Basketball Brawl
February 06, 2007 07:16 PM | General
February 7, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – It was a half-hearted but they tried. Sportswriters from Pittsburgh and West Virginia attempted to stir things up and get West Virginia’s John Beilein and Pitt’s Jamie Dixon to say something provocative, to inject some more pizzazz into the 172nd version of basketball’s “Backyard Brawl,” but neither coach took the bait.
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| West Virginia's Joe Fryz gets a gentle push from a Panther player in this 1980 game at the WVU Coliseum in Morgantown.
Sports Communications photo |
On Monday afternoon, Dixon was asked about the two school’s longstanding rivalry.
“In our conference you can’t focus on one game being a rivalry,” he said. “Connecticut is a rivalry and every game seems to be made out to be a rivalry.”
Mickey Furfari, now in his sixth decade of covering West Virginia-Pitt basketball games, took a stab at trying to pin Beilein down into choosing which team he would rather beat: Pitt or UCLA?
“After the season I will tell you what games are important -- I can’t determine that right now,” Beilein said. “I could make a guess on that and it would end up being locker room material for the other team.”
It wasn't always this polite.
Following the euphoria of West Virginia’s 82-77 victory over Pitt before a Coliseum-record crowd of 16,704 in 1982, Mountaineer coach Gale Catlett made reference to Pitt’s team being “mediocre” during his post-game remarks when it was brought up that the Panthers were joining the Big East and the two teams would no longer play twice a year.
Pitt coach Roy Chipman took the Catlett quote from the local newspaper and put it up on the team’s bulletin board for, oh … the next four years.
Back then and even before that when the two teams weren’t members of the Big East conference and making regular trips to Madison Square Garden and the NCAA tournament, the West Virginia-Pitt basketball game was something to circle on your calendar in the wintertime.
Both sides had their characters. In the 1950s and 1960s there was a guy who carried a hatchet with him around Morgantown who later became known as “Chop Em Down.” Not surprisingly, that was his favorite expression when he heckled Pitt players and coaches on their annual trips to the old Field House.
Tiger Paul Auslander was equally iconic. In the 1970s, Auslander fired up Panther fans with his zany courtside antics. It wasn’t out of character for him to show up to a WVU-Pitt game in a tuxedo and do hook slides down the aisles to get Pitt supporters revved up.
Ask any Pitt fan and he will tell you the team he most likes to beat is Penn State, and the team he most hates to lose to is West Virginia. In the eyes of the Panthers, Mountaineer fans seem to have a way of ratcheting up their post-game celebrations another notch or two. And West Virginia-Pitt basketball games were never really over until the Fat Lady had her lights punched out.
The late Chipman was an all-time favorite of West Virginia fans. The coach had a prominent gap between his front teeth and a speck of white hair that made it easy for Mountaineer hecklers to call him “Chipmunk.”
No one who tuned into local TV will ever forget Chipman chasing referee Jack Prettyman off the floor after Prettyman’s lane violation call helped West Virginia to 48-45 victory in Pittsburgh in 1982.
Taking the drama to another level was the fact that Prettyman lived in Moundsville, W.Va.
Back then Fitzgerald Field House refs were known to say “our ball” and stand at attention when the Panther fight song was played. In Morgantown, it wasn’t uncommon for the same kind of treatment. “Hey,” a ref once whispered to a WVU assistant coach, “I got your guys to the foul line. What do you want me to do -- make them too?”
Before the networks took an interest in the big game television coverage was also fair and equitable. Both schools would strong-arm a sponsor like Daily’s Fruit Juice to pony up a few bucks to put the games on in Pittsburgh, Morgantown, Wheeling, Steubenville, Ohio, and even far away places like Youngstown and Johnstown – the major media markets.
Panther voice Bill Hillgrove was recruited to do the play-by-play, West Virginia’s Jay Jacobs was brought in to provide the analysis and Pittsburgh television personality John Steigerwald was added to keep his eye out for any fights that might break out in the stands.
It was a fair 2-for-1 arrangement which, incidentally, is how the Pitt football team wound up winning so many more games than the Mountaineers over the years.
Dixon and Beilein are undoubtedly well indoctrinated in the history of the Backyard Brawl, but their roots are far removed from it: Beilein a native of upstate New York and Dixon a former Sherman Oaks, Calif., resident.
When Dixon was growing up in Southern California in the 1970s the biggest rivalry there was The Brady Bunch vs. The Partridge Family. And the handful of times USC ever managed to beat UCLA in basketball, the kids just picked up their surfboards and took out their frustrations on a couple of waves.
We shoveled snow.
Wednesday’s game isn’t the end-all it once was. Both teams import most of their players from outside the immediate area now and with a month left in the regular season, Pitt has already punched its ticket to the Big Dance; West Virginia is making a move in the same direction. Today there is a lot more for area basketball fans to look forward to in March than just spring football.
But those West Virginia-Pitt Backyard Brawls thirty-some years ago were sure fun to watch. The games were sometimes good, too.
