The Story Behind the Vault
May 16, 2009 11:00 PM | General
(10:29 pm)
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Last fall I was approached to write a book about the history of West Virginia University football. Writing a book about the Mountaineers has always been something that I wanted to do, and after a couple of false starts with other publishers, this opportunity seemed like a Pat White dash to the end zone.
Whitman Publishing in Atlanta had contacted the Collegiate Licensing Company and received tentative approval from the West Virginia University Department of Intercollegiate Athletics to proceed with the project. Once all of the Ts were crossed and the Is were dotted, I was eventually sought out.
Whitman had developed an interesting and successful formula with its College Vault series. It is essentially a book inside a box with a focus on never-before-seen photographs, artifacts, ticket stubs, brochures, programs and memorabilia replicated in its exact form and stuffed inside, hence, the book in a box.
In reality, this is a 117-year scrapbook of Mountaineer football.
My collaborator, Joe Swan, went into West Virginia University's vault and came up with many of the great items that you will find inside this book. For instance, Joe unearthed game programs dating back to as early as 1919 - which incidentally is how it was discovered that Ira Errett Rodgers wore the jersey number 21 that has since been retired by the WVU Athletic Council.
Joe found the team's travel itinerary to the 1922 East-West Bowl - a three-week odyssey by Pullman. A 1929 football team banquet program was reproduced exactly as it was, including the menu of cream of mushroom soup supreme, roast Vermont young turkey and candy yam sweet potatoes.
There are schedule cards, season ticket applications, canceled check stubs for telegraphic coverage, the pre-Pride-of-West-Virginia marching band's halftime routine for the 1954 Sugar Bowl, an invitation to the 1954 Sugar Bowl Party at the St. Charles Hotel Grand Ball Room, a flip card from the 1964 Liberty Bowl game in Atlantic City, Nick Saban's defensive back drills from West Virginia's football camp in 1977, Oliver Luck's Rhodes Scholarship application, a replica of the LP Ole Hoss: The Ballad of West Virginia's Jeff Hostetler, and, yes, Don Nehlen's first West Virginia University contract consisting of just one page!
Not all of the items came from our vault. I asked other avid Mountaineer collectors if they would be willing to dig deep inside their personal vaults to add to our collection. They graciously complied.
Many of the great pictures from the 1950s and 1960s, including two of my personal favorites - Art Lewis offering instruction to the team at Jackson's Mill with Sam Huff hovering over a blocking dummy and Lewis standing in front of the team bus with his hands in his suit pockets - came from Eleanor Lamb.
Several press credentials were provided by Doug Huff. Unfortunately, a worn gold necktie with the inscription Beat the Hell out of Pitt that Huff also loaned us was deemed too provocative by the Whitman folks and didn't make the book.
Greg Hunter was also a key contributor. I asked Greg to search his office for artifacts and memorabilia and he eventually came in with a microwave-sized box full of stuff that he was able to locate. Among the items Coach Hunter dusted off was a 1950s-era Art Lewis board game, ticket stubs from the last game at Old Mountaineer Field and the first game at New Mountaineer Field, and an Iron City beer can with a picture of the Mountaineer on the back.
I am forever grateful to them for their willingness to help out.
Because the items, artifacts and photographs in this book are so interesting, it was my hope to try and provide a narrative just as compelling. Several outstanding Mountaineer football histories have been published in the past but most of those focused primarily on historical records, statistics and game coverage.
Because I didn't want to plod through the same turf, I decided to make this a book of anecdotes. Stats and records were added where necessary, but the focus was on the personal stories that make the history of West Virginia football so rich and interesting. My approach was simple: if I could write something that sparked the interest of the Whitman editors then I figured it would naturally be of interest to all West Virginia football fans.
My wife wisely suggested years ago that I keep the transcriptions of all of the interviews that I have done and most of the direct quotes in this book come from those interviews. I also tapped a pair of walking West Virginia University encyclopedias in Mickey Furfari, the "Dean of West Virginia Sportswriters", and Eddie Barrett - the school's longtime sports information director who had the most fertile run of basketball All-Americans in school history. They were courteous enough to share some of their personal experiences that provide so much additional color to this story.
And then there is Sam Huff and Don Nehlen.
Huff eagerly agreed to write the foreword, a touching tribute to the teachers and coaches that had helped him go from Edna Gas, West Virginia, to the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Nehlen's afterword details the reasons why he came to West Virginia University in 1979 and the reasons why he chose to stay for 21 seasons.
Added all together, it's the West Virginia University Football Vault: The History of the Mountaineers. It is available in bookstores everywhere and can also be ordered online at www.CollegeVaultBooks.com, Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Booksamillion.com and other fine bookstores.
I hope you like it.
Let's Go Mountaineers!
