the burning of couches commence.
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Before ESPN
Written by Westy
Spring Practice — Before ESPN
Heck, we’re talking before television even. Yes, another leisurely stroll down Mountaineer memory lane. A path we’ve trod before, but maybe there will be some old memories rekindled or new insights gained at the end of the trail.
Sports are big business these days and WVU is no exception. Much like hard news, sports talk and games are now a 24/7 fixture on the plethora of free and premium channels. That’s a far cry from the post-war West Virginia I grew up in. Back then sports were seen as frivolous by many and there was scarce coverage in the electronic media. Frank Lee of WMMN radio in Fairmont had a 15-minute show every day called Sports Talk (“This is Frank Lee, frankly speaking”) but that was about it.
The Mountaineers spring game was televised on ESPN3 last weekend, a cable channel I heretofore didn’t know existed (1 and 2 aren’t enough evidently). It’s not on the list of 1,246 offerings my cable provider offers, so I wasn’t able to watch. I’m not too upset about it though. Unless you’re a real football geek a scrimmage is just that — a scrimmage.
That wasn’t the case back in the day when head coach Art “Pappy” Lewis took his team away from the worldly temptations of High Street to the rustic confines of the state 4-H camp at Jackson ’s Mill for spring practice. It was the BIG story statewide (heck, it was the only story) and every newspaper of note sent a reporter to cover the team.
That was the golden age of print journalism – Clarksburg , Fairmont , and Morgantown all had morning and evening papers. Reporters loved spring practice since it’s easy to cover. It’s essentially the same stories year in and year out. Only the players change (“That Wyant kid from Weston is looking sharp. Penn State may be in for a game this year.”).
The Mountaineer camp, like others of that era, was run like basic training in Fort Benning , Georgia . Check out the book Junction Boys that tells the story of Bear Bryant when he was at Texas A&M. Bryant took 115 players to spring practice Junction City , Texas , and only 35 were able to survive the heat, humidity and the hard practices.
The practices may have been hard, but by all accounts Pappy liked to have an adult beverage or two (or three or four) at the end of the day. After the journalists filed their dispatches all night drinking bouts and poker games were the norm. It was a different time and it’s doubtful either the coach or the ink stained wretches of the press could get away with that today.
The tradition of spring practice at Jackson ’s Mill lasted well into the 1960s before Jim Carlen killed it. Bill Evans, sports editor of the Fairmont Times, loved the annual trek to the camp in Lewis County and he never quite forgave Carlen. Sadly Evans died a few weeks before the WVU and Carlen won the Peach Bowl in 1969.
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Another Westy Tale
Written by Rocky Mountain Bureau Chief Westfork:
The “Aurora Borealis” and the Kansas Kids
The Olympic Games are this summer, which means we’ll be treated to the usual quota of human interest stories to go along with “minor” sports Americans watch every fourth year. These stories involve a plucky athlete, usually from the third-world, who succeeds in spite of all the odds.
When it comes to unlikely sports stars closer to home, the late Marvin “Bucky” Bolyard always comes to mind. He excelled in two sports at WVU in the late 1950s despite being blind in one eye. Bolyard played alongside of Jerry West on the team that went to the NCAA finals. He also posted impressive statistics while starring as an infielder and pitcher on the baseball team for three seasons.
After his college days he played for the Pittsburgh Rens (not Wrens as it’s listed on some internet sites) of the now defunct American Basketball Association for two seasons. One of his teammates, the great Connie Hawkins, was quite a human interest story in his own right. While playing for the Rens Bolyard led the league in three point shooting one year. If you’ve ever tried to do anything requiring hand/eye coordination with one eye shut, you can appreciate what an amazing feat this was.
Bolyard came from the small Preston County town of Aurora , hence his nickname of the “Aurora Borealis”. Back in those days every little hamlet in that mountainous county in the north central part of the state had a high school (does anyone else remember the Rowlesburg River Lions – what a great name). Sadly those schools are all closed now – victims of consolidation – and that brings us to the next topic at hand.
