Last week was a big news week both good and bad for the Mountaineers.
Let’s start with the bad and absurd….as some of you may have seen I’ve been throwing my “thoughts” about the fan behavior (notice I don’t target only the students as the University and media are) at the recent basketball games. Well here’s my 2 to 3 cents worth on this now ugly situation.
I’ll start with why we are at this point (remember this is only my opinion). This all started back with the Ohio State game. OSU’s star player Evan Turner did a break away 360 degree slam dunk and turned and taunted the student section afterward. So what did the student section do? They started the same chant that has occurred on the majority of major college campuses at some point this year. The ol trusty A#@ Hole chant. Turner asked for it and the students gave it to him. Classy? No. Big Deal? Absolutely not. Did it deserve all the local media attention it got? Absolutely not. I don’t know that I have ever seen a news article on another school for chanting the same thing. So let the fiasco begin…..
Then next up comes Louisville and Coach Rick Pitino. So after the OSU game the school and media and everyone else has told the students to cut the profanity and quit acting so “classless”. OK, so the student section obliges and chants the name of Pitino’s “mistress” Karen Sypher instead. I personally voted for the “Great, creative and completely in-bounds” in the current press box poll. Well apparently the school and local media found this to be absolutely classless and bashed the students again. So now we are at the Pitt game, the most hated team in the world if you are a true Mountaineer. So we all know what happened there with a few students throwing garbage on the floor and having to be addressed by Huggs. Then the worst part happens when a classless fan throws an object that hits a Pitt coach. As I have said before this object DID NOT come from the student section.
I’m yet to figure out why no other media or the university has not acknowledged this fact, but a fact it is. Anyway that was terrible, classless, etc. Now here we are looking like a bunch of defensive, classless fans all because the student section coming under undeserved criticism by their school and local media after a harmless chant during the Ohio State game. The same chant or similar chant that I have heard countless times since the OSU game happen at numerous other schools. In my opinion what happened at the Pitt game was a result of the numerous attacks on the students occuring before the Pitt game. Now would that fan that wasn’t a student have thrown something regardless, we will never know. By the way the object came from behind the Pitt bench, who is to say it wasn’t a Pitt fan throwing it at a Mountaineer? Far fetched? Probably. I’m fairly confident it was not a student which is who is getting all the blame. Don’t get me wrong what happened was completely out of bounds and that person should face charges, but to brand the entire student section as classless and punish all students and the team for something that did not even occur in the student section (I’m assuming nothing would have been done if the incident involving the coach would not have occured) seems a bit much. So the final result is the student section (and team) is being punished during the biggest game of the season on Big Monday versus ‘Nova. Ridiculous. By the way we pounded #21 Pitt by nearly 20 points!!!
Bill Stewart has once again shown why I remain 100% behind the guy and everything he is doing for the Mountaineer football program. He continues to show class, do things correctly and come out on top. As one person commented on January 19th when a couple recruits were waivering on their committments that it was the “start of WVU’s demise”. My comment at the time “Let’s check back on February 3rd after the binding agreements are signed and see where this year’s class ranks with the previous 100+ in the school’s history. If this isn’t the top ranked class in the history of WVU I’ll be surprised. I will make the first post on firestewart.com if it’s not in the top 5 in school history.” Well I won’t be posting anything on that website as this class is considered the best in the over 100 years of Mounaineer football. Congrats to Coach Stewart on doing things the right way and landing the best class in the history of WVU football. He also closed this class with very limited help from staff due to numerous reasons. I will go ahead and make my prediction for 10 wins and a Big East championship in 2010. Enjoy the St. John’s game today and Go Mountaineers!!!
#1 Stew Fan 
I couldn’t agree more… well, about the basketball part, that is.
i agree we have snow ball rolling down hill starting with the OSU game. Good analysis. But the “everybody else is doing it” excuse is weak. Didn’t your Mom ever say, “if Johnny jumped off a cliff . . .” I think we can do better than other schools. I don’t mean sit on our hands or applaud lightly. We can be more creative with our “vocabulary.”
Because the microscope is on us, we might want to tread lightly. And we can do better. I agree the Pitino razz was a step in the right direction. But surely we can do better than one creative chant per game. The Maniacs ought to be able to read the athlete’s bios and come up with a list of chants to get under the opponent’s skin.
I just don’t buy the everybody else cusses argument. Is it fair that we are singled out? no! But it is what it is and we have to work on damage control. all the goodwill of the UConn response has been lost. Whether right or wrong this is a perception issue and it is damaging the state and the university. Let’s be better than the other schools, not copy them.
Wow!! Today’s commentators must have read my article!!! They just nailed it.
how nice to hear the game commentators for the St. Johns game speak sensibly about the incidents at the game. The guys that are covering the game are the first from the media that I’ve heard of that called it for what it is, just a few dumb people and not an entire fanbase. They also maid the point that the jeering and taunting was the same all over the country.