The Voice of the Mountaineers

On fall Saturday afternoons in Wellsburg, West Virginia, the WVU Mountaineers were on the radio. I could go from place to place and hear Jack Fleming, the long time “Voice of the Mountaineers.” In my father’s men’s clothing store, around the corner in Bill’s Barber Shop, on the car radio, and even up at Cipoletti’s Esso station, people were listening. I imagine it was true throughout the state, folks taking a break on a Saturday afternoon to follow the West Virginia University Mountaineers.

From 1947 through 1996, with a few gaps in between, the radio voice that represented Mountaineer sports was Jack Fleming. For almost 50 years, he described the WVU great athletes along with the mediocre. Always with enthusiasm and pride. Those of us in Steeler Country got an extra bonus of hearing him again on Sunday, broadcasting our favorite Pittsburgh Steelers.

On the weekend of the 100th Pitt game, with the Mountaineers on the brink of playing for their first National Championship, I’m reminded of Jack Fleming, The Voice of the Mountaineers.

The Backyard Brawl

The first ten years of my life were spent growing up in West Virginia. My father went to WVU, my uncle went to WVU, my sister went to WVU. But I was the first to graduate from WVU.

I grew up a fan of West Virginia University. No matter how a football or basketball season went, the true outcome depended upon whether or not the Mountaineers beat Pitt.

On December 1, the #2 ranked Mountaineers take on their long time rival the University of Pittsburgh Panthers in Mountaineer Field for the 100th time. This is Pitt week!

The teams first met in 1895 in Wheeling, West Virginia. The Mountaineers beat the hell of Pitt then, when they were the Western University of Pennsylvania. The score was 8-0.

More than likely, I’ll post more as the week goes on, but I found this excellent article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on that rivalry. Beano Cook, 76, is a long-time football analyst and athletic directory at Pitt. Mickey Furfari, 84, has written of West Virginia sports for over 60 years. In the article and in this video, also from the Post-Gazette, they reminisce about those games.

Enjoy.

Oh yeah. Beat the Hell out of Pitt!

Reading Newsweek

I took a few moments at lunch today to browse through this week’s (November 26, 2007) copy of Newsweek. Here are some of my observations about what I found contained in this magazine.

First off. On the cover is my shipping label. Encoded on that label is my renewal date, which now seems to be at August 3, 2009. My question is this: why in the world did I just receive a mailing to renew the magazine, when my subscription won’t expire for another year and a half?

Turn to page 16. A short interview with some big time chef who opened a restaurant in Las Vegas. High end place. Dinner costs $420 per person, but that does include wine. Sounds like a restaurant for those with more money than brains.

On page 29, we read a variety of quotes, including on form Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich, explaining why he voted against the USA Patriot Act. “That’s because I read it.”

Now we turn to page 42 for an excellent op-ed piece by Fareed Zakaria called America the Unwelcoming. Mr. Zakaria discusses why tourism to the US from other countries is way down. He states it’s because of all the harassment and down right hassles that travelers experience moving through our country. I mean, think about it, why in the world do we have to remove our shoes, including my flip-flops, before boarding a plane? Read the article which is linked above.

And finally, this little article in the second column on page 12, In Trouble for Show and Tell. This article tells how some four and five year old children are being suspended from school for “sexual harassment”. One four year-old was suspended “when a female school aide reported that the child buried his face in her chest when she hugged him.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” if I might quote tennis great John McEnroe. What has happened to sensibility?

Veteran’s Day

This day, November 11, is Veteran’s Day. A day our country celebrates and acknowledges the service of our veterans to this country. Take a moment and consider how these men and women have served our country, many with their lives.

We may not agree with the wars in which they fought, we might believe that war is never the answer. For these folks, however, it may have been what they believed was the right thing. They are deserving of our thanks and gratitude.

My father, who died almost 2 years ago, was a World War II Veteran. I am proud of his service to our country and to the world community.

A Loving Reminder

Take a look at this short (1:30) video. It’s a reminder to us parents about who we are…

Don’t forget, for worse as well as for better, our children do follow our example. And remember, that as we get older, yeah, we do get a lot more like our parents. And so will our children.  I’m amazed when I see that even as teens.

Being a father is by far, the hardest job I have ever done. Even as my son and daughter are growing into an amazing young man and young woman, I still play a role in their lives, as I will for years to come.  As I see them grow, I have faith that somewhere along the line I did something right.

Let’s all hang in there and do the best we can! It’s the future that we’re working for.

 

Visit To CMU

Last weekend was Family Weekend at Carnegie Mellon University, where son Josh is a first year student. We spent a great Saturday in Pittsburgh visiting with him in his new home at CMU.

To say that he is happy there is an understatement; he is soaring, both as a student and as a growing up young man. Josh is enjoying his classes, although challenged, he’s learning and doing well on the tests and papers. More importantly he’s living a quality life in this rich environment. Unlike the typical college student who spends his or her weekend partying and sleeping, he and his group of friends spend theirs playing dodgeball or tag variants throughout the campus building or exploring the maize of crevices, basements, and dark corners of the campuses. And sleeping.