I’ve always been interested in the psychological importance of high school sports to small communities. Last week I picked up a book titled Our Boys, A Perfect Season, written by Joe Drape. The author followed the Smith Center, KS, football team in 2008 as they attempted to keep alive a string of five consecutive undefeated seasons and state championships.
There is a quote in the book from Bobby Knight about how the “real” coaching takes place in high school sports. Smith Center head coach Joe Barta, an impressive motivator as well as clever tactician and grand strategist, makes Knight’s point perfectly. He’s easily the most impressive character in the book.
Drape, a New Yorker who moved his family to Kansas , does an excellent job of capturing the relationship between the school and the town. By the final chapters I was pulling for the Redmen (the school’s politically incorrect nickname) to keep their winning streak alive.
All in all it’s a perceptive take on an area of the country that sends its best athletes to Kansas State , a future WVU conference opponent. The state of Kansas is part of what east coasters refer to as ‘flyover country.’ Those of us who live in the west refer to it as ‘drive through as fast as you can country.’ You stop for gas, get some McFood, pull back on the interstate with the cruise control set to 80 and then do it all over again 3 or 4 hours later. Grain elevators are more numerous than trees and you can see forever.
Don’t look for a spoiler in this article as to the eventual outcome of the Smith Center season. You’ll be doing yourself a real disfavor if you don’t read the book to find out whether or not they kept their streak alive. And after you’re done, you’ll thank old WestFork for recommending it.
Fords Dui some fans reaction
Ford Childress, WVU 3rd string QB was arrested for DUI. We all have read about that by now. My story is about the fans reaction.
A few fans lose their minds over stuff like this. We all know driving drunk is bad and dangerous to others. People have been killed by drunk drivers and emotions are raw. I think most rational adults get that. It is a black eye for the university and football program. It is NOT a reflection of the coaching staff. It is NOT a systemic problem. It is NOT something that warrants setting your hair on fire and running to every message board speculating and trying to tie this behavior to your agenda.
Ford is a young man who did something stupid. He could still be in High School right now. He chose to graduate early and enroll for the spring semester. He came to Morgantown and got caught up. Let’s not kill the kid or the coaching staff yet. Let those without sin cast the first stone.
When you have 100+, 18-22 year old-young men together, a few are going to screw up.
I’m not saying to let something serious slide. Not at all. I’m just saying that we should give the kid and the coaching staff the benefit of the doubt. That the right decisions will be made and all will be better men in the future.
Some fans thrive on chaos. WVU is looking at a absolutely great year. Some need to put down the pitchforks and torches and Enjoy it.
Spring Cleaning
Hello All! I’ve been out of the loop for a while now. My dad has been extremely ill and I have been busy as heck. Not looking for sympathy just stating the fact.
I did get an invite to one of the spring practices and took them up on it. This years edition of the Mountaineers have potential out the wazoo. The offense is scary as hell. Special teams will be better than they have been in years. I realize that is not saying much but I love what they have going on. Defense? I can’t call it. My hope is they will gel, soak in the new system and coaches, and get out there and kick ass. It is looking that way to me. I can report that they have some big hitters, they are spirited, and at times look very good. I just need to see it in a game to feel confident.
Last year the little touch pass to Tavon took the college football world by storm. I expect to see it all over the place this year. Well I saw a new play that will drive D coordinators and opposing fans insane. I don’t know where Dana got it from or when he will use it. IT.IS.AWESOME. No couch is safe.
On another note. I usually refrain from shameless name dropping but a friend I have known for years and went to college with my husband is a blog topic. I wanted to throw my two cents in. Bob Huggins is the kindest, loyal, competent, stand-up man I know. He was accused of being drunk at a coaches clinic. I wasn’t there. I don’t know what the truth is. I am not going to jump to conclusions and I hope Mountaineer fans will do the same. We are lucky to have a coach of his caliber. He is an all-time great Mountaineer. Player and coach. His coaching tree and former players say all that needs to be said. Next years team will be a huge improvement over this years and I can’t wait to watch them. If he has a problem it will get fixed. No need to run to message boards and fuel rumors and speculation.
Hope to be back writing and blogging soon. I miss you guys.
Let’s Gooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