Much of our day was spent touring the campus with Josh as our highly active and animated tour guide. We visited several computer clusters, once of which he frequents daily, and is a regular meeting place for his diverse group of friends. Josh guided us up and down stairways and elevators, showing off classrooms and lecture halls. In several lecture halls he demonstrated their full featured audio-visual systems, raising and lowering screens, displaying computer displays, digital whiteboards, and pointed out to us which locations were the best of viewing movies in the evenings, when they could get in.

Josh told us story after story of both fact and myth of the pranks and other activities of CMU students, including tales of dropping computer monitors and desks down nine stories. But more importantly, he shared his happiness and comfort in being part of a diverse, exciting, intellectual community where he fits in.

The college search was certainly a challenge for both Josh and myself, as I’ve shared in previous posts. I am so happy that Josh has made the right choice on selecting Carnegie Mellon, and glad he has found a place he now calls his home.

Onslaught

Consider these two short video advertisements. Take a moment to think about the story they tell of the messages the media and our culture blast each second. Consider the daily bombardment of messages telling us how much better we could be if only we would buy Brand X. Or how much more perfect we would look if only we work Brand Z.

As adults, probably the most important thing we can do is talk to our children, sending them messages about their inherent beauty and worth. Girls are particularly targeted, but boys certainly get similar messages from sports as well as the media.

We are not our jobs, the cars we drive, or the clothes we wear. We will be remembered by the deeds we do, the people we touch, and the beauty we add to this world.

I first found these on Jeff Ventura’s “techie” but eclectic blog, Graceful Flavor. Jeff also offers up a bit of research on The Campaign for Real Beauty, creators of these videos.

More video on this topic can be found at Reality on a Stick.

 

This Senseless War

In her excellent blog, Paula Reed, passionate English teacher and author, writes about one of her students. Luke excelled in her class and found his love and his talents in caring for injured soldiers overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, for which he was awarded several medals.

I hope you read Paula’s post, and you know where this story is going. It’s a reminder of the price we pay for being in a senseless war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• We’ve lost too many of our children, the ones who hold the future of this country in their hands.
• Our country has watched the slaughter of not only it’s own, but the slaughter of thousands of Iraqi families.
• America has lost our respect in the global community.
• We’ve sold our future and our children’s future out with our massive debt.

This war has cost us too much.  Way too much.

Graffiti

My son, Josh, reports that the campus of Carnegie Mellon University is mostly clean and free of graffiti. When it is found, here is what is likely to look like…

The Steel Valley, Football, and The Mountaineers

A recent article in the Kansas City Star entitled “Even when times are tough, West Virginia has its football team” tells the story of hard times in West Virginia and the pride people feel for the Mountaineers of West Virginia University.

From the article…

WEIRTON, W.Va. | The green sheet mill shadows the stadium like a big brother, rising above it, running from end zone to end zone, separated only by the road that once hauled coils of steel from one factory to another, where the rumbling gravel and churning trucks drowned out the sound of the game.

Across West Virginia, the connection between the mill and the field — between the players and the workers — was always a matter of time. You started on the 50-yard line as a teenager. You ended up an old man in the factory.

Weirton Steel built this high school stadium on factory ground in 1935. Today, the ragged place is literally surrounded by the city’s rusting factories.

“Through the Depression, through World War II, through the good times and through the ’80s, the hard times that hit us, there was the mill,” says Bob Rossell, who’s announced Weir High games for 40 years. “And there was football.”

Weirton is just one dot on its map, but it’s as much West Virginia as Grant Town, Coal City or Dunbar, and it says as much about the link between the economic collapse of a state and the rise of its college football team. This is where John F. Kennedy came to talk about poverty when he ran for president, where the boys played football next to the mills and dreamed of being a Mountaineer before they’d become men and head off to work. The heart and soul of West Virginia football is 80 miles south, in Morgantown, but dozens of its players have come from here.

Steel and football, coal and football, they’re two parts of the same thing — the thing that shaped the lives of many of the young men who grew up in Appalachia.

At least it was until the mills and mines began to fail.

Click here to read the entire article (about 4-5 pages).  [Article no longer available from Kansas City Star.]

I grew up about 8 miles south of Weirton, WV in the small town of Wellsburg. At age 10, I moved across the river to Steubenville, Ohio. On football Saturdays, the Mountaineers were always on the radio in my father’s men’s store and throughout the town. On Friday evenings, much of the valley shut down to attend high school football games. My father, uncle, sister, and I all attended WVU, although I was the first in my family to graduate from there. I had uncles and cousins who lived in Morgantown, and we occasionally visited family there.

The mills are rusted and empty and the mines are closed. The once bustling downtowns are boarded up, the sidewalks empty. The money is long gone as are many of the small towns like Power, WV where my father grew up.

Ask anyone from West Virginia and you’ll discover most follow the Mountaineers, especially in football. WVU is a common thread among the people of our state, and we take pride in our Mountaineers and the marching band known as The Pride of West Virginia. And when they play Hail West Virginia as the Mountaineers take the field or court, we’ll often stop to smile and listen.

At least there are some good times…